HEELCATCHER

I had Lasik surgery a little over a week ago. It was something that I had thought about but something, to be honest, that I never thought that I would actually do. Here were some of the things that were working against it:

1. I hate going to doctors (nothing personal).
2. I don't like the word "surgery."
3. I don't mind wearing glasses. I have worn them most of my life.
4. I hate the thought of someone operating on my eyeballs. How can you close your eyes during that?!
5. I am cheap and don't like spending money. 

So how did I ever decide to do it? Well, the time had come for bifocals and I simply had to revisit my options. My wife had Lasik done three years ago and has loved it. I had money available in a health savings account (an account I will probably lose due to an Obamacare insurance cancellation…but that's another story). And I was tired of not being able to see when I swim or take off my glasses (I can't see that big ol' E on the eye chart). So I took the plunge and had an initial evaluation.

The evaluation was pleasant and answered most of my questions…though I wasn't thrilled about the rare (but still possible) complications. I am a worst case scenario kind of person so I simply had to move past that. I received a sheet of possible surgery dates and identified one that would work well with my schedule. I tentatively scheduled a surgery time on that day and that got the ball rolling. Once it started rolling, I just didn't have enough of a legitimate reason to stop it. 

I researched as much as I could on Lasik. Yes, Dr. Oz isn't too wild about it but everyone else seemed to give it glowing reviews, particularly those I knew who had had it done. I also talked to an eye doctor friend of mine in NJ (forgive me for my doctor comment above) and he reassured me about all the things that I was concerned about.

Once I got past that obstacle, I started reading up on the surgery itself. I wanted to know what was going to happen during the procedure. This was where things started getting dicey.

I asked my wife what the surgery was like for her. She said they gave her a valium and she didn't remember a thing about it. Wow, I figured that valium must be a pretty effective relaxant and that it would help me deal with the fact that a giant machine was approaching my eye ball to slice it open.

No worries.

The day of my surgery arrived and I was fairly nervous…but not so bad as to want to run away screaming down the road. I went to the surgery center and checked in. They gave me that magical valium pill and I sat back waiting to enter a world of plush meadows, fluttering butterflies, and sweet music before my eye ball was gently fileted and delicately corrected with dancing beams of light.

About an hour later, they began the pre-surgery tests and preparation. I felt a little loopy but I wasn't seeing any butterflies yet…though I still felt a few in my stomach. Finally I entered the laser room.

The moment had arrived.

I laid down on a padded table and they proceeded to pack some cushions around my head to keep it steady. They gave me a stuffed skunk to hold against my chest during the surgery. Not sure of the significance of the skunk but I graciously took it since my dream of being in the plush meadows had not materialized yet. 

My right eye was taped open and a cup was put over it. A little suction was applied to pull my eye upward. Then before I could contemplate the thought of my eyeball popping out of my skull, I was slid under a machine and a round metal contraption started descending toward my eye. Everything went black…and I felt nothing but some pressure…but I knew that my eye was being sliced by a laser. But, again, before I could contemplate that too much, I was immediately rotated under another machine in which a yellow laser light started making clicking noises. This lasted for about 20 seconds and then the doctor took some kind of instrument and folded the flap of my eye back over and started smoothing it out. I felt like I had my eye pressed against a window while someone proceeded to clean the outside of it. It was a weird feeling. I knew he was working on my eye but it seemed like I was watching it from far away since I didn't physically feel anything. 

The right eye was done. Now it was time for the left eye. I knew the drill…which made it worse because now I had some time to think about it. I bent one of my legs to get more comfortable…or maybe just to squirm a little bit…and they quickly told me to put my leg down and relax. I squeezed that little skunk like an old teddy bear as they repeated the process.

Tape. Suction. Slice. Light. Flap. Done. 

I got up and moved into another dim lit room. I could see well enough to text my wife and let her know that the procedure was done. While I waited for the doctor, I watched as the next patient entered the laser room. Her tatooed, muscular husband was with her. The doctor invited him in but instead he stayed out in the hallway, peeking in every once awhile and then turning back and saying, "Oh, my God!" He looked like he was going to pass out and told me that he could never have that done to him. I felt a little better about my moment of cradling a stuffed skunk for security.

The doctor came in and briefly examined me. 

"The right eye looks good. The left eye has a slight abrasion. That may take a little longer to heal. Use your drops and come back tomorrow for your follow-up."

Before I could process the thought of an "abrasion," he was gone. I got up and walked through a green meadow with butterflies back into the waiting room. 

I went home, took a sleeping pill, and went to sleep. 

About four hours later, I woke up in extreme discomfort…dare, I say pain. My eyes felt like they were on fire and my left eye particularly hurt. I took another sleeping pill and a few Advils and thankfully went back to sleep after about thirty minutes. 

I woke up the next morning and the pain was still there. I didn't want to open my eyes. Every time I did, they watered incessantly. It felt like a grain of sand was in both eyes and I wanted so badly to rub them but knew I could not. That's the one big no-no that they stressed over and over.  I had envisioned getting up the next morning and resuming normal life with clearer vision but that clearly wasn't happening. As the day progressed, I realized that the only thing that felt good was laying down with my eyes closed. So that's what I did most of the day. 

At my follow-up appointment that day, I could barely open my eyes to read the eye charts. Nothing was clear. Everything was blurry. My eyes were ultra-sensitive to light…and super-irritated. Another doctor came in and numbed my eyes to remove the protective contacts placed there after surgery. He mentioned the abrasion on my left eye and noted that a piece of eye tissue was sticking out from it. That didn't sound too good…or too fun to remove. He asked me to blink vigorously to see if that would remove it…otherwise, he would use an instrument to pull it out. I blinked vigorously. And thankfully dislodged it.

I asked about the abrasion. "How do you get an abrasion from laser surgery?" 

He hemmed and hawed a little bit and then finally said, "Well, the doctor may have had a little too much coffee and just slightly nicked you with one of the instruments during the surgery. It is not too hard to do." 

Oh, so the "abrasion" was more like a "nick" which was more like a "caffeine-induced mistake" which was causing my eye considerable pain. 

He gave me a presciption for pain medication in case the pain got worse after the numbing drops wore off. Thankfully when I got home, I went back to sleep. By the time I woke up, the pain had subsided substantially. My eyes were still irritated but not on fire. 

The next day was better…and the day after that a little better. 

Now ten days after surgery, I would say that my far vision is excellent. Still blurry at times but particularly clear in the daylight. In fact, my second follow up appointment indicated that I had 20/20 vision. 

But to my surprise, my near vision has gotten much worse.

Now going into this thing, they had informed me that I would need reading glasses. Unless I did a monovision correction (one eye corrected for far vision and the other for near vision), then Lasik wouldn't change my presbyopia. Of course, I didn't think that was a big deal since I grew up Presbyterian. Just kidding… Presbyopia literally means "old man eye" and that is what I have now that I am in my mid-40s.

Ahh, the joys of getting older. 

So since the surgery, it has been reading glasses for me. Thankfully you can buy a pair at Walmart for under $6…or apparently at the dollar store for…well, a dollar. I am still hoping that my near vision improves more but, if not, then I will probably invest in a nice pair of reading bifocals that are clear on top and readers on the bottom so that I don't have to keep pulling my glasses off and on or perch them on the end of my nose like my old librarian in middle school. I don't want to look that old yet. 

So here is what I have learned so far…

1. Getting older is a reality that is sometimes hard to face. My mind still feels 20 but my body is reminding me otherwise. 

2. Seeing is a precious gift. My biggest fear going through all of this was the thought of losing my sight. It is something that we take for granted…unless we lose it…or are around someone who has lost it. I know God sustains us whatever our circumstances are but I am thankful today for the gift of sight.  

3. I was reminded of the verse in 1 Corinthians 13:12 in which Paul says that, in this life, we see "in a mirror dimly." In other words, we do not have full knowledge. Our perspective is limited. Our understanding is blurry. Spiritually, no one sees 20/20 in this life. We all have blind spots, astigmatism, myopia, hyperopia, presbyopia. This should humble us, make us open to God's corrective lenses (Scripture), and give us a longing for the day when we see Him face to face. The day when our eyes are fully opened. The day when clarity replaces confusion. The day that we fully know as we have been fully known.

Lasik is only a small picture of how the light of Christ's glory will one day instantly correct our vision, dispel our darkness, and give us true sight. Life may be blurry now. But one day, both near and far, will be perfectly clear.

And that gives me hope…and peace…and security in this world…

Even when I still have to squeeze a stuffed skunk. 

We live in narratives. We construct narratives. We interpret life through narratives. 

That thought struck me as I reflected again on the Trayvon Martin tragedy. The truth of what actually happened on that day (Feb 26, 2012) may never be fully known. One thing that is clear is that it was a tragedy. A 17-year old boy lost his life based on a confrontation that from all appearances could have…and should have…been avoided. 

But from the first day of Martin's death, many media outlets tried to fit the event into an overall narrative–a white man shot an unarmed black youth out of racial profiling and racial hatred. This narrative governed how many media outlets covered the event. And whenever evidence emerged that contradicted the narrative, it was either ignored or interpreted differently. The most glaring example of this was NBC's editing of George Zimmerman's 911 call to purposefully make his words appear racially charged. The initial pictures of Martin and Zimmerman on most major newscasts also clearly presented Zimmerman as a big thug and Martin as a small smiling pre-teen even though at the time of the shooting Zimmerman was 5'9" and 170 lbs. and Martin was 6'1" and 150 lbs. 

As a USA Today article (July 14, 2013) noted, "Some of the media's major mistakes stemmed from stories that fit neatly into that widely accepted narrative."

Of course, on the other side of the aisle, a few conservative news outlets and various online postings did all they could to defend Zimmerman and present the most unfavorable picture of Martin as possible, highlighting a recent suspension he had from school and finding as many unpleasant photos of Martin (including some not of Martin) they could find. 

I confess…I tended toward the more conservative news outlets and couldn't understand why some people seemed completely unable to separate this tragedy from a larger racial narrative.

But then I began to put myself into a different scenario.

Suppose I was a Christian in a Muslim-dominated country and an unarmed Christian teen was shot by a Muslim young adult in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood. As a Christian, I would almost immediately place that incident into a larger narrative of Muslim oppression and hatred for Christians. And despite the evidence that would emerge, I would still have a hard time processing the story any differently. In fact, I would probably look at any re-interpretation of the events as further Muslim opppression.

My narrative would dictate my perspective. 

Isn't that what happens with most major stories? We come to the story with our own story, our own narrative. And we often go to the news outlets that we already know will reinforce our narrative. For instance, if Obama makes any political decision, we can almost assume that liberal news outlets will put a positive spin on it and conservative ones will put a negative spin on it. And even if the decision is somewhat conservative in nature, many conservatives will still find some hidden agenda to make it even more insiduously liberal. 

Our narratives dictate our perspectives.

And the current glut of media information and instant accessibility to every possible viewpoint means that we can always find information to fit our own preferred narrative. Thus our own narrative is reinforced and the divide between me and anyone who disagrees with me is widened.

Welcome to the present-day USA.

So what does all this mean? Since we all see things from our own narrative should we give up on all narratives? That is the post-modern solution. No one is truly objective. All is subjective. So just construct your own narrative, accept everyone else's narrative as equally valid, and get used to ambiguity. 

As Nietzsche once said: "There are many kinds of eyes. Even the sphinx has eyes – and consequently there are many kinds of 'truths,' and consequently there is no truth."

Sounds good on the surface but the postmodern narrative is its own narrative. So who is to say that it is right? 

Going back to the Trayvon Martin tragedy, something did happen on February 26, 2012. There is a reality. We may never personally know the true story but there is a true story. There is a real narrative. The challenge is resisting the tendency to try to fit the real narrative into our own preconceived narrative. Instead we have to submit our narrative to the larger one, the real one.

How can we do this? How can we ever know what the real narrative is?

We can't know unless the one who knows the real narrative accurately tells us. If Martin were still alive, and both he and Zimmerman were honestly objective, then they could tell us the true story. We could know what happened on that day, what thoughts went through their heads, their reactions, their choices, their mistakes, their actions. And if we humbly and openly listened, then we could know the truth.

Projecting that out to the larger narrative of reality, we can know the Truth only if the One who objectively sees and knows all things reveals the Story to us. And if there is such a One, and He reveals the Story, then we could know the Truth if we listened humbly and openly…and if we were willing to submit our smaller, personal narrative to this larger, real One.

We live in narratives. We construct narratives. We interpret life through narratives. 

And we either stay in our smaller stories or we find our place in a larger Story. We either construct our own reality or we submit to a larger Reality and let it reconstruct us. We either interpret life through our own narrative or we let a larger Narrative interpret life for us.

Yes, this is the intersection of faith, reason, and revelation. 

There is a God. There is a Reality. There is a Story. 

And through faith, I have placed my narrative in His. 

Shirley Temple died last week. Though I have never seen a Shirley Temple movie…and have never even had a Shirley Temple drink…I felt strangely sad when I heard the news. To me, Shirley Temple represented a different era in America…an era in which TV and movies presented the best of America. The ideal. Child stars were cute, respectful, hopeful. There was no pressure to be more. It was okay to simply be "good." 

Today the scene is different. "Good" is seen as unrealistic, too good to be true. The "child star" who makes it today soon finds out that to keep the spotlight they have to be sexier, more risque, more rebellious, more cool. Shirley Temple has been replaced by Miley Cyrus.

I know that's an overgeneralization but there is a ring of reality to it. We no longer promote and hold up the ideal; we expect and present the dysfunctional. The Leave It to Beaver family is ridiculed as a relic of the past. Fake. Unbelievable. Even hypocritical. What kind of family was really like that? Dad wearing suits at home. Mom cooking dinner in a dress. Beaver making innocent gaffes. We want to see the dysfunction today. The extreme. The strange. The Modern Family. Non-traditional. Streetwise kids. Clueless parent(s). Loose morals. Heavy duty problems. 

It's a different world. We're a different nation. And TV loves to show this.

So why portray the "Beaver family" when families have so many problems? Why promote a "Shirley Temple" image when the world is so much darker and dysfunctional?

I thought about that in relation to the Olympics. 

When I watch the athletes in the Olympics, I am amazed. The strength. The grace. The skill. I realize that I could never do the things I see (except maybe curling). The training needed is extensive. The dedication is total. The athleticism is rare. I can barely snowplow much less slalom down a hill at break neck speed…or jump a football field in the air…or land a triple salchow on ice…or do a 1080 corkscrew spin on a snowboard. 

But I love to see the ideal. I want to celebrate excellence. 

Even though I could never reach the level of an Olympian, they inspire me to strive a little further, to dedicate myself more, to exercise more, to dream more. I see the level that a person can reach and it convicts me, humbles me, motivates me, pushes me. 

Imagine ostracizing, criticizing, and marginalizing exceptional athletes because they are too far beyond us. They are too good to be true. They make us feel guilty. They are not "normal." 

Imagine gathering people from all over the world for a display of athletic mediocrity or dysfunctionality. The inexperienced ski jump (or who can break the most bones falling off the ski ramp). Most falls around an ice rink. Most pathetic snowplow down a hill (I got a chance in that one). It might be like a bad episode of WipeOut. Fun to watch for the embarrassment of the contestants. But nothing to celebrate. Nothing to gather people in stadiums to watch. Nothing to give out medals for. Nothing to inspire national pride. Nothing to make us better. 

It is sad that we still expect excellence in athletics but not in life. We celebrate the ideal physically but not morally. We admire dedication and personal sacrifice for a gold medal but not for the beauty of sexual purity…or the preservation of a marriage…or the stability of a family…or the virtue of a nation.

The Bible indicates that what we meditate on will eventually change us, shape us, define us. 

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable,whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is any praise—dwell on these things (Philippians 4:8).

When our entertainment is vulgar and sexualized, it is no surprise that our culture is too. 

So with the passing of Shirley Temple, it feels like we have lost something precious as a nation.

Not a gold medal…not an iconic "child star"…not even the innocence of a prior generation.

It feels like we have lost our common sense.

It feels like we have lost our soul.