Bet that title got your attention! Dont worry this post wont be filled with anything of the sort except for an allusion to the character of Hannibal Lector. Let's dig in, shall we.
Mondays are always tough going back to work but this Monday was especially difficult because it was so dark out. We had heavy cloud cover and a consuming wind/rain one-two punch. However, there was a silver lining, it was 60 some degrees here in beautiful PA.
Id like to take some time to reflect on an interesting experience I had a couple months ago at the hospital. I was scheduled to have an MRI done at the request of my doctor. As I sat in the hospital filling out the paperwork I came across a question asking me about being claustrophobic, to which I responded healllll yea;) I initially thought Id be in this open area and go through a magnetic ring once or twice, oh no I was slated to be in that chamber of terror for 45 whole minutes. I quickly became anxious as the nurse assured me it would be ok.
I was placed in that tube of horror, which is about 2.5 feet in diameter and 6 feet long, with a plastic shroud covering my face. Thats where Hannibal Lector comes in, me with this plastic mask of death on. To give you an idea of how claustrophobic I am I would probably chew my arm off if I was trapped in an elevator for more than 28 seconds. Now I was being throttled into this cylinder of torture for the next 45 minutes with only a little plastic ball in my hand to let the nurse know if she needed to come save me from the magnetic monster. However, she said something that helped me through, she said just close your eyes and DONT OPEN THEM.
In the next forty five minutes I did not open my eyes, and to my surprise, I left feeling quite a tangible sense of peace. I reflected on this for days. How did I make it through and why was I at such peace. I was in that machine for 45 minutes with my head encapsulated in a plastic hood and my face was inches from the tube walls, for all intents and purposes and for drama's sake, I was buried alive. The reality existed but closing my eyes shielded me from the anxiety.
Isnt it interesting how our surroundings can play on our emotions and our feelings just as we experience on these cold dark days of winter. The power of our mind is incredible, we control our thoughts by what we let come in our mind. There is alot of noise in our world and we are constantly sifting through it letting in what we want and filtering out what we dont. Some of what we dont want is good for us, we need to learn to let it in and some of what we are letting in isnt that good. We must train our eyes to see, which takes hard work and good friends to help us when we fall. We have a great example of this today as we in the Catholic church celebrate the feast of the conversion of St. Paul. St. Paul was a persecutor of Christians in his early years but God blinded him and then led him to be one of the most influential people in all of Christianity.
We should strive for constant conversion of heart, mind, and soul. We have many means to accomplish this, but today lets focus on training our eyes to see what we ought and remove the blinders to what has always been right under our noses.
Peace, love, soooooooouuuuuuullllllllllll!!
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