I wrote this in June when I was recovering at home after I broke my back in Germany.  I just found it and thought it might be interesting for all those people who ask ‘how’s your back?’ or assume I did it by stagediving during a performance..
Breaking your back is scary as heck, but it teaches you some.  How come I want to get better, but want my mind to stay broken?

Friday
A man in a suit waits for us at Hanover airport, holding a sign;
"Mr Hunter, Mr Pickering".  I'm amused. I've never had the whole 'man holding sign with my name on it at the airport' before, and judging by his smile, neither has Ed.  He leads us to the biggest car I've ever seen, puts our bags in the back and opens the door for us.  The drive to our hotel takes an hour.  I have a DVD player, a seat that I can chill or heat to my comfort, 400 yards of leg room and an envelope full of euros – per diems, they call them.  I look for the drinks cabinet but there is none.  We roll up to our hotel.  The door is opened for us and our bags carried.  We are at the Ritz Carlton.  A bottle of water on room service costs €7.  That evening we perform in front of a full house; a huge venue – converted Power station, with all the requisite pipes and machinery.  They like us – we get a standing ovation.  There is a party afterwards, so we dress up.  Everyone stops and applauds as we walk in.  I eat canapé’s and drink champagne.  I have a VIP tag which gets me free drinks at the bar.   




Saturday

I lie on my back and look at the ceiling.  I can see a strip light and a plastic triangle that I can grab to shift position in bed.  I can't use it yet because I'm not allowed to move.  My dinner, bread and ham, has been cut up for me.  I can't see it because I'm not allowed to move, so I reach over and find each piece on the plate, eating with my hand.  I also have some warm tea.  It's in a beaker with a nozzle, like the one I used to drink orange juice out of when I was a kid.  I have to rest it on my cheek and tip it sideways to drink as I’m not allowed to move my head.  The contrast with yesterday doesn’t escape me.
A nurse comes in and hands me a phone, along with a torrent of German.  I can't speak German.  It's my mother.  I tell her I'm OK.  They're flying out here on Monday.  She tells me that many people are praying for me.  So many people doing so many things on my behalf.  What have I done to deserve all this kindness?  The nurse has to take the phone back.  I say goodbye and feel like crying.  I’m grateful I can move my arms and feet, but what’s going to happen to me?  I can't do anything.  I can't even lie on my side.  I realise I’m helpless.

I fell from the stage during tech.  I wanted to see what our drums looked like with the current lighting set-up.  I walked downstage, fiercely bright lights at the sides.  Too bright to see properly, so I go further, bright again, bright again, until the last set.  I turn, but there is nothing under my feet.  I land hard and know immediately that something is very wrong.  My back, my back.  I’m not going to be able to perform tonight.
My face is sideways on the ground.  I can see only a small section of floor, like the view from a dropped video camera.  Oh God, be with me, my back.  Can I move my toes?  Yes.  Don’t panic.  There are now people all around, though I can’t see them.  They are telling me not to move, to breathe slowly, because my breath is coming in gasps.  Someone is running their fingers through my hair and telling me it’ll be OK.  A boot appears in my field of vision.  Paramedics.  I don’t speak German.  Yes I can move my feet, yes I can feel that, and that, yes and that.  No, no pain anywhere else.  Please don’t move me, it hurts when I move.  They lift me onto a stretcher anyway and start to wheel me.  Pipes on the ceiling, an industrial elevator.  Fresh air, an ambulance.  Who is coming with me? 
  A doctor leans over me – he smiles, I grimace.  “You want some drugs?” he asks.  Of course I do.  He smiles again.  “I think you enjoy this?” he says, depressing a needle into my arm.  Woh.  Apparently I went cross eyed – great stuff morphine.  We arrive and I’m wheeled into the hospital.  The strip lights on the ceiling sail by – just like on ER.  I am x rayed and CT’d.  One of my vertebrae has collapsed and I’ll need surgery to repair it.

In a Christian community, I thought ‘broken’ was an overused word, conjuring up pictures of people prostrate on the ground – it made me nervous and saw it as a state you have to work yourself into, preferably with the help of a good worship band.  But brokenness simply realising that you’re not all powerful, but in fact nothing without Christ.  Lying in bed, unable to do jack, I realise that I can, perhaps for the first time, say that I’m broken and mean it.  I always said it, but of course, I was plenty without Christ – I could do lots of stuff without Christ, and did.  God needs men who are desperate for him, and a sure sign of that is that they are desperate without him.  When life goes well, I am neither.
So how can I hold on to that which I’ve realised is right?  How can I think of myself as nothing apart from Christ, with all the things that I have and do, and want, and ‘need’ because my contemporaries have them and I’m afraid of falling behind?
How can any of us?