By Bill Harley
While I was still struggling with my glaucoma pressures, my double-vision problem described in my previous blog was behind me; and I had relatively smooth sailing for a few months. I continued to reflect on the “Close one eye and open the other” experiences I had been through and recognized that the themes of the Watchman Parable, which played such a large part in Jean’s and my first book, had been at work again in my life.
That parable tells the story of a lover who has become separated from his beloved and has been unsuccessfully seeking her for years. He comes to a point where he can no longer bear her absence and goes on a quest to relieve his suffering. During his quest, he is obstructed and chased by “watchmen”—people who seem intent on harming him and driving him off course. Ultimately, the lover is cornered by the watchmen and, to escape them, he climbs a high wall with great difficulty and, giving up his life, throws himself into the darkness on the other side. He lands in a garden; and there he unexpectedly finds his beloved searching for a ring she had lost.
The lover immediately realizes that, rather than obstructing him, the watchmen forces have actually guided him to his beloved; and that these guiding forces have been sent by God for his own growth and development. He concludes that forces of both obstruction and support can be veiled guidance from the Creator and that he must learn from these forces rather than resist them.
As my last blog indicates, I had been seeking the “beloved” of better vision, but experienced “watchman” forces that decreased my vision and made it look like there was no remedy for my dilemma. I had to scale a difficult spiritual wall of increasingly closing one eye to worldly concerns and opening my other eye to spiritual concerns. After I had done that, the double-vision was eliminated and I discovered the “beloved” of consolidated vision.
As the weeks passed and I became accustomed to better vision, I started to get a common question from Jean, daughters, grandchildren, friends and business associates: “Why are your eyes so red?” When I next went in to see my regular eye doctor, I called his attention to the redness in my eyes and, without showing much concern, he suggested that my eyes were dry and I should start using moisturizing drops. I did so over the next few months, it seemed to help somewhat, but I still kept getting that same question about the redness in my eyes from numerous people.
When I went in for my annual physical with my primary care physician several months later, we had no sooner sat down together than he said: “What’s going on with your eyes?” I updated him on my eye problems and the current input I had from my eye doctor. He said, “You definitely need to get a second opinion!” He sent me to his eye doctor at a different eye clinic and I sent over my records prior to my appointment.
At the appointment, the second eye doctor concluded that I had severely dry eyes and that I may be allergic to the preservative in the moisturizing drops I was using. He switched me to non-preservative moisturizing drops, asked me to return in a month and sent me on my way. I tried to ask him a question about the relatively high glaucoma pressures in my eyes, but he hurriedly told me not to worry about that now; he was out the door and on to the next patient before I could finish my sentence.
With increasing anxiety, I continued to rely on this second eye doctor for another six months with each monthly appointment being a carbon copy of the first appointment. My eyes were slightly less red, but far from normal; and he continued to display a lack of curiosity about what else could be the cause and the habit of rushing off to the next patient before I could get my questions answered.
By the end of six months, I was in a panic. Virtually everyone I encountered commented on the redness of my eyes and I sensed that the partial blindness in my right eye might be expanding. I had been praying about finding the right eye doctor all through this process, but now the intensity of my praying increased as I sought divine guidance to find the right physician to save my eyes. I was also reading all the research I could find about my conditions and shared my struggles with all those who might know of a solution.
One morning, Jean and I were going to our car in the underground garage to do some errands and encountered an acquaintance, Susan, a resident of our condominium who was just coming back from cataract surgery on one of her eyes. She was amazed at the dramatic improvement in her vision immediately after the surgery and praised her eye doctor, Dr. K. As she was talking, I thought to myself, “This is the experience most people have with cataract surgery, but glaucoma caused me to have a very different experience.” We wished her a rapid recovery and went to our car.
I didn’t think again about Susan until a morning two weeks later after I had been praying particularly intensely for divine assistance in finding the ideal physician to heal my eyes. Jean and I were again going to our car in the garage and, as if on schedule, encountered Susan again. This time she was returning from the cataract surgery on her other eye and spontaneously broke out into praises of her eye doctor, Dr. K. She said that she has glaucoma in that eye and that, while doing the cataract surgery, Dr. K. also placed a stent in the eye to permanently reduce the pressure in the eye. This really got my attention. I realized that Susan and I had very similar issues with our eyes; yet, I was feeling under-attended-to by my doctors, while she was feeling maximally-attended-to by hers. My attention was simultaneously drawn to the fact that just 20 minutes earlier, I had been beseeching God for guidance to the right eye doctor, and Susan seemed to be providing it!
I asked her a lot of questions about Dr. K. She said he specializes in cataracts and glaucoma; that he takes all the time necessary with each patient; that consequently he is often behind schedule; and that I should wait patiently because he is well worth the wait. All of these comments were like music to my ears. We thanked Susan profusely and after we returned from our errands, I looked him up on the clinic’s website. His statement of personal mission inspired me and I noted that he was a deacon in the Greek Orthodox Church. This latter fact pleased me because I believe that faith and science are the two wings of the bird of healing.
I was sold on Dr. K. and immediately made an appointment to see him. When I went to the first appointment, I waited for 45 minutes past the appointed time; but, as Susan told me, it was worth the wait. It was evident he had carefully reviewed my medical records and he examined my eyes in minute detail. He said that we needed to do “a study” to determine what was aggravating my very red eyes and, on a hunch, changed one ingredient in my pressure reducing eye drops. In addition, he said that the interior of my right eye indicated my pressures were not being managed properly; and he proposed surgery to place a surface stent in that eye to relieve the pressure more effectively.
To make a long story shorter, four days after the first appointment with Dr. K., the redness in my eyes had virtually disappeared. A few weeks later I had surgery to place the stent in my eye and it successfully reduced the pressure. All of my eye concerns were finally addressed and taken care of!
At the end of an appointment with Dr. K., I said to him, “I was divinely guided to you as the eye doctor who could save my vision!” I told him the story of my struggle, the watchman forces that guided me each step of the way, my prayers for guidance, and the role Susan played as the ultimate guiding force. He had been looking directly into my eyes the whole time I talked; but when I finished, he bowed his head. He said, “I am very humbled by what you have told me.” And in that moment, I was sure he was the beloved physician I had been seeking for my eyes—for he was obviously a scientist, a gifted healer, a man of faith, and a man of humility.
As a gift, I gave him Jean’s and my first book, Now That I’m Here, What Should I Be Doing?, about the three ultimate purposes of life and the spiritual growth dynamics that need to be navigated to achieve these purposes, so that he could better understand how my search for him represented an archetypal pattern that runs through all people’s lives. Jean and I encourage you to read the book too so that you can leverage this pattern for spiritual, social, material and intellectual growth.
