There is a MASH episode that finds Hawkeye on a bus with South Korean refugees. The bus comes very close to some North Korean soldiers and, in order to avoid being discovered, the driver drives it off the road and hides it behind some bushes. They are still within earshot of the North Koreans, though, and Hawkeye directs a South Korean mother to keep her infant from crying. The crying ceases and the danger passes.

Following this, Hawkeye becomes emotionally distraught and needs treatment. Here's the rub: Hawkeye's malaise is related to the incident on the bus which he remembers as involving a woman and a chicken. He remembers the woman smothering the chicken to death. Through treatment he rediscovers that in reality the mother had smothered her baby to death, but it was such a horrendously awful incident that his mind chose to remember the infant as a chicken. For a time Hawkeye was blind to what had occurred.

Something equally traumatic may have happened to Bartimaeus whose story we have just heard. Perchance he suffered from hysterial blindness -- blindness with no organic base. We are left to conjecture because Mark tells us precious little about this man, but what we are given was enough to motivate Longfellow to write a poem he titled "Blind Bartimaeus." His words, under the date November 3, 1841, are directed to a Mr. Ward:

I was reading morning, just after breakfast, the tenth chapter of Mark, in Greek, the last seven verses of which contain the story of blind Bartimaeus, and always seemed remarkable for their beauty. At once the whole scene presented itself to my mind in lively colors, -- the walls of Jericho, the cold wind through the gateway, the ragged, blind beggar, his shrill cry, the tumultuous crowd, the serene Christ, the miracle ... (The Complete Poetical Works of Longfellow, p. 17).

The little that is in the story still offers significant yield.

I

Longfellow's poem begins:

Blind Bartimaeus at the gates

Of Jericho in darkness waits;

he hears the crowd: -- he hears a breath

Say, "It is Christ of Nazareth!"

And calls, in tones of agony,

"Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me."

It isn't hard to imagine that the opening scene was the chronic one -- Bartimaeus sitting by the road begging; Bartimaeus defined by what was wrong with him -- his inability to see. He wasn't Bartimaeus who had a good ear for music, or a talent for cooking, or an ability to analyze or synthesize, or a penchant for administration. No. He was Bartimaeus who presented himself on the basis of a deficit. Here I am world, Bartimaeus the blind man.

Chances are, we have all known people like that. We listen to Mary, who has experienced a failure but who now defines herself as a failure. She has turned her life into a walking, talking failure. John discloses the agony he and his wife have known because of a son who has had great trouble getting airborne and the more he talks, the more we realize that he has measured and defined their entire life on the basis of his son's developmental struggles. In his mind, it has erased many other notable and worthy areas in their common life and separate lives.