Annalise greeted me with a quiet smile. She blinked her
eyes, and I was aware of the heavy layer of long lashes she had affixed to her
eyelids. She wrote my name into the visitor’s book, and I marvelled at the
length of her false fingernails and the complexity of the designs on each.
It was the same with the bank teller. With some of the store
clerks. Startling, really.
So many women I’ve met over the last month have exaggerated
their eyelashes and their fingernails. They obviously believe these
enhancements improve their looks; all I could think of was the amount of time
it must take to achieve such results, and the way the nails, anyway, impede
practicality. I wonder if the false eyelashes might cause the eyelids to droop
over time – a droop which mine are achieving without the aid of any weights on
them!
I’m aware that what I am saying might sound rich, coming
from an older woman who still colours her hair. We all have our vanities. Or,
at least I know that I do.
Often, when I wait on the Lord, my mind’s eye perceives his
loving gaze. Just his eyes. No false eyelashes there. Love, pure and simple.
A gaze penetrating from a heart and soul of pure love. Eyes protected
by a fan of eyelashes just perfect for their purpose. To keep dust, bugs and
other foreign objects from entering this vulnerable opening to the soul.
If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of
light, Jesus says. Perhaps he is thinking of the physical protection afforded
by the fan of lashes he created to ring these delicate parts of our bodies. I am
thinking also, though, of other barriers which are helpful to protecting that
light within us: will power to resist reading or watching things which pollute
us, for instance.
Feeling a bit jet-lagged still, a bit rambling, but these
are my thoughts this morning, for what they’re worth. May we all have clear
eyes to perceive what the Lord is up to in our lives and our world today.
