In his, Hunches in Bunches, Dr. Seuss describes what can happen to a mind. A mind can become, "frightfully ga-fluppted, " and "murky-mooshy." Such words for children well-describe my adult mind. Though I have known what it is to take the hand of a counselor and walk through the dark, and though I have known what it is to need medication for a season to give my thoughts a night-light in the corner, I require no disease of mind, (though many such diseases there are) or intentional amnesia through the abuse of some deceptive substance of addiction to feel that my mind is often broken. I am at times genuinely confused or frustratingly forgetful. I know what it is to have mistaken thoughts about this or that. The capacity to willfully rationalize my way into what eventually harmed me sources my regrets. "What was I thinking?" often describes the motto that fills my sighs and accompanies a shaking of my head while I look somber down in painful memory; and all of this before age has set in.
Perhaps my acquaintance with being "frightfully ga-fluppted" fuels my kindred feeling for the mentally tormented man whom Jesus ransomed from demons, restored peace, and recovered him "clothed and in his right mind." (Luke 8:35). His condition was ugly and demonic. Shackles, violence and solitary confinement formed the only help he had ever received.
It does not surprise me that torment was what the man expected from Jesus (Lk. 7:28). Ugliness gone normal has a way of suffocating hope even when God Himself enters our story. What does surprise me is how one can learn to hate beauty when routines and habits have been settled in the norms of ugliness. When Jesus sets this man in his right mind, people fear rather than celebrate. Healing, beauty, and goodness arouse resistance not gratitude. The broken minded want Jesus to leave not because He will harm them, but precisely because He can heal them (Lk. 8:37). Sometimes the most frightful thing facing a person is the prospect of their healing.
The broken-minded have our wires crossed, don't we? We welcome those patterns of thought, feeling and action which have always harmed us. But when healing pops the question, we refuse the ring. To heal means change. Change requires leaving the known and entering the unknown. Sometimes prisons feel like home. The community in this passage choose to remain safe and harmed. But the man? "Snowflakes kiss the scabs between his filthy rags." In his right mind, Jesus sends him home. The man goes to an old place in a new way. The man returns to those who hated him, mocked him or feared him. He returns to those who saw him naked, bruised and shrieking. The discomfort of health pursues them. Now that his mind is mending, their jokes will have to change. Are they willing?
I think it's interesting that Jesus sent the man back home, to continue the process of healing, ( to participate with Jesus in that process), and to pursue the people for their healing, (participating with Jesus in this process also).
ReplyDeleteZack, as I read through I had two thoughts. First, I thought about a man I know and love as a friend here in Vegas. I said to myself, "Yes, it's healing that he fears most because of all the change that will come as a result. It shows how much has got to be considered when we offer to "help" someone. Secondly, I began to see areas in my own life where the reality of my decisions and hidings shows that I don't want healing in areas as I might say I do. Thanks for your thoughts. I'll be wrestling with them.
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