Tuesday, August 14, 2012

The Surgeon's Hands

Yesterday Bill was in the surgeon's hands, literally. The neurosurgeon,  Dr. Dmitry Ruban, was very reassuring and had a wonderful bedside manner. How he is in the OR I can't say, but I see the results. Bill feels better, and    the surgery may well be a key to assuring that he can resume the life he used to be leading until it crashed not to a halt, but a pain filled detour.

And so when the gospel tells us that Jesus broke the rules and healed on the sabbath (Bill had surgery on Monday; possibly insurance forbids sabbath healing as well as going out of network), telling the lame man, "'Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.'" (John 5:8, CEB), is this a story about healing hands, told in another language and time and through different imagination?

The first thing I thought of, since I was just introduced to this at seminary last week, on a day when my husband was in the hospital, was Christ Has No Body , a prayer attributed to St. Teresa of Avila. (Thanks, my new friend Cindy, for bringing this benediction to our last class meeting.) I paused the most at "Yours are the hands." So, whose hands? Dunno, but I gotta get up and get over to the hospital. I am up early; maybe Somebody gave me a shake.

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