What image comes to mind when you think about wounded soldiers? It’s a painful one, to be sure. We tend to think of those fallen on the battlefield. They’re injured and bleeding and in need of care from others to survive.
Yet, in a beautiful one-act play entitled The Angel that Troubled the Waters, the story illustrates how the opposite can be true. These wounded soldiers are whole and healed and in service to others. How can this be?
The play is loosely based on the New Testament story in John 5 in which the sick and lame would flock to the pool at Bethesda to receive healing. It was commonly believed that an angel would come and stir the waters, and that those who entered the pool would be rid of their maladies.
But playwright Thornton Wilder imagines another scenario that involves a doctor who arrives at the pool with the hope of being healed of his melancholy. I love the poetic language used to describe what would best translate to depression in today’s vocabulary. The man wants desperately to return to his former happiness so he can enjoy his life, but the angel foretells a greater assignment.
“Physician draw back. This healing is not for you. Without your wounds where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love’s service, only wounded soldiers can serve.” Thornton Wilder, Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder
Then, at the conclusion, a leper who had been healed begs the man to follow him back to his home saying “Come with me, only an hour. My son is lost in dark thoughts. I do not understand him, and only you have ever lifted his mood. Only an hour… my daughter, since her child has died, sits in the shadow. She will not listen to us…”
I was that daughter for a time. I longed for someone to bring that physician to my door. Someone who understood grief because they experienced it. Someone who survived the death of their only child so they could give me hope.
In Episode 16 of the podcast, Bob talks about losing his wife Gay and concluded “Only grievers can help grievers.” It’s not an absolute truth, but you get the idea.
Only those “broken on the wheels of living” as Wilder so eloquently proclaims, can provide comfort to a bereaved parent, a grieving widow, or a newly-diagnosed cancer patient. We who are acquainted with loss speak a common language. Or as Bob said “We’re in the same club.”
I’ve talked to many people about the podcast and the purpose behind it. I’ve shared the scripture on which it is based (2 Cor 1:3-4), the call to comfort others with the comfort we have received from God. But now and then, when I survey others about the losses they have experienced, I am told “I don’t really have a story. I’m not grieving.”
But I believe each one of us has a story. We all have experienced some form of loss and we all have lessons to share that could help another person. And that is what we are called to do.
So, what are you doing with your pain?
