Institutions do that too, including church bodies. Far too easily they can take a point of institutional vulnerability and so allow that to grab hold of them that they can only see themselves through the lenses of that vulnerability. They then shift into a survival mentality and regularly shoot themselves in the foot, failing to see that their vulnerability might also be a strength.

Case in point: our congregation. Our supposed vulnerability? An older congregation. Our mean age is found somewhere in the second half of life. There is a tendency to apologize for that fact and present ourselves as tainted. But wait! Why is there necessarily something wrong with being old? And why is there necessarily something right with being young? Can there not be blessings aplenty when young people are befriended by an older congregation composed of men and women who know much about the life process and who in love can share their insights with those at an earlier point in that process?

II

After a time when individuals and institutions continually announce what's wrong with themselves, others get tired of it. Have you not sat with someone for the fifteenth time, heard again about their embroiled gallbladder for which they have refused to take necessary precautions and treatment, and wanted to scream? When this tendency is taken to the extreme we have the hypochondriac who imagines that he is sick and insists on announcing this to the whole world ad nauseum. The extreme within hypochondriasis is one who manifests what is known as the Munchausen syndrome, which finds people feigning illnesses so they can enter the hospital. One man was so adroit at complaining about abdominal pain, vomiting and seizures, that he was hospitalized more than 400 times and submitted to 102 gastrointestinal tests.

Pull this enough and people will react as they did to Bartimaeus that day long ago:

Many of the people scolded him and told him to be quiet. But he shouted even more loudly, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"

Longfellow's mind translated this turn in the story as follows:

The thronging multitudes increase;

Blind Bartimaeus, hold thy peace!

But still, above the noisy crowd,

The beggar's cry is shrill and loud;

Until they say, "He calleth thee!"

"Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee."

III

For Bartimaeus illness has been a way of life, but a change appears on the horizon -- the beginning of redefinition. Bartimaeus who had seen, but became blind, wants to see again. Longfellow continues:

Then saith the Christ, as silent stands

The crowd, '"What wilt thou at my hands?"

And he replies, "O, give me light!

Rabbi, restore the blind man's sight."

And Jesus answers, "Go thy way;

Thy faith hath made thee whole."

The redefinition becomes complete. No longer blind Bartimaeus, but sighted Bartimaeus.

We have a friend who lost the sight in one eye when he was quite young. His parents were having a new roof put on their home and Wayne happened to raise his head to watch the proceedings when a shingle being thrown off the roof hit him in one of his eyes. He became blind and doctors in the 50s offered him no hope of restored vision. Wayne learned to rely on one eye and made his peace with what had happened.