[how to touch a leper]

my eyes have been opened lately and i see them all around, they walk with their heads down, avoiding eye contact. when they do make eye contact, they look for wholeness and acceptance but they are met with stoicism, contempt and ignorance. kicked to the curb and despised by so many, they sit to have their wounds licked by the dogs; they resign themselves to the idea that this is the only love and attention they'll ever know- compulsive love. they turn away from us with plastic smiles on their faces and weep bitterly the tears of maltreatment, lonliness and despairity in the darkness.

parts of them are missing. those who aren't so ignorant as to point the abnormalities out in open mockery, decry the hideousness on the inside and turn to look away.

we pass them everyday. from our youth, we have learned to ignore them. we push them to the outskirts of the camp because we don't want them to rub off on us; we don't want to catch what they have.

they are all around us. they are among us. in some cases, they are us and we are they. some are missing development, others maturity. still others are missing social graces.

they dress differently, act differently, move differently, smell differently. in short, they are different. and we damn them for it.

how does one reach out to a leper? do we just reach out a finger and barely tap them with the tip and exclaim, "i touched him/her?" is that what we are supposed to do? where is the compassion in that?

on the flip side of the coin, do we embrace them and ignore their differences? what would their initial reaction be? half would be so broken and half would be so bitter. where is the sanity in that?

how have we become so calloused? how are we so hardened that the world has to teach us how to approach them, much less touch them? why are we so insistent on furthering their abuse by ignoring their needs?

God! i pray that you have mercy! teach us a better way. teach us to walk in love and humility.

they really are all around us. not in some ward of some hospital. not begging on the street in some third-world country. they occupy the same offices, the same trains, the same apartments, and in many cases, the same church buildings as we do.

we are put off by their mannerisms that don't fit into our paradigm of how life should be. and maybe our paradigms are, in a word, correct, but our motives are incomplete and our methods are vile- shameless and despicable. we seem to justify them with our fingers out-stretched pointing out the inchoateness of their being, while our other hand pinches off the stench from our noses and our eyes are shut tight.

these deplorable acts do nothing but alienate us from their sufferings. what kind of person will mock a dying person? who are the monstrous beings now?

and again, what does it say about a person who simply accepts a person without offering any hope or help? is this psuedo-acceptance truly love? wouldn't love push a person past social disgrace? wouldn't love weep with the hurting, but continue on until restoration or healing has transpired? what good does it for the leper to die in the camp as opposed to outside the camp?

no, the act of true love, moves beyond an embrace of the body to an embrace of the soul.

so, how do you touch a leper?

i would suggest that we endeavor to grab hold of them with all the compassion that our flaccid hearts can initially muster and cling to them until we both are changed. they have found true love, true acceptance and true healing; while we have found true compassion. where is the safety in that? there isn't any. and that's the point...

i have seen the leper; my heart is more cantankerous than his festering boils.

***this is not about medical leperosy nor is it necessarily about moral or spiritual leperosy; this is about social leperosy... not developmental disorders... though all of these are valid surrogates. this is simply about those people who are different than us.

for the world-wide renown of His sovereign glory...