Physician Heal Thyself

I read this today and it really struck me.

The American playwright Thornton Wilder wrote a magnificent short play, The Angel That Troubled the Waters. Do you know the story? It's poignant and powerful. It involves the pool at Bethesda, the famous pool in Jerusalem where the people believed that a movement of the surface of the water was caused by an angel. The pool was surrounded by the ill and disabled who, as soon as they saw the waters being stirred, would quickly enter the pool, as they believed that the first person to enter the moving water would be healed.

In Wilder's play, there was a physician who would go to the pool with some regularity, wishing to be healed of his afflictions of melancholy and remorse. One day as he sat at the edge of the pool waiting and the waters began to stir, the angel appeared and stopped him from getting in. "Healing is not for you," the angel told him.

The physician was very upset. Why could he not receive this precious gift?

The angel responded, "Your melancholy and remorse, and the timbre in your voice when you speak to the broken and wretched, speak volumes and have a healing effect on them. Healing is not for you."

Still, the physician was troubled. But then a man who had been healed and was rejoicing came over, and said, "Would you come home with me just for one hour? My son is thinking dark thoughts. I can't communicate with him. You are the only person who has ever been able to lift his spirits. And since her child died, my daughter sits in the shadow. She won't listen to us, but she does listen to you. Please come home with me."

The angel, standing nearby listening, said, "In love's service only the wounded soldier can serve. All the angels themselves do not have the power to heal as you do."

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