The Grand Astigmatism

I play poker with a group of guys I’ve known since my teens. When I joined the group ten years ago, one of the fellows named David seemed kind of slow; he kept having to ask what cards were on the table. Turns out, he just had vision issues — in particular, cataracts. Those chronic problems gradually worsened to the point David could no longer even read his own cards.

David’s situation was depressing…until it wasn’t. Two weeks ago, David showed up at the game having had lens replacement surgery on both eyes. He was a totally new human being, no longer depressed and glum but vibrant and elated at his ability to once again read the cards and behold the faces of old friends.

I once knew another guy with similar vision issues. He desperately desired to see clearly what life was about, and he sought every available remedy to clear up his distorted vision.

Science provided him with a powerful set of reading glasses that revealed the minute details of “how” but lacked clarity in the bigger view of “why”. Contemporary Western religion promised insight but catered to specific crowds who envisioned God in their own image, bringing on the tunnel vision of spiritual Glaucoma. The American Dream of Capitalism, with its luxury homes, expensive toys and lavish vacations evolved into the distracting floaters that continually interrupted his vision and distracted him from any clear path forward.

Disillusioned with all he’d experienced, my friend turned to philosophy but in the end, the classic stoics, the contemporary cynics, the Humanists and the Mystics all endorsed the same nearsighted ego-centric concepts that had blurred religion. Psychotherapy offered the promise of clear-eyed self-evaluation but all it actually provided was a more sophisticated means of manipulating those around him.

In desperation, my friend grasped the false hope of politics with its promises of like-mindedness and progress. But what was once considered the art of compromise had become the art of evisceration. Civil debate had given way to cancel culture and social severance.

Perhaps you too are depressed when you look around at a broken world and see mass shooters or the abhorrent genocide and torture of the Middle East. The scary part is that the people committing those grizzly acts genuinely believe they’re on the right side of history. And the even scarier part is that, on closer inspection, those morally blind lunatics are not all that different from you and me.

But (And thankfully, there’s a really big “but”)
Two thousand years ago, into that darkness and desperation appeared a star over the backwater town of Bethlehem. It heralded the arrival of the great surgeon — He who ignited the Big Bang and sang the stars into their orbits…He who conceived the complex laws of nature which distilled this tiny blue planet to the razor’s edge of perfection that it might sustain your life and mine…He who heals the blind and gives hope to the hopeless…He who stepped into His own broken creation and said, “I will fix this.”

That free gift of a clear perspective is waiting beneath the tree my friend, and it’s yours for the opening any time you’re ready.

Merry Christmas!