Scarlet Fever, Tikkun Oman, and Spiritual Practices that Help us Survive Part 2

When my dad was a little guy, just 6 years old, his world ended! Why? Well, there was an outbreak of Scarlet Fever in the little town of Harrisburg and somehow my dad contacted it! His mom, understandably concerned, called the doctor and before my dad knew it, the police were on the front porch taking out a huge “Quarantined! Stay away!" sign and pounding it above the McBride front door.  Along with the sign came two giant yellow x's on each side of the sign! My dad’s life, as he knew it was over!

Because of that sign, not only was Dad's family covered in shame and ostracized by the community, but my dad, being just a first grader, was suddenly removed from everything he loved about life! It was the perfect escape from the life of poverty that so many lived through in the dirty '30's. At school my dad loved recess because at recess dad was the king at playing

“kick the can”! He loved being “it” and catching everyone. He didn't have his older brother, George, taking up the number one spot. In first grade recess, he was number one! And he wasn't just number one during recess, Dad was learning that he was a gifted student who was particularly good at spelling.  He had won the weekly spelling bee in first grade for 8 weeks straight! A record according to his teacher! Dad was living his best life!

Everything was great until late January of 1935. That morning Dad woke up with a scratchy throat and a fever. Grandma, concerned, called the doctor, and, get this, dad was quarentined in his house from that day until 7th birthday on the 4th of March in 1935. All through the winter of 1935...stuck in the house with nothing to do but get over this horrible condition called Scarlet Fever.

Luckily for dad, he had the best friend a first grader could ever have...Dean Coppler.  Every day after school, even when the snow was a foot high and the mercury dipped below 0, Ted would come by, stand right under Dad’s bedroom window (Dad’s room was upstairs), and tell Dad everything that was going on in the real world he so desperately yearned for. Dean would tell him everything! Who was holding hands with who during lunch. Who had to sit in the corner and wear a dunce cap (yes, they actually had one of those!).  Who won the spelling B that week. Who was it during "kick the can" during recess.  He even shared the time Ted had lost his glass eye in the bathroom toilet! (Ted had to tell the teacher and the teacher just reached right in there, fished it out, washed it off, and popped it right back in without even a sigh!) Whatever was happening in first grade that day, Ted shared it with Dad.  Why, they even devised a listening device so others couldn’t listen in!  Dad found his can in the kitchen garbage bin, and Dean brought his from home.  Two tin cans and a long piece of string and they were in business! It was just as good as having their own telephone!  

That spring, after 3 months of what my dad called purgatory, the quarantine ended and Dad remembers going to first grade again and on the way home noticing a worn path from the street right outside his house, to the place right under the window where Ted had stood through that cold winter.  It was completely worn to the ground!

Ted didn’t know this back in 1935, but he was participating in what many Jewish folks call the spiritual practice of Tikkun Oman, or what we might call the spiritual practice of participating in the healing of God’s world. The thought behind this practice is that we were all created in God’s image.  And one of the greatest gifts God brings to this world is amazing power to heal.  And so, as people who were created in God’s image, we are being our best self when we are participating in Tikkun Oman, the healing of the world.

I remember Dad telling me this story, and asking me as a kid, "who do you think was happier in this story, Brook, Dean or me?"  And I would always say, “you, Dad!”  I mean Dean’s friendship was such a good gift.  And Dad would say, “maybe your right, but when I talk to my friend Dean about this story, he tells me that it he was the lucky one!" Of course I was surprised by that until Dad shared this: "Doing all that good, being a good friend, helped him through one of the toughest times in his life.  During that time, he had a couple of older brothers who were losing their way. His family was kind of falling apart.  Dean said that if it hadn’t been being needed by me, he probably would have gone that way too.  He always said, ‘helping you, Bob, kind of saved my life. It kept me on the right path.”

May we all learn to embrace the Jewish and Christian practice of “Tikkun Oman”!

Your friend and pastor, thankful for the many “Dean Coppler’s” in my life, Brook