It’s right there– just where I can’t reach it. That agonisingly irritating itch… my world is getting smaller every second as that ITCH is taking over my mind, my consciousness, my everything.
Oh, to be able to scratch, just at that spot, I can’t think about anything else, itch, itch, itch. It’s torture. Shpoulodn’t – arrgh, see what it’s done to my spelling! Shouldn’t be allowed. Itches should be outlawed- ah, relief, that ruler is just long enough, I can scratch it, yes, yes, it’s bliss, it’s DONE.
You may not be quite as O.T.T. as me. Perhaps you’re the strong silent type who can ignore itches. If that’s so, we can’t be friends! Unless you know the satisfaction of a scratched itch, you can’t be real.
I’m joking. I think.
Admit it- did you or did you not start to itch when I described my itchy crisis? Are your fingernails busy chasing that itch all round your body? Are you now wishing torment upon me for making you suffer?
Why do we itch, anyway? What purpose is served by an itchy cosmos? But, oh, the splendour of a good scratch. Confession time- one of my favourite film sequences is in the original Disney cartoon of “Jungle Book.” Specifically, the bit where where Baloo the bear sings about “Bare Necessities” and uproots a small tree to use as a loofah!
My photo of a scratching hoverfly was taken at Hatfield House. Several bees and hoverflies were smeared with pollen, and had to work furiously to clean themselves up to fly nest-wards. Watching this one complete its toilette took up several fascinated moments (a sad life, I know, but someone has to do it) and quite a few photographs.
Not all itches are bad. I’m told that healing wounds often itch as part of the healing process. (No fun if the itch is inside your plaster cast. Bring out the knitting needles…)
Some kinds of itch have a spiritual connection. Writing to his protege Timothy, the apostle Paul warns about people who look for unusual teachings-
2 Timothy 4:3 (New International Version)
"For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."
Others in the Bible describe their vocation, their Godly calling, to be like a compulsion, a burning, an itch than can only be stopped (scratched!) through obedience.
Jeremiah 20:9 (New Living Translation)
"But if I say I’ll never mention the LORD or speak in his name, his word burns in my heart like a fire. It’s like a fire in my bones! I am worn out trying to hold it in! I can’t do it!"
Just maybe God gives us an “itchy purpose” for the sake of the Kingdom: and our reward is the delight of living that purpose- that’s how that Divine itch is scratched.
Jesus explained it well as the way He (and we) should live:
John 5:19 (New Living Translation)
“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does."
The Reflectionary 