The Walking Stick

Two old guys sat across from each other while waiting for their name to be called by the nurse in charge of who enters the door to the inner sanctum of wholeness.  One was in a wheelchair and the other hobbled along with a cane.  "Been thinking about a cane," said the one in the chair.  "This one works well, take it for a spin," the other said.  And he did.  Up from the chair and around the room with a burst of energy that brought smiles to all who watched.  "Reckon I ought to get me one," he said as he passed the cane back to its owner.     

For the briefest of moments there was no sickness in the room.  It was just two old guys being bound together by a wooden stick and a brotherhood neither volunteered to join.  And although there was no applause for the show from the others in the waiting chairs against their will, everyone had a smile and for the first time eyes met in a quiet acknowledgment of presence.  For a moment it was not the illness which made the entrapped participants members of the community, but a walking stick and a man who dared to defy the weakness of his body.    

It was the kind of room which Jesus would have sought out were He still walking among us.  But, wait.  Better it is to say it was the kind of room where Jesus had entered ahead of those who gathered there to wait.  Better to say He was as present as the old guy who danced with the walking stick.  He did no miracles today like He did in some of the gospel stories, unless of course, you count the way sufferers reached out to care for one another in a way that only those who claim membership in the community of the suffering can really understand.