Food for the eyes

Monday, August 28, 2017

While on vacation last week, I watched news programs on television. (We do not have televisions in the monastery.) For the most part, the news was distressing, but what bothered me even more was the constant barrage of commercials with their flashing images, computer-generated bursts of “creativity,” and also the fantabulous lies, distortions, attempts to manipulate, temptations to greed and covetousness—especially to the gullible, and most especially, the car ads. They’re the worst of all, in my humble opinion.

So many people are assaulted by this barrage on a regular basis, sometimes for hours at a time, day after day and night after night. What does it do to them, I wondered. I remember Cardinal Sarah writing about the deleterious effect noise for the ears and noise for the eyes affects the soul. I recall what Jesus taught:

The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (Matthew 6:22-23)

My readings and thoughts tend to connect with one another. This morning I read these lines in Steve Taylor’s book of meditations (“The Calm Center: reflections and meditations for spiritual awakening”:

It takes courage to face up to reality---

it’s so easy to live in avoidance

to lose yourself in a haze of diversion

in a lukewarm glow of entertainment

or a stream of never-ending activity

making sure you’re always so immersed and occupied

that there’s no time to wonder who you are. (p. 51)

I was back home on Sunday. Sunday night we celebrated Vespers with Eucharistic Benediction. I usually close my eyes during Benediction, but last night I kept them open, and I gazed upon the quiet beauty displayed before me: the altar, the candles, the Eucharist in a monstrance on the altar, the special vestments, the sight of the incense rising above it all. And it occurred to me that maybe by letting my eyes gaze upon this peaceful, gorgeous scene, they might be healed from all the toxic images that infected them while I was watching television commercials.

God bless you!