This week’s blog by Pastor John

I’ve been rehabbing a knee for several weeks, and I’m grateful to say, a physical therapist can make a big difference. About four months ago, in a darkened theater, I stepped off the last step of a riser — black riser, black floor, progressive lenses, middle-aged eyes — thinking I was already on the floor, and surprise! My step landed hard, knee fully extended, and my mind’s world lit up with radiant pain, from what I would later learn was a “deranged medial meniscus.” Didn’t know I had a meniscus, much less that it could be deranged! I picture a mad scientist, rubbing his hands, wide-eyed, living in my knee, rejoicing over his next anticipated evil deed, but it’s actually a “crescent-shaped fibrocartilaginous anatomical structure” (thank you, Wikipedia), so I guess a piece of gristle. Anyway, I dinged mine, but it’s a lot better now.

What this experience brought to mind, besides really looking forward to riding a bike again and getting back to a higher level of activity, plus looking more carefully when I step down, is recognition that goodness a knee has a lot of other stuff attached to it! As I limped my way before PT, trying to walk it off for weeks, the pain extended up my thigh to my lower back and down my calf to the bottom of my foot, and the route back to well looked like exercise, to stretch and strengthen about twenty different supporting muscles and a few major ones, plus some nerves, which I had no idea could stretch.

The reason I’m writing about this is, like most things, it reminds me of difficulties we’re having in our society, which look a lot like difficulties described in the Bible, that people experienced two and three thousand years ago, that wisdom writers, editors, and translators have given their lives, usually day by day, but sometimes all at once, to be sure future generations, like us, could learn from their mistakes and maybe not have to repeat them.

The first chapter of Isaiah, dating back about 2800 years, gives voice to the cries of a grieving God, speaking of God’s child, daughter Zion, the mountain on which Jerusalem was built, in a terribly injured state. The prophet is speaking here not of a person but of a people, a society that fell from a vision of living rightly with each other, caring for widows and orphans, “the least of these” in New Testament parlance, to a reality of graft and murder.

What happens repeatedly in the Bible, prophet after prophet, straight through to John the Baptist, Jesus, and Christian tradition, is that when we stop caring for each other, when the way we live our lives no longer looks out for each other, one way or another, it comes crashing down.

The path to wellness is exercise, strengthening and stretching, in this case, our relationships. What relationship do you have, that might need exercise? Might it be time to reach out?