TGIF
Jason Pierre-Paul is a defensive end for the N.Y. Giants…a football player.
A very good football player…at least he was before the 4th of July.
On the 4th of July he arranged to have a U-Haul full of fireworks brought to his residence for the annual celebration.
Some of those fireworks ended the celebration by blowing most of his right hand off.
That’s hard to write, let alone think about very long.
The rest of the JPP story should be about his recovery, rehab, and hopefully,his return to the field.
That’s only been part of the story, though.
The bigger, sicker, part of the story has been about people wanting to see his (now mangled) hand.
News outlets have been frantically competing to be the first to have a picture of the results of the awful accident.
JPP has been understandably reticent about showing them…he has not healed either physically or emotionally from the trauma experienced.
We don’t care.
We want to see his wounds.
It is a vulgar and cruel desire.
It is not enough to hear of them…no, he must show them.
We do not want to view them out of any love or concern for him.
We want to see them to mock them, make jokes about them, and discuss them as if we knew what it was like to carry them.
We will hound him until he acquiesces, irregardless of the personal cost to him.
Once our curiosity has been satisfied and all the mockery made that can be made, we will expect his recovery.
If he tarries in getting well, we will move on to the next victim.
We will move on, but he will live with his wounds forever.
We do the same thing to each other in our families and sadly, in the church.
We see those who have wounded themselves carelessly through sin or have been wounded by the careless sin of others and we demand a showing.
We do not want to see the damage to out of love or concern, but to judge.
If they do not recover quickly or well, they too are disposed of.
In the scriptures, Thomas wanted to see the wounds of his Lord.
His was a different demand because he knew that those were the scars that provided his own healing.
Thomas didn’t have to wait for anyone to find a drawing of Jesus’s wounds… the Lord came Himself and displayed them for him.
Jesus still comes to show them.
He comes in the midst of the mockery and judgment, He comes to you with his wounds.
He comes to heal.
Show Him yours…He’ll show you His.
Blessed are those who believe without seeing..
Make your own application…
Interesting. As a Cowboys fan one of my concerns has been whether he will return and how good he will be when he does. I don’t like to look at human injuries so I’m not curious about what it looks like, but my lovely wife likes to watch surgery shows. She would probably want to see it.
One thing I see a lot of is a rush to judge harshly those who get hurt or killed while participating in risky activity they enjoy. Get hurt riding a motorcycle? Your fault. Eaten by a shark? Your fault. Fireworks injury? JPP’s fault. Rock climbing fall? Your fault. Skateboarding? Deserved it.
One of the most disgusting displays of this I’ve ever seen just happened and I watched it play out over Facebook. Little boy at the beach in So Cal goes missing. They eventually find his body in the water. My community Facebook feed lights up with Mr and Mrs. Judgy Judgerson blaming the family. “I would never let my child out of my sight at the beach…” “What kind of parent…” The body of the child is still wet.
Anything to prove to ourselves that we aren’t first in line for hell.
FT,
Too true…
Strange story, I did not see your particular take but do see it now. It is hard to imagine that the loss of a digit or more has made him unable to play ball. So part of the interest is not seeing the wound but simply that the story makes no sense.
Obviously the whole hand has suffered damage and he has no strength or grip.
Then there is just the idiot side of the whole thing of grown men doing such antics.
As a Giants fan I just wanted him to recover and play. I have not given the visual a thought.
Until Now Dread
BD,
I think that voyeurism of the broken is ingrained in our culture.
Many people are too young to remember this, but when I was a child the National Enquirer was not about celebrities, but about pictures of gruesome wrecks and tragedies.
My grandfather loved it and I had a terrible fear and revulsion toward it even then.
Flash Turbo,
There is one part of your comment with which I take significant umbrage. That part about being a Cowboys fan…. 😛
Dread comes a close second with his Giants fandom. But I guess he can be partially excused because of his Manning infatuation. 🙂
But as to what is the real story of this thread, the obsession to have to get a picture of JPP’s hand out there in the public and for everyone to need to see it is just sad. Symptomatic of a society that does need to be healed.
Am I the only one who looked at the picture?
Cause I did.
And I didn’t feel bad about it.
Til now. 🙂
“ingrained in our culture”? maybe… there used to be sideshows that traveled with the circuses long ago… i supposed the two headed man or the bearded lady isn’t quite the same thing… i do know that when a loved one is mangled or killed the impulse is to shield them from public view…… systemic? have to think on this blog post awhile…….
Josh,
I can’t handle stuff like that…just can’t.
Couldn’t dissect little animals in school either…
Josh,
I looked at the picture, too, because it was right there in front of me. I could have chosen to look away.
I think the bigger problem is the obsession there has been by some to try to get a picture in the public and the obsession by some to want to see a picture. If we go by a car wreck, it is human nature to try to see what happened. When we are intentionally seeking out car wrecks to see them or display them, then we have a problem.
It is not so much as seeing the picture, as it telling some one that you saw his mangled hand and did they and what did they think?
“Oh you didn’t see it? Well here let me show you, much like did you see the mangled image of former Triathlete Bruce Jenner. “Did you see Bruce Jenner in his dress?” Well here let me show you,
The more we see the more we can tell, the more knowledge we seem to have. Much like TMZ, or Druge, first to report seems to be the smartest and garners the most attention.
We as a culture are attention whores, (pardon my french), selfies, selfie sticks, taking pictures of our meals, what we are wearing what our kids are doing; ice bucket challenges; cinnamon challenges etc.
I sit in church and try to reflect before the service and there are people tagging “in church” on Facebook, taking selfies in the sanctuary…
This whole media attention, instant celebrity status is going to turn out bad.
Biblically speaking I quote Luke 9:35 and Proverbs 13:20.
I apologize for my rant
Sorry Luke 9:25
Charles,
No apology needed…that’s a good word.
Charles is correct.
the people you describe have not learned empathy nor sympathy. until one matures enough to recognize suffering & feel with or for the other, the pain of others will simply be a curiosity at best, entertainment at worst.
how different Jesus is–transformative rather than voyeuristic, vulnerable rather than judgmental, prototypical rather than sympathetic.
Filberts,
A good word as well…we miss you.
Thank you for a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece. Convicting.
Thank you, Donner. 🙂
When I was 13 I stood at shortstop in front of a rocket of a one-hop line drive off the bat of one of the best 15 year olds in the league that bounced in the dirt once a couple feet in front of me, intending my only hope, knock it down with the body and try to pick it up in time to make a throw.
The ball shot up right into my mouth, knocking my front teeth into the back of my mouth by over half an inch. My braces kept them attached but cut my lips up and I was bleeding like a stuck pig (and was afraid to spit for fear of dislodging the teeth). Quite a scene for the fans in attendance (and my parents and teammates).
Glendale youth baseball was quite the community in those days, especially with the guys like me who lived at the park. I don’t know if I met anyone (peer or parent) over the next week or two who did not ask me about the injury and how I was doing.
But here is the thing. After the immediate ER trip was over (and before six months of liquids and mini-sized bites of food) my pride made me enjoy showing the wound. I was injured in battle so to speak, head down and not running away from the ball. Lots of folks asked me to open my mouth but I probably showed my teeth to many people who asked how I was but did not ask to see too.
Sometimes we crave seeing others’ wounds, especially those hesitant to display them as Michael wrote. The other side of the coin is sometimes people who are going to be just fine still relish in telling us all about their wounds, taking pride in what they went through…even when we would rather not continue to see them….like I am sure at least a few of the folks I showed my rather ugly mouth to back in the day…
filbertz (or anyone smarter than me here) i need some help
“prototypical rather than sympathetic.” ..?… empathetical, i would understand, but what does prototypical as opposed to sympathetic mean?
Steve, that was a good amendment to Michael’s article.
I am sorry but it only reinforces my thinking that certain athletes are not to bright.
Of which i am one of them.
Jeff Smith and i were playing racket bll at OC college’s courts during the racketball craze of 1975.
I turned my head to look back at him and see what he was doing and he smashed the ball into my left eye hard.
I couldn’t see for awhile and got a nice shiner.
That is when I learned that your always supposed to put up your racket and look through it for protection.
By the way…absolutely no one could beat Jeff Smith or Gary Garcia at Racketball.
Those two guys ruled the court back in the day!
Talk about competitive athletes.
Saw Kobe Bryant and AC Green at my gym a time or two.
Even shot baskets with Green once. (A Christian)
I can assure you that they are mere men. Green is really tall and very friendly.
Kobe not so much, projects attitude…
The NFL’s Most Notorious Underachiever Wants A Doctorate In Psychology
http://www.buzzfeed.com/lindseyadler/the-nfls-most-notorious-underachiever-wants-a-doctorate-in-p#.ayDv03JKd9