Suferinta umanā (Luca 17)

The pain of rejection (Luke 17).
"You can view disease as a mechanical breakdown of body cells, or you can view it in a broader sense as a state of dis-ease involving body, mind and soul.
Except in very stages, the leprosy patient does not feel physical pain. After leprosy bacilli deaden nerve cells, patients, no longer alert to danger, proceede to damage their own body, like walking all day on a sharp metal screw or scratching an infected eye till loss of vision; but at no point does the leprosy patien hurt.
Though they not hurt, leprosy patients surely suffer, all the pain they feel comes from outside, the pain of rejection, imposed on them by surrounding community.
Dr. Brand told that in the course of the examination of a sick man in India, he laid his hand on his shoulder.
To his surprise, the man began to shake with muffled sobs.
- Have I said something wrong?
- No, doctor, the translaor said. He is crying because you put your hand around his shoulder. Until he came here, no one had touched him for many years!" (Philip Yancey)

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