Guard Your Eyes

I keep hearing and feeling the phrase "guard your eyes" in the inner parts of me these last few days.

I received the following verse in an email on July 4th (Independence Day for my other nationality) this year. It's caught at me ever since...

May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves. Psalm 126:5,6

Guard your eyes. Why the eyes, Lord? Not the soul? Not the heart? Why my eyes?

I have long been sensitive to visual imagery. I was joking with a friend who's an artist about it last night - the fact that I can't take in violent or dark imagery without paying a price. We laughed at the idea that if I was an artist, all my work would be flowers and rainbows and kittens and butterflies - pretty boring and unbalanced.

I can encounter the heavier things in word pictures. I can even paint those word pictures, but please don't ask me to attach visuals to them. Violence, in particular, gets me.

The classic example are the Lord of the Rings movies. I only ever saw the first one. I loved the books. I loved the redemption. I can't attach visuals to the things I read. I pay for it in lost sleep for weeks.

I am noticing that again this morning... slept poorly, with dreams tripping over themselves in their haste to disturb my sleep last night. Attributed, quite possibly, to the movie I saw with Tim last night (which I wrote about yesterday, and actually quite enjoyed...)

I noticed on the train this morning that I have also been particularly sensitive to things of great beauty lately. To mountains and forests. To the city skyline on a sunny day, set against the backdrop of clouds and mountains. To simple flowers as I walk in the park. To the innocence of babies. To the growth of roots on the plant slips that are being started on my desk. To the hearts of friends. To the tears running down my brother's face as he took in images of a poor orphan girl, setting up her place to sleep for the night on the streets in India.

Guard your eyes. Not sure where this going, but I'm being pulled ever deeper...