The Eyes have it

Like many ground-floor flat-dwellers, I have net curtains at my windows for privacy.   However, the lady who has just moved in nearby has none, and I find I make a conscious effort when passing her window to look the other way lest I inadvertently invade her privacy.  This caused me to ponder the other day about meeting people in the street.

What happens when you meet a stranger as you walk along?  Do you offer a smile?  Do you even catch their eye?  More often than not, both sets of eyes stare steadfastly forward, or focus on the ground or the shop window . . . anything to avoid meeting the other's gaze.  Although many people these days are lonely, seeking fellowship or companionship, at the same time there is a real fear that any sign of friendship might be misconstrued as recognition; relationships can so easily get out of hand. 

It is said that the eye is the window of the soul; perhaps people don't want those particular windows open for others to look in.  While there are many legal, social, cultural or religious reasons why people adopt this distance between one another, I’d like to focus today on just one possibility: guilt.  If we aren’t sure that our friend is being totally honest with us about something, we might challenge him (or her), “Look me in the eye and say that!”

One of the most common causes of guilt in the modern world is sex, and one of the less pleasant aspects of this is pornography.  It’s said to be the biggest single use of the internet; it’s so easy, personal and confidential, isn’t it?  Just a few clicks and one exciting picture leads to another.  Jesus said that to look lustfully at a woman is to commit adultery with her (Matt. 5:28).  The same lustful passions are aroused by viewing pornography as by looking at a live woman, and are just as invasive of the limits of what rightfully belongs between husband and wife.  Whatever the cause, we may be aware of our guilt, and the way it can prevent us being truly open either with our friends or people generally.  But what can we do about it?  Visual temptation is part of daily life.

Jesus also said, “If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into fiery hell.” (Matt. 18:9).  While some argue that this was exaggeration for effect, St Paul took a more practical approach, when he told the Corinthians to “Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.” (1 Cor. 6:18).

So the best advice is to avoid looking at whatever we might recognise as an opening for sin, whether in real life or a picture.  If we happen to glimpse something of this nature, look away; don’t give it a second glance: certainly don’t stare goggle-eyed at it, inviting the seed of sin to grow in our hearts.

If we can master our own eyes, we might find it possible to look someone else in the eye . . . and who knows what good could result?

Change and Decay

It seems that concern has increased in recent years about care for the environment, the erosion of the ozone layer, global warming, the search for alternatives to fossil fuel, and so on.  We have a Green Party MP; there will soon be legislation to charge for plastic carrier bags; our local councils are competing for the best recycling ratios for domestic waste – the list is endless. Gradually we have come to see that these matters are important, and we feel part of a worldwide anxiety, a fear that our God-given earth may be wearing out.

But let me throw an element of attrition into the debate – some grit into the oyster, if you will.  Consider for a moment the ageing process as it relates to human life.  A seventy-five- or eighty-year-old cannot fulfil the same physical ambitions of a youth just out of high school; it would be unreasonable for him to expect to do so.  By that time of life, many people are considering the implications of downsizing, and perhaps even moving to sheltered accommodation.  Compared to the comfortable 3- or 4-bedroomed house, the family home of his middle age, a small flat will naturally accommodate fewer personal possessions.  Something will have to go: usually quite a lot gets pruned!  However reluctantly, we regard this as an inevitable progression of lifestyles.

Lets return to the thorny question of global decay.   What has prompted the concern that is being expressed today?  Some, certainly, is founded in a worthy desire to preserve threatened species, and specific constructions or ways of life that face extinction or obliteration.  But isn’t the primary cause simply fear of such a phenomenal degree of change?  The effects that might be brought about by even a small rise in global sea levels represent change of such a magnitude that is virtually incomprehensible.  How can mankind survive in the face of it? 

Almost a century ago, in the midst of war, the outlook of many embroiled in the fighting must have seemed very bleak.  Yet, enormous though the casualties were, far more survived than were killed. 

Faced with the statistics presented to us in the media, we fear the sheer uncertainty of life itself under such different circumstances.  But, doesn’t our pensioner feel something of the same foreboding about that small flat?  And yet, for the majority at least, a reasonable quality of life continues after the removal has taken place; their basic needs are met, albeit in a different way from before.  Cannot we trust God to provide for our absolute necessities, whatever the nature of our surroundings?  

In 1847 Henry Francis Lyte wrote a hymn that is possibly one of the best-known; a hymn that is still sung annually at the FA Cup Final.  Perhaps he expressed a deeper truth than we normally realise when, in his final illness, he penned the words, “Change and decay in all around I see: O thou who changest not, abide with me.”

Holidays too!

The recession has possibly hit holidays more than other aspects of life.  Destinations have to be curtailed, with Thailand becoming the Algarve, anywhere abroad giving way to a week on the Cornish Riviera, or perhaps you have to be content with a weekend in Skegness.  Wherever you go, one thing that is common to all holidays is luggage.

What’s a holiday for, anyway?  For some it’s a chance for adventure, attempting a hitherto unattained achievement; maybe it simply provides a change, and a rest from the routines that fill the remainder of the year.  Only the saddest suitcase fetish would see a holiday as an opportunity to take his rucksack for a ride . . . but even for him, a holiday will require luggage.

For many people a holiday will provide release from a tight timeframe.  There will be more time, so that things can be ‘done properly’, which reminds me . . . are you one of those people who get a few miles down the road and worry about what has been left out of their packing?  One thing I always try to remember is a good book, and then I can indulge myself, using some of that extra time to do some serious reading.

I recently acquired a copy of a new book, ‘Forgetful Heart’ by Lucy Mills.  I found that at the end of each chapter comes a selection of ideas or questions for meditation, and the invitation to employ a notebook or journal to record these, enabling the reader to link such thoughts to one another.  It’s a feature that is common to many publications, and I wondered how often such ideas or suggestions are ignored, for example when we come across them in our Bible notes.  It’s easy to think that they are there ‘for other people’, or ‘for people who have time for that sort of thing’.  I confess that, in defiance of James’s exhortation “be doers of the word and not hearers [or readers] only” (James 1:22), this is often my reaction.  However, I repeat, a holiday offers more time . . . so we can do things properly!

Is that thing that you’ve forgotten not something missing from the suitcase, but an arrangement for a friend to water your pot-plants?  If so, you could come home to find them flagging and drooping, or worse: dead!  I hope you remember to take your Bible and those regular Bible-reading notes with you on holiday.  Our faith is in need of constant nourishment, just like those pot-plants that we water regularly when we’re at home; but unless we make provision for this spiritual nourishment to continue when we’re away, our faith can meet the same fate as the plants.

Finally, while we’re thinking of both plants and the rich soil of our hearts, just look at the parable of the soil (often called the parable of the sower), where the final verse carries a real gem.  “... He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”  (Matt. 13:23b).  If our faith is going to produce a crop, it’s no use letting it flag and wither . . . holiday or not!