Seeing Double

DOUBLE VISION AND EYE SURGERY #1

This past August I went for a walk and noticed that my vision seemed fuzzy. In the days that followed, I started seeing two images, one on top of the other. I was fortunate to be able to see a physician who specialized in what is called “vertical diplopia.” The doctor said he could correct the problem surgically…but that I would have to be awake during the operation. OUCH!!!

Before the surgery that followed in October, I had to block one eye to be able to read or drive. I tried different things and looked at different times like a one eyed Lone Ranger or some kind of a pirate. Sometimes I scared Sharon and sometimes when I looked in the mirror I scared myself.

During the surgery, they numbed my eye, but the numbing didn’t take effect…so they had to numb it again…and again…and again. Each time I could feel what they were doing…clamping my eye…cutting some muscles…adjusting the eye…and stitching up the muscles again. Fortunately when I would groan, they would stop, administer more numbing medicine, then start again, stop again, and start again, until the medicine finally took effect. My body was so stiff at one point that I had to be reminded to breath. I am actually writing this from heaven (just kidding).

Once they completed the procedure and adjusted my eye, they had me sit up and look at a chart to determine if I was still seeing double. I was, so they lowered me down and adjusted it again. After the third time, it seemed like they got it right and sent me to the recovery room. The next day, the double vision was back.

SURGERY #2: FROM THE LONE RANGER TO LONG JOHN SILVER TO STAR WARS

In the months that followed, before a scheduled second surgery, I was able to compensate by putting a piece of scotch tape over one of the lenses of my glasses (reading and sunglasses) so I could drive and read without seeing two images. This past week, after almost a year of continuing to seeing double, I had a second surgery.

The procedure was similar, it took a few tries to numb my eye and a few tries to get my vision just right. The good news is that I am not seeing double and am hopeful it will stay that way.

When I returned home I had a new eye covering (temporary). When my grandsons saw me they thought I was a character out of Star Wars. I sent the photo to our children and got some funny comments as follows (my comments on the right side):

FILTERING OUT WOKENESS

I am happy to be able to see with both eyes and have single vision again thanks to a great surgeon and his staff. I am even more thankful to have the single vision that comes from God and His revelation in the Bible. Many in our culture today see only with one eye; they only see the material and physical universe through the lens of the five senses. Sadly, they are blind to the spiritual reality revealed in Scripture. The result is that there is no depth perception so the culture jerks us one way, then another way. Most recently it is driven by “wokeness” and identity politics.

I jokingly told our children that the Star Wars looking patch to protect my eye after my second surgery was to filter out wokeness. That’s what the Gospel does. It filters out false ideologies and allows you to see spiritual reality. That’s what we are doing in our Divine Expedition training with Global Training Network. That’s what we are doing in the Bible study I lead called the NO BS BS.

Most recently we have been examining “20th Century Corrosive Acids of Modernity”—people like Sigmund Freud, Margaret Sanger and many others, and ideologies like Existentialism, Critical Race Theory, Postmodernism and more. We are filtering out the cultural wokeness swirling around us. We are also looking at what we call “20th Century Antidotes to Acids of Modernity”—people like Billy Graham, Francis Schaefer, Henrietta Mears, C.S. Lewis, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and others who impacted the 20th and 21st century as they proclaimed Christ and His offer for all who are weary to come to Him.