Adjusting to the Pivot Point: "People usually are not big on slow changes, even those that accompany miracles. Take baby steps, friends advise one another sympathetically during difficult life passages, but no one enjoys those halting, faltering, falling-down baby steps. Wobbling and stumbling are less cute when you are not a toddler.".

• Author: Puterbaugh, Dolores T.
• Position: PSYCHOLOGY

IN THE GOSPEL of Mark in the Christian Scriptures, Bartimaeus' sight miraculously is restored by Jesus after the blind man's insistent crying out for pity. An interesting aspect is that Jesus did not presume to know what Bartimaeus wanted when he was hollering for Jesus' attention--his "pity." Jesus asked him what he wanted, and Bartimaeus replied that he wanted to see. Mark tells us that Bartimaeus begged for his means and, after the healing, he "followed Jesus along the road." We do not know for how long, or what the implications might be; like others in Jericho, did he follow along to the edge of town before returning home, fans trailing a celebrity?

We hear no more about Bartimaeus, but that his name is included implies he would have been familiar to at least some in the original audience in the oral tradition that long predated written Gospels. Like Lazarus, he perhaps became a touchstone, a threat, or a wonderment to many, depending on where they stood on Jesus the Nazarene.

Here is my hunch: Bartimaeus went home to his father (Timaeus), mother, and other close relatives. He apparently was an adult, at least over age 13 (or he would have been under the care of the women of the family and not begging by himself) and no doubt behind in learning the skills of adulthood. I wonder: how tolerant was he, and the family, with his fumbling efforts to master the tasks of adulthood? How difficult was it to develop the strength required for labor in that time and place after a life of begging? How did the family deal with the initial blush of fame and its passing? Did the family's patience with his adjustment wear thin, and did he become frustrated when the family, which had functioned around his limitations, sometimes continued to operate as if he were, in effect, invisible? What were the joys and pitfalls of a healed Bartimaeus' reintegration into life?

In the restoration of Bartimaeus' sight we have aspects of the story of every healing from substance abuse, every reintegration into family life after a long absence, every blending of households, every case of medical spontaneous recovery. The most miraculous, the most amazing of life events all require subsequent changes, surrendering some things and gaining others.

A modern Bartimaeus, having the profound experience--the pivot point, as some describe it, in which the decision is made to abandon alcohol or another drug--would think of it as a seismic shift. Afterwards, instantly, for him...