Matthew 8: The Green Mile

Reading Matthew 8, I got a mental picture of Michael Clark Duncan's 'John Coffey' healing the enlarged prostate of Tom Hanks' 'Paul Edgecomb.' I wouldn't say "The Green Mile" is a favorite of mine, but there's something about the story . . . the holiness of Coffey and the supernatural healing powers of him. As I'm thinking about it, I'm sure reviewers compared the wrongly judged Coffey and his execution to the life and death of J.C. long before now, but it's new to me.

Are there J.C.'s among us? I don't know. I've heard of mystical healing, but I've never experienced it myself. And I don't believe in praying for it, either. I don't believe in a God that selects one man over another, letting one human recover and another perish. I don't believe that if I pray hard enough, my dad's cancer will vanish, or that if he dies, it would be because I didn't petition the Heavens with enough gusto or belief.

Just like I cannot take away my childrens' pain, my Creator cannot reverse mine. I know people who claim God healed them, cured their cancer, took away their disease. But me? I have had no such earth quakey-like happenings, but I will say I've experienced pronounced change subtly, over a period of time. I'm sure if someone compared today's Me to the Me of say, 7 years ago, they'd see a pretty miraculous difference. Did I make that happen? Doubtful, there's no way in hell I could've lived any differently.

But today's reality is pretty different then the reality I was in a mere 7 years ago. I am living an amazing life today because something happened . . . something woke me up . . . something gave me the strength to grab hold of a different mode of operation. And as a result of this "something," the leprosy of my soul continues to decrease. Did I do that? Could I have effected that kind of change? Not a chance.

Hmmm. So maybe J.C. did do that stuff, maybe Chapter 8 isn't a bunch of hooey. Weird.