Jesus in The Speed of Dark

Still listening to The Speed of Dark. In the part I listened to tonight, Lou has gone to church, where the gospel reading is about the blind man at the pool who was asked by Jesus if he wanted to be healed. Lou has been trying to decide if he should undergo a treatment that will make him "normal" instead of autistic, and when he hears this reading he's struck by what Jesus' question seems to imply ....

I believe in God the Father, maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things seen and unseen ... And I believe in his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, who actually in the flesh asked that question of the man by the pool. The man that perhaps -- the story does not say -- had gone there because people were tired of him being sick and disabled, who perhaps had been content to lie down all day, but he got in the way. What would Jesus have done if the man had said, "No. I don't want to be healed. I am quite content as I am." If he had said, "There is nothing wrong with me, but my relatives and neighbors insisted I come." .... Jesus might still think the man needed to be able to get up and walk. Maybe God thinks I would be better if I weren't autistic. Maybe God wants me to take the treatment. I am cold suddenly. Here I have felt accepted, accepted by God, accepted by the priest and the people, or mot of them. God does not spurn the blind, the deaf, the paralyzed, the crazy. That is what I have been taught and what I believe, but what if I am wrong? What if God wants me to be something other than I am?


- The Pool of Bethesda, Robert Bateman