The Single Eye: A Meditation on Light and Darkness

“The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.” — Matthew 6:22-23

There is a man who sits in the highest seat of earthly power, and around him gather those who claim to follow the Prince of Peace. They speak of light while walking in darkness, and call this walking holy. They have made an idol of their politics and baptized it with the name of Christ. But what does it mean to have a single eye, and how do we know when the light within us has become darkness?

Jesus spoke these words not to confuse us, but to clarify the most fundamental truth about the human condition: we cannot serve two masters. The eye that is single sees clearly because it is not divided, not torn between competing loyalties, not blinded by the glitter of earthly power. The single eye sees what is, not what we wish to see, not what serves our purposes, not what makes us comfortable.

But watch now how the eye becomes evil, how light transforms into darkness. It happens when we decide that the ends justify the means, when we convince ourselves that our cause is so righteous that any weapon will do. It happens when we look upon actions that would horrify us in any other context and call them blessed because they serve our political purposes. The eye that was meant to see clearly becomes clouded with calculation, with compromise, with the terrible arithmetic of power.

Yesterday, missiles fell like rain upon a distant land, and the very people who claim to worship the One who said “Blessed are the peacemakers” found reasons to celebrate. They spoke of strength and necessity, of protecting the chosen people and fulfilling prophecy. But where in this rhetoric is the voice that said “Put up your sword”? Where is the heart that wept over Jerusalem? The light that should illuminate our path has become darkness, and how great is that darkness.

This is not about foreign policy or the complexities of international relations. This is about the state of the soul that claims to follow Christ while cheering for violence. This is about the terrible price we pay when we allow our faith to be captured by our politics, when we trade the narrow way for the broad highway of worldly success.

The single eye sees that power corrupts, that violence begets violence, that the kingdoms of this world are not the kingdom of God. The single eye sees that when we bow down to earthly authority, when we make excuses for the inexcusable, when we call evil good and good evil, we have lost our way. We have become the very thing we claim to oppose.

But there is still time to turn back. There is still time to ask ourselves what we have become, what we have traded away, what we have allowed to be done in our name. The light is still there, dimmed but not extinguished, waiting for us to choose it over the darkness we have embraced.

The question is not whether the man in power is one of us or merely useful to us. The question is whether we are still who we claim to be. The question is whether we have the courage to let our eye be single, to see clearly, to call things by their right names. The question is whether we love the light more than we love winning.

For if we do not, then we are indeed full of darkness, and how great is that darkness. But if we do, then there is still hope for us, still a chance to be the people of light we were called to be. The choice, as it always has been, is ours.

James Baldwin would have said: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” The time for facing is now.