Christ Healing the Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda, by Murillo.
I started committing poetry tonight (that’s a reference to the Norwegian movie, Elling, which I’ve reviewed here), but I stopped myself before it was too late.
I had this idea for a poem. I was contemplating the injustices of life, and it occurred to me (hardly an original idea) that sometimes injustices might be more just than we think. If I lack something in my life that I think I ought to have (can’t imagine what), the denial may be a mercy. Perhaps the responsibilities and concomitant sorrows that go with the blessings would be too much for me to handle.
I thought of writing a poem about the healing of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-15), and imagined there was another lame man there, who did not get healed. He is very bitter about being overlooked. But then (I imagine) years later he sees the man who did get healed, having become an active disciple of Jesus, stoned to death under the Herodian persecution.
But then I thought, that’s too simplistic. I don’t really believe everything levels out that way. And even if it did, it would still be a kind of condemnation on the one who was not healed, saying that God knew he didn’t have the courage and character to suffer for Christ.
The actuality is, these questions are way too big for me. Any solution I could generate, however complex and comprehensive, wouldn’t come close to divine wisdom.
So my job is just not to be bitter.
I’m working on that.
In a possibly related story, I saw this article (via Instapundit) which discusses the ethical debate scientists are waging, over whether memory-suppressing drugs, if they could be perfected, would be medically defensible.
I’ll have to admit it—if they could come up with a way to target specific memories, I’d be very much inclined to take the treatment.
But I have trouble imagining a drug that would be specific enough to remove just the right bits, rifle-style, rather than taking out big chunks like a shotgun.
Yeah, I could see a drug that muddles a certain type of memory, like all of the big ones which are at least one year old. I could also see it ruining someone’s ability to remember anything at all.
I’ve often thought about telepathically searing away someone’s memories, and that the process would have a good chance of driving the person insane.
This discussion reminds me of Thornton WIlder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey. He tries to get to the bottom of why God allows suffering and why some people die while others are rescued or spared. I don’t really remember how successful he is, but as you say, these questions are, in the final analysis, way too big for us. Maybe that how the book comes out; I probably read it 40+ years ago. So that’s one memory that has been nearly eradicated naturally by time.
I thought of writing a poem about the healing of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-15), and imagined there was another lame man there, who did not get healed. He is very bitter about being overlooked. But then (I imagine) years later he sees the man who did get healed, having become an active disciple of Jesus, stoned to death under the Herodian persecution.
Maybe you could show that the man who got healed became a sinner? That would mean that he couldn’t handle it.
Or maybe the man who stayed a cripple also becomes a disciple of Jesus, but the Herodians consider him unimportant and don’t stone him, so he can continue his ministry.
Actually Oscar Wilde wrote about the first option, in a piece I read years ago and can’t recall the title of.
As for getting healed and then falling into sin, wasn’t it King Hezekiah who was granted fifteen extra years, which he then used to lead his nation into apostasy?
Greybeard, I don’t think it was apostasy, but giving the Babylonian ambassadors too much information. Still a sin, but not nearly as bad.
A lot of Christian preachers have also noted that without the extra years, Hezekiah would never have conceived the evil King Manassah. I guess the moral is, “Don’t ask.”