“The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness.”  It is said that the eyes are the windows to one’s soul which is the gateway to what is eternal, the pathway to our Creator. Our vision is very important to our spiritual well-being. It plays an important role in nurturing the body and spiritually feeding the soul. So how is your vision? Is your vision good or does your eyesight need to be corrected, your eyes washed, your vision cleansed? Is your body sound from looking at what is good in the eyes of God or is your body covered in noise, distractions, secrets, polluted images? Is the pathway that leads from your eyes to your soul covered in light or darkness? Is your pathway visible or invisible, known or unknown? Is the path from you eyes to your soul clearly marked or marked in confusion? Have you walked the spiritual path that goes from the windows of your eyes, through the doorway of your heart, into the kingdom in your soul?  Your soul is truly a gift from God. It is eternal, it is covered in purity, it is filled with innocence, it is adorned by God and desired by him and yet we seem to forget how precious our soul is. We tend to neglect our souls and cover them in darkness and fill them with lies. If the eyes are truly the windows of the soul then how much light is your soul receiving? Light is good as scripture says, it comes from God, it was created by him. Light comes from gazing upon what is beautiful as God sees it. Light comes from beholding what is good, lovely, pure. Darkness is from the evil one. It is bad for our soul. It attacks what is good, it suffocates what is truly good for us. Darkness comes from gazing on what is impure, from coveting what is not ours, from lusting after what is forbidden, from desiring what does not belong to us. Darkness is to be avoided, undesired, shunned, corrected immediately. The soul is like a fragrant flower covered in beauty and filled with sweetness. If it is deprived of light, of love, of life, of God, the soul withers then dies from neglect and lack of concern. Like our eyes, our soul requires special care and loving attention to clearly see the pathway that leads to God. “Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy.”  Fr. Ivan