I have been close to a very few remarkable, likely miraculous healings. I have been peripheral to a few more, and I have heard of hundreds - many likely unreliable.
I believe that healing takes place mostly in the context of community.
If by 'community' is meant the whole gamut from friendships up to society, I agree on an inverted gradual scale sense. I've thought about my adult life after a major tragedy, and of how new life and loves come along - but not to necessarily replace the prior loss but to prove that one's life is a basket-full of tragedies and triumphs, whose order need not even be meaningful (as in, if a very happy life gets suddenly cut short by some accident - is it a tragic ending that negates the life of mostly happiness, or merely a happy life cut short by a single tragedy that need not water-down the overall happiness average?). I ask myself whether my coping has been due mostly to delusion or distraction, or perhaps a mix of both(?) But one factor that breaks through this dichotomous thinking time and again, is the love and selfless acts of those close to my life - so that their being 'community' really is a healing power. But on the macro-sense of 'community' I think the impact is mostly contributing by its incessant barrage of distractions - much of it not worthy of consideration as a healing factor, and maybe quite the opposite (as in most everyone I talk to, in honest moments of feeling, professing their belief that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, as the world unfolds). And yet on a personal level, there's still much love and care - which keeps most going another day. Cheers, Tom
Yes, that clarification fits. I emphatically did not mean merely the people who inhabit the space near you, however worthy those figures may be in their own way. I was thinking of deeper community.
I agree. I used to have visions, when I was much younger, that doing "something important" for God involved some grand design that impacted lots of people all at once.
Now...I think the impact that an average person can have can be counted on 10 fingers. TIme, effort, love...those things must be poured into people's lives consistently and over an extended period to be transformative.
Every once in a while I've seen someone turned around in a dramatic, instantaneous way......but usually there seems to be no shortcuts.
If by 'community' is meant the whole gamut from friendships up to society, I agree on an inverted gradual scale sense. I've thought about my adult life after a major tragedy, and of how new life and loves come along - but not to necessarily replace the prior loss but to prove that one's life is a basket-full of tragedies and triumphs, whose order need not even be meaningful (as in, if a very happy life gets suddenly cut short by some accident - is it a tragic ending that negates the life of mostly happiness, or merely a happy life cut short by a single tragedy that need not water-down the overall happiness average?). I ask myself whether my coping has been due mostly to delusion or distraction, or perhaps a mix of both(?) But one factor that breaks through this dichotomous thinking time and again, is the love and selfless acts of those close to my life - so that their being 'community' really is a healing power. But on the macro-sense of 'community' I think the impact is mostly contributing by its incessant barrage of distractions - much of it not worthy of consideration as a healing factor, and maybe quite the opposite (as in most everyone I talk to, in honest moments of feeling, professing their belief that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, as the world unfolds). And yet on a personal level, there's still much love and care - which keeps most going another day. Cheers, Tom
ReplyDeleteYes, that clarification fits. I emphatically did not mean merely the people who inhabit the space near you, however worthy those figures may be in their own way. I was thinking of deeper community.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I used to have visions, when I was much younger, that doing "something important" for God involved some grand design that impacted lots of people all at once.
ReplyDeleteNow...I think the impact that an average person can have can be counted on 10 fingers. TIme, effort, love...those things must be poured into people's lives consistently and over an extended period to be transformative.
Every once in a while I've seen someone turned around in a dramatic, instantaneous way......but usually there seems to be no shortcuts.
my word verification is appropriately uternism
I have had word verifications that were apropos before, but "uternism" has got to be the best ever.
ReplyDelete