There's Something In My Eye.....

I was reading from A New Earth yesterday...in chapter 2 where Eckhart is talking about "The Ego's Need To Feel Superior" (pg 81-82) He said:

There are many subtle but easily overlooked forms of ego that you may observe in other people and, more important, in yourself.

Ah, yes....observing ego in other people...easier than identifying ego in ourselves, don't you think? Didn't Jesus address that when he cautioned:

And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?

Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

On a side note....when Emily was younger she would often forget to take a towel and washcloth into the bathroom when she took a shower. (she still does occasionally) Without fail, she would get shampoo in her eyes...and begin to shriek ...a sound that must be akin to a wounded animal caught in a trap or something. "MY EYES!!!!! MY EYES." I would always go running....grabbing a washcloth on my way...sympathy pains from the memory of times I had inadvertently gotten shampoo in my own eyes speeding my quest to get to her. No doubt, shampoo in an eyeball really stings!!!

That little trip down memory lane reminds me of another "MY EYES!!! MY EYES!!!" story. It was after a middle school dance. I picked several of them up...dropped several of them off and was waiting outside the home of Emily's friend Samantha. We stopped there so she could pick up her stuff to spend the night at our house. Emily was in the second seat in the van....messing around with the "glow bracelet" she purchased at the dance. Twirling it, bending it. (Anybody know where I am going with this story?) All of a sudden she started screaming and I turned around and saw her face and shirt covered with the glow stuff from inside the bracelet. Most of it was in/on her eyes She was shrieking, "It's in my eyes, it's in my eyes!!!!! It was much worse than the shampoo in the eyes scream.

I left the van still running....in the middle of the street....drug her (still screaming) into Samantha's house....through the living room, into the kitchen and started to flush her eyes with the sprayer. She was still screaming and crying and squirming. Finally we got most of it out. Her eyes were still burning, watery and red an hour or so later. On the advice of her doctor.....we went to the ER. We spent the next several hours there getting her eye checked out, flushed out etc. She is no wimp when it comes to that stuff so I did not have to console her much. There was also no damage done to her eyes and they finally found out from the poison control hotline that the stuff in glow sticks is very similar to the dye used in certain medical procedures on the eye.

So anyway...back to the plank in the eye point of this post. Although the plank doesn't glow....and oftentimes doesn't sting...we are still called to identify those planks BEFORE we start nitpicking and trying to dig out those specks in the eyes of others. It is just that it is so much easier to see their splinters and specks.