Du Quoin in a Fountain … June 12, 2013

(1,90)

Burned.

Burned out.

I once was beckoned to a burn ward in a hospital to see a young man who needed prayer because he had been scorched severely in a fire. I had never experienced such devastation. There were five youngsters on the floor, all injured beyond human recognition. The parents, when they heard there was someone on the floor willing to pray, beckoned me to the bedside of their child. The grotesque features, the pain, the anguish and the doom that hung in the air was almost incomprehensible and nearly unbearable.

I felt no need to be glib. The poetry of prayer escaped me. My tears became the ointment of hope–that these children might have a chance. Each one had lost a battle with fire.

But my dear friends, every time I walk on a stage and look into the faces of the audience, I see the same anguish. The American public is burned. We are burned by the fires of a raging debate that seems to have no end, which slices its way through our society, minus resolution. We are burned by viciousness, racism and religious bigotry, touting that “our God is bigger than your God.”

We are scorched by political rhetoric rattling on with meaningless statistics, promoting its unending agenda with no regard for the immediate needs of humanity.

So because our nation is burned,  we must be careful not to use fiery words to ignite great ideas.

• We need to stop preaching. It’s too pushy. Even teaching can be condescending.
• We are incapable of debate without division.
• We seem to be unable to talk about God and promote His love more than His judgment.
• We take the beauty of man and woman–the sexual pleasure they can achieve together and the companionship manifested–and turn it into a running joke on how the sexes are incapable of communication.
• We set ideals, our goals and our lives on fire with a series of ridiculous arguments which never promote inner peace and are only set ablaze to initiate our superiority.

I am coming into a burn ward and it is my nation. It seems to be up to me to bring the salves and the pain killers necessary to promote healing instead of continuing to do more damage to the flesh, blood, spirits and hearts of my fellow-citizens. But you see, once you’ve been burned, the last thing you want is to be touched. Your life is a living nightmare–a reminder of the horrible incident that has disfigured you.

It’s going to take patience, gentleness and reasonability to actually bring about a ministering force to our people. It is not an issue of marching, protesting, fussing, arguing or even lobbying. It’s finding the next person who’s been burned by the fires of a national indignation–and to sooth the wounds.

I’ve inserted a picture of a field which has already been harvested and now the remaining stems merely dry out in the sun. I was drawn to the scene because it reminds me so much of our country. We have harvested a great bounty of freedom and progress, but now the dried stems stick out of the ground and no one has the mercy to plow them under and prepare new seed for the earth–gently, please. But we must take all the dead stalks which are protruding from the ground and inter them in the earth, making room for new seed and a new crop of possibility.

The other picture is of my set, which I used as  a healing station last night with the folks in Sunfield, near Du Quoin, Illinois.

It’s what I’ve got. It’s small and to some may seem insignificant. But from that tiny operating room, I plan on promoting healing. Gone are the fiery sermons, replaced with the water of the Word, dousing all the heated rage.

It’s the least we can do.

By the way, I found out later that three of the five young people in that burn ward died.  It hurt me deep in my soul. But it also let me know that it’s important to keep the fire away from human beings if you can bring the water.

I will bring the water again to the folks in Sunfield this evening. I can only hope that those who’ve been burned by the inferno of a careless society misusing its book of matches will come out … to be soothed.

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 Jonathots, Jr.!

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