Jeremy Paxman’s final presentation of the BBC programme University Challenge was a sad affair because his final “good night” was in fact goodbye as he steps down, burdened with Parkinson’s disease. It was a sad moment for him because illness can be an isolating experience and no matter how close and supportive family and friends want to be, no one can ever fully enter another’s pain or anguish.
To say to someone who is ill or grieving “I know how you feel” is mistaken. The former bishop of Oxford John Pritchard tells how a friend reacted to a troubling diagnosis: “When the universe is shuttered and silent, when the light appears to have been extinguished and one finds oneself trapped in darkness and emptiness, the worst fears – real and imagined – emerge …feelings of nothingness, meaninglessness, and worthlessness. Do I matter? Does anyone care?”is about caring.
An important detail is that the woman is an outcast – “unclean” – because of her condition. She is almost everything the child is not – alone, an older woman, with no one to speak up for her. Totally different except for one thing: despite the child’s privileged background, she too was considered “unclean” because she was reported as dead, and touching a dead body was discouraged. In both cases Jesus responded because there were needs to be met even though rules/conventions would be broken.
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