Molokai - Issue #20
As many of you know, I have felt physically unwell for over a month. During one of my days stuck in bed, I began searching for something to watch on Prime Video. I stumbled across a film called Molokai: The Story of Father Damien and became intrigued. I don't know how accurate the account is. I am no expert in Hawaiian history. But I have yet to watch something in it that I have not read from historical sources that I have found.
Trying to preserve its tourist destination status and profitable trade in the mid 1800s, the Hawaiian government began rounding up those afflicted with leprosy, separating them from their families (yes, even small children), and shipping them off to the island of Molokai. According to one account I read, the ships often didn't land and pushed the patients overboard to swim to shore the best they could. Conditions were horrifying. No hospitals, no medical care, not enough housing to go around, barely enough food, and no one brave enough to enforce the law. The strong abused the weak, stole their food rations, and bought and sold young women.
Take a moment to imagine the stench of such a place, the despair, the anger, the bitterness, the frantic hedonism to dull the pain and distract from the inevitable.
Into this morass walked Father Damien, a young priest who volunteered for the mission. He was given strict instructions to minister to the souls of the sick and do what else he could for them...but NOT to touch them.
One of the scenes in the film will probably stay with me my entire life. Father Damien was told of a house of ill-repute, run by some of the worst offenders on the island who brought young women there against their will, got them drunk or high, and abused them. Father Damien went there immediately, stopped the raucous party with a stern rebuke, and called the young women to leave with him, which they did.
In an attempt to frighten and intimidate the priest, some of the stronger men carried a horribly disfigured man, named Jimi, to him. With a big grin and his face full of open wounds, Jimi leaned in and kissed Father Damien on the cheek. Instead of recoiling in horror, Damien looked into Jimi's eyes, rested the man's head on his own shoulder, and embraced him.
"I cannot know your pain except in my heart," he said. "But there is a God, I know that. If you believe in Him, you feel him."
In that moment, despite the fact that I am by no means Catholic, I thought to myself, "I must be like Father Damien. Because he looks like my Savior."
After twelve years on the island, Damien contracted the illness and died. But because of his sacrifice, people in the land of the living couldn't ignore those few hundreds of souls suffering in agony far away from the eyes of society. Reforms came about because of his work. Laws were changed...much too late, but eventually. Living conditions improved. More importantly, his work gave those people hope. He gave them what they most craved--human touch and love.
Now...I want you to think about something.
We just spent two years with the Covid pandemic dominating the news. Covid is much easier to contract than leprosy, believe it or not. But it's less lethal than untreated leprosy. Without dapsone, rifampicin, and cofazimine, anyone diagnosed with leprosy will die...in every case. I got Covid, had no treatment, and recovered. Many people did die of Covid, but the vast majority contracted it and recovered.
Given those facts, ask yourself how many Christians you know during the height of the Covid fears, acted like Father Damien...like Christ. How many well-known Christian pastors, teachers, and leaders acted like Father Damien...like Christ.
Because, in all of today's Christianity, I estimate that about 20% or less did.
Why?
In the next couple of weeks, I will write a blog post detailing the reasons I believe caused this failure, and why the past two years in particular have hounded me like nothing else to finish 27.
Until next time, folks.