Dish Eyes

One of the wonders of the world is that there is light all around us, but only a fraction of all this radiance is visible to us. Our human eye is designed to detect only visible light. To see anything more, we’d need new and different eyes. Perhaps this is what Isaiah had in mind when he says, “Arise, shine; for your light has come!”

Arise, shine,” says the prophet Isaiah. “Your light has come.”

Problem is, many of us can’t see it.

Not that we don’t take our eyesight seriously. More than a million Americans every year agree to let an ophthalmologist take a small excimer knife, called a microkeratome, and cut the flap of the cornea - so that a laser can be used to change the shape of the cornea - so that they won’t need to wear contacts or eyeglasses anymore - so that their overall vision will be improved.

It’s called LASIK surgery, which is an acronym for Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis. A hinge is left at one end of the flap which is then folded back, revealing the stroma, or the middle section of the cornea. Pulses from a computer-controlled laser vaporize a portion of the stroma, and the flap is replaced.

This procedure helps millions of people to see better. Yet, one of the absolute wonders of our world is that it is full of light, even on dark and gloomy January days — but only a tiny sliver of all this...