Monday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/013012.cfm

In table conversation one of the friars spoke of a "goat shepherd." The word you are looking for, I told him, is goatherd. "Oh my gosh," he said, "Goatherd, of course, as in 'High on a hill was a lonely goatherd, lay odl lay odl lay hee hoo.'" 
There are swineherds too, as we hear in today's gospel. And cowherds. But no catherds. I thought you'd like to know. 


As David was approaching Bahurim,
a man named Shimei, the son of Gera
of the same clan as Saul's family,
was coming out of the place, cursing as he came.
He threw stones at David and at all the king's officers,
even though all the soldiers, including the royal guard,
were on David's right and on his left.


In both readings today we encounter an insane man, and in both stories we hear of  compassion for  him. 

I often visit the psychiatric ward at the VA hospital and have gotten to know many of the Veterans. Over the past four years I have seen several men come back repeatedly. They're hardly gone two weeks before their back again. Sometimes we chaplains wonder if there is more we could and should do for these suffering individuals. Clearly, there is not much they can do for themselves. They're hardly out  in the increasingly complex world of joblessness and family dysfunction before their back again. Sometime we wonder if a cure will ever be found for bi-polar disorder, the current word for schizophrenia. 

But the older I get and  the more I see, the more I suspect that everyone is just a little bit crazy, and many are more than a little bit. Having been three times treated for mental illness, (and needing it on at least  two other occasions,) I have seen a lot of that other side of life. 

If everyone is a little bit crazy,  perhaps that madness is what makes us truly human. Much to the disappointment of philosophers, we are neither homo sapiens nor homo economicus. We waste a lot; we go off on foolish ventures; we eat the wrong stuff, drink the wrong stuff, and glut ourselves with bizarre ideas. Who first thought of building a boat and sailing over the horizon? What was he thinking? But he found Alaska and Australia and Hawaii. Who built a tower so high as to defy God, and ended up babbling in a thousand foreign languages? But each language is beautiful in its own way. Who really believes there is a reason to go to Mars, or that we might populate exoplanets? But we'll do it, or try to do it, and think of a reason later on! 

Insanity is what makes the human being creative, charming, desirable and beautiful in God's sight. 

In the meanwhile, we need these madmen and madwomen among us. They are us, and showing  compassion to them is self-compassion. Both David and Jesus felt deeply for these suffering  souls, for they recognized tormented brothers just like themselves: 

‘Amen, I say to you, what you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’