Of healing builders

Last week I went to see a healer. He's a little builder with a strange nickname beginning with P (best not say what for reasons of confidentiality) who has only recently discovered that he has powers of healing, and he came highly recommended. So there we were, P and I, in the middle of this building site, surrounded by burly men with wheelbarrows, with P's hand on my bottom (or thereabouts) and P telling me how he goes to Heaven on Saturday afternoons, and yes, there is a Hell, he's seen it too ("you don't want to go there," says P. Too right I don't), and in about a week I'll be healed. Afterwards, he gave me a hug and sent me on my way. A week later, I'm not healed. Not at all. And have been gullible enough to be a bit disappointed. My daughter, who is even more gullible, is even more disappointed (although P appears to have been able to heal her), and my scientific sons, one of whom is a doctor, who were very cynical about the whole thing, have been kind enough not to enquire. So I shall have to resort to normal medicine and have an operation, which is a nuisance. But I am bemused by P and his tales of Heaven and Hell and his assurances that everything will be All Right In The End (unless you're a paedophile, says P, although I think this bit may just be wishful thinking on the part of P). A bit of me believes in P, and quite a lot of me doesn't. But all these builders, busy building things while P heals people, seem to believe in him, because he appears to have healed most of them in some way or another. So why not me? It's all very odd.