March 12th, 2024
Read Pray Write
Spending some time with a scriptural passage and expressing my response poetically is a fruitful practice for me both spiritually and artistically. After praying with, studying and writing a response to today’s Gospel–the encounter at Bethesda–I have found the story lodged more deeply in my heart. I pray it will move me to stop sitting at the edge.
Healing at Bethesda: John 5:1-16
I have been here for years, really most of my life.
I sit at the place of ritual, at the edge
of the mikveh, one of many. The sun beats down.
We move all day from sun to shade below columned
porticoes, we wait and watch each other, some slumped
and puddled on the stone ledges, ragged garments
twisted around gnarled limbs, others dragging themselves
through dust, or those who have been carried here – cared for
by relatives – re-clothed and basking in new warmth
after their immersion. Those lucky ones. No one
helps me scan the pool’s surface for the stirring up
of spirit that means Enter now! the next to plunge
will be cured! Always, someone else gets down there
before me. I have said this for thirty-eight years.
Today, a stranger asked, Do you want to be well?
I have been here for years, really most of my life.
I sit at the place of ritual, at the edge
of healing, but someone else gets down there before
me. It is hardly my fault. I am forever
sitting at the place of ritual, at the edge.
The stranger says, Rise, take up your mat, and walk.
And I do. Away from the place of encounter,
but unwashed. Cured without the stirring up, the codes
and protocols that kept me sitting at the place
of ritual, at the edge of living. I breathe
the spring air. I stop to savor the crusts of bread
baked yesterday, but I carry my mat and walk
through the city.
Oh, there will be more stirring up
to come over rules and laws, the way things are done.
But I am walking. His name was Jesus. He told
me that I am well. I will not sin any more.
I will not simply sit at the edge.
As I read and re-read this story, I listened for the words, phrases and images that spoke most powerfully to me. I also did a little research, which is not a necessary part of lectio divina. But as a professor of medieval literature, I am acutely aware that my ability to hear resonances or to make connections across the biblical books and patristic commentaries lacks the depth that monastics develop over lifetimes of studying and reading scripture. In my research, I learned that the protocol at Bethesda, as described in this reading, was, when the water was stirred up, the next person to enter it will be healed—but only that one person! The man’s words “Someone else gets down there before me” echoed in my mind.
I read one commentary that saw the five porticoes of the pool at Bethesda as a figure for the five senses. This felt like an invitation to incorporate Ignatian practices of imaginative prayer into my reflection. I tried to draw on all five senses in my poem to inhabit the scene.
I was struck by the man’s plaintive response to the simple question Jesus asks: Do you want to be well? I reflected on the excuses I make for sitting on the edge rather than plunging in—my excuses for why now is not the right moment to do decisively what I say I desire: to follow Jesus.
Mia Schilling Grogan is an Associate Professor of English at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals including America, Presence, Dappled Things and The Christian Century.