Not Hearing

I've spent a good proportion of this afternoon having my ears syringed - the wax in the one ear was tough and hard to shift, and required skill on the part of the practice nurse, and a degree of patience and forbearance from me. An hour and a half's work!   But at last I can hear again, and it's the first time I've really been able to hear since about a month ago.  There is still some inflammation to clear up, so I have some antibiotic drops to use, but the doctor's hopeful everything will be sorted by this time next week!

It really cuts you off, not being able to hear, and my present hearing problems have lasted for over a month.  It's so frustrating when you feel disconnected from conversations, and assaulted by noises that you can't interpret, and of course, as anyone living with deafness will know very well, you are from time to time spoken to with extreme and occasionally angry impatience, or indeed treated as though you are an idiot.

In scripture we read how Jesus healed many lepers, and those who lived with leprosy and similar skin diseases, all of which we treated the same and were the cause of great fear and alarm, were I suppose the great and symbolic outsiders of the day.  If you suffered in this way, then you were required to live separately from other folk.  There was no access into towns or villages, no everyday human contact at all.

Deaf or deaf and dumb people were able to live in community with others, but even so they were also outsiders.  My temporary deafness over the last month has given me a little insight into that disconnectedness, which would perhaps have been made worse by living within the community.  These days, signing deaf people can make a community of their own, and be proud of that community, and defensive of its rights and status - but in those days, to be deaf was simply to be excluded.  But we see how Jesus has time for those who are written off, who are no longer in the script, who are regarded as without value.

How much value do any of us have, really?  We may think we're doing all right, but the fact is that we're all failures, sinners, fallen people;  and so we're all outsiders, even if we don't recognise that about ourselves, or behave as though we are.  But when Jesus looks at me he sees not just the mess I've made of myself, and all its taint and imperfection - he sees the me I was made to be, the me God wills me to be, the me I would hope to be at my best moments.  His call and healing touch can help me to discover and develop the true self which otherwise I have fatally lost, but which I can find in him.