Yesterday I made a pilgrimage to see one of my teachers, Dr. Reuben Rivera. He’s my optometrist, but he’s much more than that. Over the past 20 years, he has not only helped me keep my vision clear and my eyes healthy, he has acquainted me with the wonders through which I see the world. I always leave his office in a state of amazement, murmuring to myself the words of the ancient prayer for the body:
Blessed are You, Eternal our God, Ruler of the time and space, Who formed human beings with wisdom and created within us openings within openings and hollows within hollows. It is well known before Your Throne of Glory that if even one of them ruptures, or if even one of them becomes blocked, it would become impossible to survive and to stand before You. Blessed are You, Eternal One, Who heals all flesh and acts wondrously.
You see, I’ll be 60 in March. I’m aging. Dr. Rivera always reminds me how wonderfully our bodies age and compensate and heal. I was hit in the eye with a stick when I was about 14. The scar’s still there, on my cornea, but the eye healed and sees just fine. I am very, very nearsighted, and now that I’m older, there are issues that go with that, but my eyes are aging with grace, plastering over the thinning places with pigment, keeping clear my window on the world. My retinas are hanging tight. My astigmatism seems to be rotating, which makes no sense to me at all, but darn, it’s a wonder!
When Dr. Rivera looks into my dilated eye, he cannot see my soul, but he can see what’s happening inside my body: how are all those fine veins and capillaries doing? How’s the blood pressure, the blood sugar, the cholesterol? What news is there from the openings within openings, the hollows within hollows? He reads all that, and he tells me about it, tells me enough that I can marvel with him at the beauty of it.
Our bodies are miracles. We lose track of that sometimes, when we worry about Hollywood standards of beauty and even more so when we confuse those standards with health. Nothing is more wonderful, more beautiful, than the simple fact that we survive.
This is the reason that I don’t worry about a conflict between science and religion. Science at its best helps us appreciate the miracles of everyday existence. Religion at its best is the response to those miracles.
May your day be full of miracles, and your eyes full of wonder.
beautifully said and the perfect reality check for my day 🙂
Your post reminds me of the start of a prayer I have always liked: Days pass and years go by and we walk sightless among miracles. And I also have the good fortune of a great optometrist. He and my wonderful eye surgeon have saved my eyesight three times and along the way, they have shown me what they see. Miraculous.
Yes! That prayer is a favorite of mine, too! I am so glad you still have your sight!