Contemporary Christian Leprosy

found an amazing essay at the Psalters website (check out their music!), and i'll quote some of it here:

One of the many typically powerful examples of the effects of life without pain is recorded by Dr. Brand in his book The Gift of Pain. He records an incident involving a patient in a leprosy community in India:

"An eager young patient caught my eye as he struggled across the edge of the courtyard on crutches, holding his bandaged left leg clear of the ground. Although he did his awkward best to hurry, the nimbler patients soon overtook him. As I watched, this man tucked his crutches under his arm and began to run on both feet with a very lopsided gait, waving wildly to get our attention. He ended up near the head of the line, where he stood panting, leaning on his crutches, wearing a smile of triumph. I could tell from the man’s gait, though, that something was badly wrong. Walking toward him, I saw that the bandages were wet with blood and his left foot flopped freely from side to side. By running on an already dislocated ankle, he had put far too much force on the end of his leg bone, and the skin had broken under the stress. He was walking on the end of his tibia, and with every step that naked bone dug into the ground. Nurses had scolded him sharply, but he seemed quite proud of himself for having run so fast. I knelt beside him and found that small stones and twigs had jammed through the end of the bone into the marrow cavity. I had no choice but to amputate the leg below the knee. (Brand p. 7)"

Leprosy strips the victim of the gift of pain that acts as an alarm system blaring incessantly until it is heard. When a healthy person catches the flu or gets a cut, their pain receptors force them to drop everything else that they are doing and deal with the situation until the pain goes away and the body returns to health. Conversely, Lepers have no insistent alarm system, and will therefore allow minor infections to develop into horrifically debilitating catastrophes even though they may be aware of the problem. Yet because it does not hurt they allow the infection to continue. They may see the problem but they do not feel it.

We too are lepers. We live in the "cushiest", "comfiest", richest country in history. We have our wealth, our philosophies, our drugs, and the media to protect us not only from truly feeling the pain of the oppressed, but also from feeling our own oppression and need to be healed.

"So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich , and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire,..." (Rev. 3:16-18)

The oppression of the rich, powerful, comfortable, and drugged is that it is a separation from Christ. It all oppresses by layering blanket upon blanket of materialism and worldliness until we are pinned down under a mountain of cushy fabric that separates us from the Light, and suffocates us from the cool biting air of His Breath.

read more on their website: www.psalters.com (go to about > manifesto > part III).

and THINK ABOUT IT.

amen!