Folly of Faith: Reaching Through the Darkness

In my early days of working in Eastern Europe,  I noticed in one town a good number of people walking around with patches on their eyes.  my translator explained it was from corrective eye surgery.   

I looked into it and realized it was a fraction the price from the western world.   At the time, with all my traveling, sports, and the fact that I needed to change my prescription, it made a lot of sense to simply get my eyes cut.  But  could I trust the local doctors with my eyes?  Images of walking into a dirty moldy room with a rusty bed, paint falling off the walls and just one single light bulb in the middle of the room spark doubts.    

 One of my local friends jokingly told stories of doctors being drunk, and I could only imagine a fat doctor smelling of slivovica climbing on my bed and cutting my eyes manually with a scalpel.

I told a friend of mine, and to my surprise, he immediately said, “ok, I’ll do it with you.”   “Wait,” I stuttered, “I didn’t say I was doing it.” “I know,” he replied, “but I’ll do it with you anyways.”  And before we knew it, we had an appointment.

The stress and fear at the risk I would be taking, were quickly erased as soon as we walked into the doctor’s office.  No rusty bed, no paint falling off the walls. The staff were friendly and we had good rapport with the doctor.   She explained that we would do only one eye the first time, then come back for the second.  Reassured, we decided to go through with it.

The surgery went well.  My friend and I actually had fun joking with the doctor and staff about our earlier fears. When it was done, she explained we may feel some pain for the next days and gave us each 1 pain killer.

We decided to use it only when and if necessary.

For a while, things were fine.. only minor discomfort.  Slowly, the pain cycles began, it started with feelings of sand in our eyes, which progressed to sharp pain, but for only a second.  So we decided to lay down and try to sleep through the rest of the night. The pain continued with regular shots of pain, but as trained athletes, we felt we could handle it. 

At some point in the middle of the night, I woke to incredible pain.  It felt like someone jabbed my eye with broken glass then started twisting it.  And as soon as it stopped, it started again, then again and again.  This isn’t right, I thought. Something is seriously wrong.  I’m losing my eye. The doctor made a mistake, I made a huge mistake.  I panicked. The pain struck again, and this time I screamed.

My friend, who was sleeping in the bed next to me, spoke through the darkness, “Wow, did you feel that too?”

“..Too?” I thought. “How could he feel my pain?”  

 I asked him, “Did you just feel someone stab your eye with shattered glass?” 

“Mine felt more like a rusty saw…. But yea.”

Since both of us were feeling the same type of pain at the same time, we concluded that this was part of the process.  I calmed down; we took our pain killers, and went back to bed.

The rest of the healing went without incident.  And soon after, went back for my second eye.  The amount of pain for the second happened as before, but because I now understood what was happening, it was much more bearable than before.

Living by faith works the same.  It is faith because we don’t know, it doesn’t make sense,  and senses tell us that the complete opposite may be true.   And if we are not careful, we start to question if we made a mistake.

It is at those times that many of us need someone sitting with you in the darkness, sharing your pain, doubt, fear; someone who is taking the same journey, or better, someone who has taken that journey before.   Most first time experiences follow the same pattern. We do because those more experienced show us how, and when things start to feel wrong, we need to decide to trust them… or fail.

And when that journey is without experience, we seek out others who will take that journey with us. 

Such is the original purpose of “faith groups,” or religions; the gathering of 2 or more in support of their shared beliefs, for encouragement, support, development, etc.

It’s been said that religion is a crutch for weak minded people who find strength in numbers.  Although the statement was intended as negative, that’s exactly what it is, in fact all support groups are. 

Whether you’re trying to live life according to the tenants of a faith, or losing weight, training for a sport, over-coming addictions, pushing through a political agenda, or even trying to become a better more consistent writer.  J   If we didn’t have weaknesses, we really wouldn’t need others at all.  But the fact is, we are fallible, we do have weaknesses, everyone has periods of weakness.   And it is at those times that we need the strength of others to pull us through.   

Weakness isn’t accepting support, because in that we are stronger, and can accomplish what we set out to do.   True weakness is allowing our pride to reject support to succeed.  

Religion, or rather churches, has its place in society…. when used in support of faith.  Where it starts to go wrong is when it starts determining it; which is what we’ll discuss in our next article.

In our effort to live by faith, it can seem more noble to take it all alone. But when you find yourself at your limits, don't hesitate to reach through the darkness and find someone who will share that pain.  There really is strength in numbers.