Unclean! Unclean!

"No creature has meaning without the word of God." -Hildegard of Bingen

So many are without meaning. Rather they live in mayhem. There is a darkness that walks our streets. You can usually smell it before you see it. For it is the repulsive stench of rotting flesh. Much is left to the imagination as the open sore is wrapped in filthy rags. No matter how much society tries to disguise it, it is the purple elephant that we all see but no one is willing to acknowledge is in the room.

And so they walk on. One more mile or one more town, just so long as they go. Be gone. For them there is no way out. They are the mirror society refuses to peer into, let alone to touch it. For fear of becoming unclean. Banishment, exiled from the community. They are forced to live outside the camp. They are beyond redemption, no sacrament can save them. No waters of baptism can cleanse them? The eucharist can not heal them? Amazing Love, how can it be? When our desire is that they choke on a crust of communion bread. We covet their last gasp. The agonizing gurgle of a soul who drowns on the fluid which has collected in their own lungs. Are you the one to "pass the cup" of drowning? Is it your hand that will immerse them and with the other never let them up? Are you sarcastically saying, "Have a drink on me?"

There must be an oasis in the desert. Where by a quiet campfire one can drink from the river that never runs dry. Realizing for the first time that there is such a thing as rest. And hear, yes have ears that hear. That voice which speaks and birds hush their singing. Words of life, wonderful words, beautiful words. "Then a man with a serious skin disease came to him and, on his knees, begged him: 'if you are willing, you can make me clean.' Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched him. 'I am willing,' he told him. 'Be healed'." (Mark 1.40-41) Sola Scriptura -WHB