Healing

“Luminous beings are we...not this crude matter.”

“Real health, from a Christian point of view, is coming to the fullness of your vocation as a child of God. It means becoming Christ-like.”

How much does what we believe affect the world around us. If we believe we can feed the five thousand, will it surprise us if we really do? If we believe that we can change who we are- can we (with the help of God)? If we believe we can heal the sick, can we?

What does it mean to be healed? Am I made up of hardware running on some software- and nothing else or am I a flicker of light, reflecting some infinite and incorruptible truth? Am I a little of both? When I dream, am I any less real than when I am awake?

So the question becomes a matter of mechanics, a matter of metaphysics and a leap of faith- that what we really have is a relationship and not just a delusional thought projected onto a canvas that we can put our minds around, identify and box up like a complex logarithm Can prayer really heal a sick body (if we think it can) - surely yes. Can a prayer really heal a sick soul (think yes!) – surely yes. Can a prayer fill in the gaps that we are struggling with? - Because we are not in control, but it is God that has the final say.

When we are talking about broken loaves of bread- we are very much interested in the body. We want the nourishment the bread can give. We hunger for the one thing that can fill us. We look at the material, sometimes the symbolic – and sometimes the message. If we equate the hunger to pain- then what is the message here. “You give them something to eat.” If we are in pain- we should … If we are hungry we should eat- and we should give others something to eat. If we are in pain we should be comforted and we should try to comfort others. Is that the message? Does it matter how little we start out with? A nuclear explosion begins with the splitting of a single atom, which starts a chain reaction. Why did they need to see how much bread there was? Is the lesson that there are no bounds? A blessing has no bounds, miracles no formula. Wonder has no quencher- only misdirection...maybe just "new" direction.

“He divided among them all.” Not just to the smart ones, or the righteous ones, or to the pretty ones. He divided them among the ones that understood the question and the ones that didn’t. He believed.

Modern physics holds some new theories about how the universe is put together. One of the ideas that I find most interesting is that the expectations of the observer may have an affect on the outcome of any given experiment. If the scientist believes that the particle will be at location X- the particle has a greater chance of appearing at location X.

When we pray for healing- we are in communication with the creator. Who better to ask to fix something. I think that God always has the ability to just “fix it.” Sometimes God does and sometimes God doesn’t. There has to be other factors in play. What purpose would it serve to fix it and let us break it again? In a universe where we believe in life eternal- what is the fascination with life temporal? We starve for something that we can not have in the room we have walked into. We can smell the delicious dish in the next room- from time to time the door cracks open enough for us to get a glimpse of the banquet to come. Try as we might, we can not grasp the thing. We can go crazy trying to find a way into the other room or we can enjoy our bittersweet surrender. We can call others to enjoy in the wait. We can talk about it and ask to be let into the next room- but no good wine will be served before its time. We have to behave like grownups to be allowed at the grown-up table. We can not throw our bread on the floor and shake our sippy cup. We have to behave like the children of God to be treated like the children of God. We have to believe that God will take care of us, and live like it if we want to be something other than rotten children. We must not let the rot spread- but treat it as the disease we are trying to cure. When we pray for someone to be healed- we must pray for the person to be healed, not for the disease to be cured.

We have healers within our midst. We have those who can see the problem. We have believers- and we must allow their inner light to shine.

I wonder what will be. I want to believe recklessly. I want to pray for it all to be healed- and for me to be an instrument of healing.