But the story of the invalid raises another concern that can only be addressed if we consider all the characters as parts of a single self. In this context, the Jesus-self asks the invalid-self, “Do you want to be healed?” The invalid-self complains that he can’t make it to the healing waters because all the other parts of his self push him out of the way. What unfolds is an intra-psychic play within a single soul. The divine light within asks the chronically weary part of us, “Do you want to be whole?” The frail and crumbling self complains that all the other aspects of his self come first. The spirit in us asks the wounded in us, “Do you want to be whole?” But we put aside our deepest sensitivities in order to maintain the victim’s thrill of emergency. Our inner voice asks our most confused and hidden self one more time, “Do you want to be whole?” But divided into suppressed parts, we hesitate and turn away, while the ounce of God’s Being living in our center whispers firmly, “There are no contingencies, no bargaining-ifs, no need of troubled waters. If you want to be whole, simply lift your pallet and walk.”

So lifting our pallet seems crucial to assembling the many parts within us into an integrated whole. What can this mean? The definitions of the word pallet seem to be voices in a song. The ancient definition is that of a narrow, hard bed or straw-filled mattress, which comes from the Latin, palea, meaning chaff. So lift up your chaff and walk. Discard your excess and be whole. Separate your husks from your seed and be. The evolution of definitions is also helpful. Pallet, a portable platform for storing cargo. Lift up your portable platform and begin to heal. Stop trying to take everything, material and not, with you. Give up trying to save and hoard everything you experience and become holy. Pallet, a tool used in applying gold leaf. Lift up your gilding tool and walk. Experience rather than name. Hold rather than value. Embrace rather than assess. Pallet, a wooden potter’s tool for shaping clay. Lift up your shaping tool and allow yourself to be shaped. And so, the ancient voices sing: Stop interfering and let things mix as they will. Stop controlling and excluding. Be direct and walk among the living.

The parable from John acknowledges the inevitable role of crisis in our lives while hinting at the dormant power of being. The parable suggests that when in pain we isolate our frailest aspects from the light, which light alone will strengthen. And the obstacles to wholeness that we perpetuate consist of the chaff we wrap ourselves in, the baggage we insist on lugging around, the names we delude ourselves with, the very mind we try to control events with, and the civilized gestures with which we divert the direct energies of life.