Thornton Wilder's short play, The Angel that Troubled the Waters" is based on a Biblical story (John Chapter 5). The blind and lame and otherwise damaged would gather at a famous pool to await an angel who might come to stir the waters, and it was said that the first to get in would be healed. In Wilder's play, a newcomer arrives among those who regularly wait and hope, a medical doctor himself, looking whole and healthy. The legendary angel suddenly arrives and challenges this man as to why he's there. He answers to point to a deep inner wound:
"Surely, surely, the angels are wise. Surely, O, Prince, you are not deceived by my apparent wholeness. Your eyes can see the nets in which my wings are caught; the sin into which all my endeavors sink half-performed cannot be concealed from you."
The angel says simply, "I know."
The doctor then renews his plea, and the angel explains:
"Without your wound where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love's service, only the wounded soldiers can serve. Draw back."
The water is stirred and many leap or tumble into the pool and are healed, jumping for joy and showing their former deformities that are now made whole. One of the healed, the first who threw himself into the water, now turns to the silent doctor and says:
"May you be next, my brother. But come with me first, an hour only, to my home. My son is lost in dark thoughts. I—I do not understand him and only you have ever lifted his mood. Only an hour ... my daughter since her child has died, sits in the shadow. She will not listen to us ..."
And the play ends. Pictured, a rare 1928 copy that I found online, cheaper than a used paperback, and on the front page, it was inscribed by Wilder. Meant for me. And you. Wounded healers.
