Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

• Matthew 6:27

God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways;
    he does great things beyond our understanding.
He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’
    and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’
So that everyone he has made may know his work,
    he stops all people from their labor.
The animals take cover;
    they remain in their dens.
The tempest comes out from its chamber,
    the cold from the driving winds.
The breath of God produces ice,
    and the broad waters become frozen.
He loads the clouds with moisture;
    he scatters his lightning through them.
At his direction they swirl around
    over the face of the whole earth
    to do whatever he commands them.
He brings the clouds to punish people,
    or to water his earth and show his love.

• Job 37:5-13

They have tracked me down, they now surround me, with eyes alert, to throw me to the ground.

• Psalm 17:11

Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come.

• Mark 13:33

On Thursday, in the post Lousy Tears, I talked about how my tears do not produce the right type of fluid to nourish the corneas, thus deterioration occurs.  One way of promoting the right kind of fluid is a hot compress.  I had been doing that on rare occasions, when the pain got worse or persistent, with a wash rag and hot water.  But the doctor said I needed a daily treatment and with a mask, heated using a microwave.  The photo is me wearing the mask – my first ever selfie, blindfolded at that.

I started out wearing the mask for four minutes.  It seemed like an eternity.  After each week went by, I increased the time by thirty seconds.  I moved up to six minutes by the time of my next doctor appointment.  The doctor wanted seven minutes, and I am soon going to finish a week of six and a half minutes and I will be to my goal.  The heat soothes the eyes, but it also stimulates the right kind of moisture.

It got me to thinking, really.  You cannot do much of anything with a mask over your eyes and you are required to keep your eyes closed.  I found that I could use the remote and change channels.  I can walk around the house.  I have not gotten extremely bold, but I hate “wasting” time.

But I am not as crazy as far too many others.  They never stop texting.  Does their boss let them text all day during work?  If not, then why do they text while driving?  Why do they text while waiting at a traffic light, counting on someone getting angry and honking to tell them they needed to start driving again.  Where I take my wife for dialysis three times each week, it happens every day.

I believe in multitasking but taking your eyes off the road while driving can be disastrous, even for just a few seconds.

Can you discipline your children while texting and cooking a meal?  Which is more important?  Disciplining a child takes your full attention.  If for no other reason, the child needs to know that you take the situation very seriously.  You could end up texting something you did not mean to send, burning the food, and sending a message to your child that they are not important to you, all at the same time.

When I go to the laundromat, I take plenty of things to work on.  I do not want to lose that time, but when the drier is running, I simply need to keep a mental note on when to check the drier again. When I am writing something, my eyes must be on what I am writing.  I could have clothing in the washing machine, listening for the final spin cycle to end.

And thinking of texting, doing work or play on the computer, or watching television, these are all activities that can contribute to excessive dry eye.  Your brain tells you to not blink.  You might miss something.  So, you may blink, but you blink less.  It is blinking that coats the corneas with moisture.  If you never blink, you might really miss something – healthy eyes.

So, when you next decide that an all-nighter on the computer is a great idea, think again.  When you play video games on the phone from sunup to the time you go to bed, well after sundown, your eyes might start burning or they might feel like you have something in your eye, but you do not – known as a foreign body sensation.

And there are a lot of things that you can do with your eyes closed.  A great thing that Jesus told us we should do is to pray.  We can find our prayer closet and set a timer for several minutes.  Then we can pray until the timer goes off.  The great church leaders of the past were also prayer warriors.  They prayed for hours each day.

So, although the tile of the post is a time for shutting down, we can use that time while our eyes are closed to get closer to God.  And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  And there was no time wasted.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.