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The
Lightstand Magazine
1986
• September • Reflections on the Way
by Bro.
Robin Lamplough
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One
seldom nowadays meets a deaf-mute. One of the characteristics
of our tidy, sanitised, western society is that the obviously
and distressingly afflicted tend to be hidden from view. Yet
for several months recently I had such a man working under
me. He provided a daily exhortation.
IMPECCABLE RECORD
He is employed as one of several sweepers and general gardeners.
His record both of daily attendance and of punctual starting
is impeccable. Towards the end of the day, when his workmates
are surreptitiously packing away their tools so as to be ready
to knock off on time (if not a little earlier!), he remains
busy until the precise moment of stopping. He is unfailingly
courteous and cheerful, undertaking the most unpleasant of
jobs without demur. And he lives his life in total silence
and almost complete isolation from his fellow men, communicating
only in simple sign language and, sometimes, by laborious
and rudimentary writing.
Often I have wondered how he would respond to the call of
the gospel: how he would react to the accounts in the Bible
of men with his afflications being miraculously healed by
the Son of God. His life and his qualities of personality
suggest that if he could learn of these things he might well
respond positively to them. But the problems of communicating
have baffled me. Where does one begin in such a task? How
wonderful are the gifts of hearing and of speech. And how
often we take them entirely for granted.
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SIMILAR PROBLEMS
There is a sense, however, in which the problems of this man are
different from the problems of the other people one encounters daily
only in the degree of their complexity. Most of these people, having
ears and tongues that function properly, are nevertheless deaf to
the appeal of Christ and dumb when a response to it is called for.
Increasingly one comes to realise that the miracles of Jesus were
above all enacted parables for the edification of those who would
apply their minds to pondering what had been done. In a society
in which those with mental and physical afflictions were to be seen
on every hand, it must have been wonderful to witness the release
he brought to those he cured. But even more wonderful, to the reflective
observer, must have been the perception not so easily identified
but which had the same debilitating effects, and which as effectively
cut off all communication with God.
Even though our society removes from sight the patently deformed,
we are surrounded every day by spiritual cripples, by the blind,
the deaf and the dumb. And to us has been committed the gospel of
reconciliation and of healing. How are we discharging our responsibilities?
How hard are we striving to break down the barriers to communication
which stand between these unfortunate people and the hope of life?
Today is the day of opportunity. But soon that day will be ended.
How then shall we stand?
R.L.
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