The Cross and the Sower

The Eigenheim Mennonite Church used to have a large cross facing the congregants from the pulpit area. On it were the words, “Prepare to Meet Thy God.” 

The dominant image facing us now was created by member-artist, Wes Ens, and it’s a large wooden, walking-away figure of the sower, spreading seed. Position-wise, the congregation is following the sower. The dove/cross candle-holder was created by member craftsman Vic Janzen. 

I hesitate to use the words logo or branding to speak of the symbolism represented in the two images; that would follow the advertising worldview. But just as leadership once decided that the large cross was the appropriate symbol in their time, the decision to replace it recently with the sower was made thoughtfully.

Perhaps Kiran Desai’s central character in The Inheritance of Loss (p.29) senses a clue to the purpose of the cross and “the bleeding Christ” under which the sensibilities of the nuns—in the convent to which her parents abandoned her—were shaped. “The system might be obsessed with purity, but it excelled in defining the flavor of sin.”

What would you or I choose to symbolize our worldview, our faith if you like? A dove? A fish? A door? A flower? A tree? A book? A boat perhaps?

I've had amblyopia all my life. Many people have. It’s also called a lazy eye, but as if to punish my slumbering right eye for its laziness, that eye has developed cataracts requiring two surgeries . . . one that went wrong and another to correct what went wrong . . . and serious glaucoma. End result, the eye that’s always been deficient is now 98% defunct.

Talk about kicking an eye when it’s down!

I’ve thought of plastering it with mud and washing it in the healing waters of Lake Manitou, but my faith in miracles just isn’t strong enough for that, so I’ve gone instead to a string of ophthalmologists, none of whom recommended the mud/wash treatment.

But, I’m not complaining. My left eye is a wonder. It can see stars a billion miles away, can see to thread a needle, can read a book and enjoy the beauty of the apple blossoms bursting out just under our balcony.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, you whole body will be full of darkness.” (Matthew 6: 22-24) By this standard, I’m half-full of light but I admit, I don’t get this passage at all. Some interpretations say that it’s in the eyes that the content of your soul can be read, that eyes don’t lie. Others say that what you choose to focus on will determine what you are. Both are probably valid.

My maternal grandfather went blind in his sixties, possibly from untreated cataracts, glaucoma or macular degeneration. I don’t know if he ever adjusted to it; I was only five when he died. For an active person to turn blind at his (or my) age must surely sap much of the will to live. Virtually everything I love to do is dependent on my eyesight.

Just two warnings. Don’t approach me unannounced from the right; I might inadvertently put your eye out with an elbow. And beware on the highway; because I’m left-sighted, I choose to drive in the left lane.

Not.