“He was despised and rejected – a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.”
Isaiah 53:3 NLT
I have become increasingly aware of how little society respects those who lose their health and, with it, their independence. I know Katey’s disability and physical disfigurement brought on by her MS inevitably removed her from the mainstream of society. She not only lost her health, but with it the teaching job she loved, her ability to cook, to shop, to participate in social events – the list is endless. This in turn led to isolation, a severe loss of income and exclusion from many of the decisions that affected her. There was no malice, but Katey slipped out of society long before she died.
My mum, who has moved into a care home now, is experiencing the same disengagement from society. A welcoming home that houses only people in their last years of life is like a cruise ship. It is adrift within its own reality and surrounded by a vast ocean of indifference. Never have I understood the phrase, “waiting room for death” as much as I do entering that home. The perpetual sound of buzzers, each a call for help from a human being, reminds me of staff shortages. Even my mum describes those who gently serve her needs to wash, dress, eat etc as “my carer”, unable to remember names that change as frequently as the days.
I read and hear of a compassionate society which I fail to observe. First Katey in her nursing home, now Mum in her care home. In both situations kindness was self-evident, yet these were hostels to house the disfigured, those whom society chooses to hide their faces from. Life is ugly in many respects. Yet, Jesus, by his own admission, came for the unlovely, those at the margins, those society wanted to forget and neglect.
I have no answers, and I wince as I write for I too hide my face from all that I don’t want to confront. I can’t face what overwhelms me and I sense demands my time and resources in ways that intrude upon my independence. Yet, Jesus embraces ugliness in solidarity with the unlovely.
QUESTION
Are there needs in those you know that you’re choosing to ignore?
PRAYER
Merciful God, help me be your arms and feet to those who need your love and mercy.