2. What is shalom? Why is it important in the context of healing?
3. How do you feel when you read Jack Harrison's story? How might you have responded to his sermon had you been at Epiphany that morning?
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Chapter 7. Healing
2. What is shalom? Why is it important in the context of healing?
3. How do you feel when you read Jack Harrison's story? How might you have responded to his sermon had you been at Epiphany that morning?
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1. What do you think about the relationship between the words healing and harmony?
In our spiritual lives, healing and harmony are synonyms.
2. What is shalom? Why is it important in the context of healing?
Shalom is "dynamic wholeness", "harmony", "communal harmony". To be healed is to be in harmony in body, mind, spirit, with others, and to rest in love.
3. How do you feel when you read Jack Harrison's story? How might you have responded to his sermon had you been at Epiphany that morning?
I would have said "amen".
1. What do you think about the relationship between the words healing and harmony?
Sort of like the song "love and marriage, love and marriage, you can't have one without the other". Without healing, one cannot have harmony.
2. What is shalom? Why is it important in the context of healing?
Shalom is the harmony one achieves through peace with God. Healing is needed for this harmony to exist.
3. How do you feel when you read Jack Harrison's story? How might you have responded to his sermon had you been at Epiphany that morning?
His witnessing even while dying reminded me of the faith my dear friend Peggy showed even when she was dying of cancer.
1. A person cannot be in balance and experience harmony until healing takes place. Pain of any type must be brought into balance with beauty before harmony is felt. if it is not, then the pain festers.
2. Shalom is the felt presence of God that brings us into "oneness" with all creation. Healing cannot take place without it. We must have this sense of connection if we are to let go of our pain.
3. It reminds me to "do Jesus" because salvation is ongoing for all of creation. It teaches me the meaning of humility. I would have prayed a prayer of thanksgiving and recommitment to follow Jesus's way.
I love the concepts of this chapter: "We're all broken and in need of God's healing." The Greek word soter means both savior and healer, and "Jesus embodie[s] healing, healing for all creation, hearling that would bring forth God's shalom" - which is "the healing of the disordered and broken into the harmony of its created wholeness."
What I've been wondering, though, is how one practices healing.
Just now I thought about a passage in a novel I read some time ago that referred to tikkun olam - which, according to Wikipedia, is a Hebrew phrase that means "repairing the world" (or "healing and restoring the world") which suggests humanity's shared responsibility (with the Creator) "to heal, repair and transform the world." I guess practicing healing is playing our role in that responsibility. How can we do that?
Alison, maybe one way of "healing" the world would be to stop what we humans have been doing that causes global warming. Perhaps I've been thinking of "healing" too much in terms of the medical field and sick people, when the whole earth (Mother Earth?) needs to be healed of the wounds and scars we have inflicted on her/it.
Wow! The broadened perspective of healing puts a new light on the term.
Bonnie, I agree with you one hundred percent. My two cents on this subject is as follows. Filling our landfills with diapers because our society is in such a hurry to get the jobs done so we can rest and relax, we used cloth diapers. Cutting down our trees, instead of racking up leaves. I truly believe all the earthquakes, tornadoes, firers and flooding is God way of warning us he is angry with our disrespect for Mother Earth.
I am not convinced that tragedies are warnings from God. I remember how a coworker insisted that Katrina was God's punishment from the lifestyle choices in New Orleans and I found it as troublesome as the delays in getting relief to those who were suffering.
When we blame God for earthquakes, tornadoes, fires, and flooding, that relieves us of any responsibility. If there's an all-powerful God, why couldn't that God "fix" things without killing a bunch of innocent people?
No, I am not blaming God for the weather, I am saying these acts of horror should be looked at as a wake up call, to the human race, a warning sign, If I get a tap on the shoulder, a feeling within me telling me to be cautious. Next comes another warning sign, perhaps I cannot sleep or rest in peace. I do not see people in the stores, at the gas stations, in restaurant friendly like they use to be, willing to help a stranger in need. I see hurry, sad fearful looks on people faces, not just here in my area but all across our land. Discussed, outraged over the government actions, fearful about another war, kids on drugs, our educational system out of control, no rain in the Midwest, thousands of tons of produce lost. Yes, there are a few lucky folks, who have good health, a family surrounding them for the holiday, jobs that are secure, and love for their family and friends. These are the things I see happening to the earth. We pray for people who are not as fortunate as we are here in American. Our world does not stop at our sea and boarders. The world is truly a gift from God and we are part of Mother Earth.
The question that Bonnie posed "If there's an all-powerful God, why couldn't that God "fix" things without killing a bunch of innocent people?" is one that is very troubling. I remember when a dear friend died several years ago after a horrible battle with breast cancer. She had had such faith and such optimism. It left me (as my son's death several years after) questioning why God would allow this to happen. The most helpful solace that I found after my friend's death was the book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" which explained that God didn't intervene to cause bad things to happen, but that since we live in a sinful world that there are bad things that happen and, unfortunately, these things happen to anyone. My friend had even mentioned early after her diagnosis that when people asked why such a horrible thing would happen to someone as close to God as she was, she just said, "Why not?"
Caboose, I haven't noticed the despair among people that you mentioned, but will be more aware and watch for it especially when I'm out shopping. Most of the other people I see are rather limited (family, friends, church members, and quilting/sewing associates)and, fortunately, life has not brought upon them such despair (for the most part).
This week I read the book Messenger by Lois Lowry (which is the third book of The Giver Quartet). I think it has a lot to say, in a highly symbolic manner, about healing. Have any of you read it?
I've read The Giver, but not The Messenger. I hadn't realized that The Giver was part of a series.
Alison, my library has copies of Messenger, published in 2004:
In this novel that unites characters from "The Giver" and "Gathering Blue," Matty, a young member of a utopian community that values honesty, conceals an emerging healing power that he cannot explain or understand.
I read The Giver (1993) many years ago and have never read Gathering Blue (2000). I guess I should read these two before Messenger, even though it's the one about healing. What do you think?
And since it's a quartet, as you mentioned, I could read the fourth book later — Son, published in 2012.
I was going to re-read The Giver before reading Gathering Blue and Messenger - but I ended up just jumping into the companion books. Each one actually can stand on its own quite well, I think - although Gathering Blue gives some very good background for Messenger. (I re-read The Giver maybe four years ago, so it was fairly fresh in my mind.)
I'm planning to read Son shortly. It was its publication that gave me the motivation to finally read the other two. (The Giver is an all-time favorite of mine.)
If any of you read Messenger, I'd love to hear what you think!
Alison, do you think Messenger would be a good book for us to discuss here? If so, tell us why.
It's listed at my library as a "J" book, which means "Junior," which I think means something like MG or Middle Grade that I've seen online.
We have done other "chapter books" from that level, such as Pictures of Hollis Woods. I thought The Boy in Striped Pajamas might be "J" but it's "YA" (young adult).
If you want to read about books we have discussed, I have them listed alphabetically in the right sidebar. Just click to go to the first post in the series. Click on the labels at the bottom to get all posts about a book.
1. What do you think about the relationship between the words healing and harmony?
I think it's interesting, with all our discussion of labyrinths, that it shows up again as a healing thing to do.
"Outside, a rough-hewn labyrinth creates sacred space for those seeking balance through walking meditation. ... Diane ... sees healing as coming ... also through ... walking the labyrinth" (p. 105).
2. What is shalom? Why is it important in the context of healing?
I found two pages especially important to my understanding of shalom in this chapter:
"The people of Calvin Church do not focus on the idea of 'personal salvation' in the way their evangelical neighbors do. Instead, for them God's salvation is a process of healing whereby they are transformed – and, in turn, they open themselves to transforming the world" (p. 106).
"Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann, who is widely influential among mainline Protestants, describes shalom as 'the central vision' of the Bible in which 'all of creation is one, every creature in community with every other, living in harmony and security toward the joy and well-being of every other creature.' In short, shalom is closely related to salvation, the healing of the disordered and broken into the harmony of its created wholeness" (p. 110).
Shalom is about wholeness, and the whole is one. We are one with God and one with each other, while also being one with the rest of our world.
3. How do you feel when you read Jack Harrison's story? How might you have responded to his sermon had you been at Epiphany that morning?
I served as associate pastor of a church while I was in seminary at Emory University in Atlanta. I had an enlightening moment, one Sunday morning, as an elderly woman came toward me down the hallway saying, "I want my hug!" The first sentence Diana Butler Bass quotes from Jack Harrison's sermon is about touch:
"We learn that people received healing through the laying on of hands..." (p. 113).
That woman rushing toward me wanted to be touched – she wanted a hug – and I realized how many times I had been hugging people on Sunday mornings. Usually older women. I suddenly realized that, living alone as most of them did, their only touch all week might be my hug when they went to church. It was healing for them – and I realized I probably never got hugged all week either, in my busy school life, studying. I probably at most shook hands with someone I was meeting. But a hug? That was really "laying on of hands" for healing and wholeness for some of those women.
I guess what I'm saying is that a good ole bear hug can be ministry!
Thank you, Bonnie, for pointing out the chapter's sentences which contrast the emphasis for personal salvation by the evangelical churches to the mainline view emphasis on transformation of healing which in turn transforms the world. Enlightening perspective. It is interesting that the "all about me" attitude winds up even being reflected in some of the political choices.
Your response about the hugging reminded me of a woman in our congregation who has said this several times when I was more friendly with her. Once was shortly before her mother died. Her mother was in her 90's, but was very much a strength needed in her life after her husband's long suffering and death. I am not a huggy person so at first was taken aback with her request. Sadly, I have been taking the avoidance tactic of her after some very hateful comments made on Facebook claiming that no Christian could vote for Obama, etc. After thinking of your comments and realizing that my behavior is not the kind of person I want to be, I am going to be more open with her next Sunday.
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