The Journey 149

Read: 2 Kings 5: 1-27

Two days back as I was driving, I heard the a strange news reported by the Christian FM Music station K Love about a man who made funny self portraits of himself, so that his wife could laugh looking at the portraits. But why was he doing this. This  made me do some research and this research led me to a news about a man, a husband who is doing innovative ways, to help his wife fight cancer and also empower other woman to do the same. The name of this person is Bob Carey and his wife is Linda. They had moved to New York early this decade. A few years later Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer. Linda overcame cancer but it recurred back again later.  This encounter with the cancer changed both the perspectives of Bob and Linda. As Linda underwent chemo therapy, both Bob and Linda, realized that life was hard, and sometimes dealing with life could also be hard and hence the best thing to do in order to face crisis and sickness is to deal with it in the most innovative way. According to Bob, the most innovative way to is laugh at ourselves and share a laugh with others.  This made Bob to do self portraits of himself, in tutu images. What is a tutu images? It is photographing oneself with a pink tutu, which is normally a costume wore by young girls. Bob would wear that pink tutu without a shirt and photograph himself gallivanting around public places like parks, beaches, amusement parks, subway station, thus photographing himself to create laughter around especially to his ailing wife through silliness and an element of wonder and sometimes some people may term as little off board. But there was an overwhelming response to these photographs of Bob in his pink tutu. This  made Bob to create the TUTU project. He has now  moved a step further and has made a book titled “ Ballerina” with all his tutu images so that he can raise about $75,000, to help a breast cancer organization. Here is man who takes the most innovative ways,  or may be as some says the craziest thing to do– but the goal was so noble– laugh and make others laugh so that pain and suffering could be faced with smiles. Bob is helping his wife to face crisis of cancer through laughter and tutu images,  but as Christian I believe the Word of God gives us  more powerful source of strength and hope to face the crisis in life more than the laughter medicine. This week we are meditating on the theme “ Transformation in the life of sick and suffering”. The portion that we are going to meditate is from 2 Kings 5: 1-27. Here is a passage which describes the suffering of Naman who has leprosy and how a young slave girl becomes a channel for his healing.  When the slave girl realized that her master had leprosy, she tells Naman’s wife that he would be healed of leprosy only if he goes and meets the prophet who is in Samaria [ 2 Kings 5: 3]. It is this small but significant news that makes Naman to  prepare himself to go to Samaria to meet the prophet Elisha.  Here is a slave girl who is a captive in the house of the commander Naman, yet she paves way and becomes a channel of hope to Naman. What she does is to help Naman connect with the prophet Elisha and in that way connect himself to the Almighty God who is the source of healing. What the world needs from us is becoming pointers for our Lord or making ourselves a channel so that people who are going through crisis and suffering can encounter our risen Lord in their life and through that encounter receive strength and grace to face the challenges of life. Bob did tutu images so that his wife could receive strength to face the crisis in life. That was Bob’s way of helping his wife. But the question is what is your way of helping others so that you can become a channel of hope and healing in the life of others.