On Planks and Specks

“How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” –  Matthew 7: 4-5

I have back-of-eye issues, in my right eye in particular but the signs of such issues in my other eye. My problem is something called an epiretinal membrane – some sort of viscous film over my retina, which causes a strange bowing of lines when I read – and when I look at something that is supposed to be straight. Looking at my piano keyboard is sometimes shocking now because it seems to dip. I sometimes think I walked into a spider web because a floater at the outside edge of my eye makes me think a spider is coming down on my cheek. All an optical illusion, and obviously I don’t like it one bit.

I have been getting medical attention for this, or rather periodic visits to a retina specialist to monitor whether or not this is getting worse. I hear that for a number of folks, epiretinal membranes are a part of the aging process, but most of them come off.

My retina specialist has told me that he isn’t in a hurry to call in the surgeon to cut into the back of my eye, and that if I can live with this issue, then all the better. That is, if it stays the way it is. I go back in October. The spider web floater is a new issue.

I am also a judgmental bastard.

The older I get, the more I have noticed this – and I have in fact been called out about this by a select few friends and loved ones. I don’t like it.

I know that I am in no position to judge anybody. It’s almost comical, given everything I have done and haven’t done – the choices I have made and the consequences of those choices. But yet I judge. It’s almost a hobby.

Let’s play around for a minute. Let’s get woo-woo.

Is there some way that my eye issues have something to do with my proclivity to judge? Is the universe, God or the divine sending me a real-world message about this?

Wouldn’t it be wild – and welcome – if my eye issues resolved themselves if I changed my outlook and humbled myself? Maybe the “scales” would come off if I lived in such a way that radiated humility, grace and truth.

Patience. Understanding. Compassion. Empathy.

Worth a try. Even if the eye stays the same, I will have made strides.

• Compassion
• Empathy
• Epiretinal membrane
• Humility
• Judgmental
• Personal Development
• Retina