House of Mirrors There has been a change in my relationship with God recently. For years I was told that when I “gave away” the knowledge that God had been teaching me, I would move on to The Second Level of Learning. In general, as I was growing up, I was most reluctant to share with anyone anything I learned from my visions. But, somehow, stumbling along my way in life I found myself in The Second Level of Learning. I...
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(by A. F. Learmont) OSL stands for The Order of Saint Luke. When healing is mentioned, the first thought is usually the physical state of the body, a particular ailment or affliction; thus concentration of thought is purely on the physical. Man, however, is not wholly a physical being. Basically, he is a spiritual being. He has been created in the likeness and image of God, and God is a Spirit. God formed man out of a living soul....
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(by Joe Simmons, SJ) This past weekend witnessed the canonization of seven new saints in Rome. For holy men or women to be recognized as capital-S Saints in the Roman Catholic Church, typically two miracles need to be attributed to their intercession. Usually these come when someone is healed without an easy medical explanation. Call me the modern skeptic, but I always found this litmus test to be… well… troubling, I guess. In my...
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(by Scott Cairns) More than a hundred years ago, a chronically afflicted Emily Dickinson observed something of pain’s curious effects and aftermath. “After great pain,” she wrote, ” a formal feeling comes.” Her poem continues: The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs— The still Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’ And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’? The Feet, mechanical, go...
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(by Patricia Treece) Sixteen-month-old Elizabeth Fanning lies listlessly in her mother’s arms. Anxiously, drawn-faced Mrs. Fanning coaxes her child to take even a spoonful of the liver soup recommended by doctors. But although Elizabeth’s swollen belly and twiglike limbs make her look like a starvation victim, the lethargic baby has no interest in food of any kind. Little Betsy, as her parents call her, has a fatal...
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Light and Dark Perhaps healing is the opposite of brokenness—or breaking, really. Breaking apart—putting the pieces back together is healing, isn’t it? Gluing the pieces back into its whole state. Or the perceived whole state, anyway. I think we get lost in our understanding of healing when we force our idea of the outcome onto the process. Take a serious illness, for example. We only see healing as a complete restoration of...
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(by Wendy Patrice Williams) Coming Home To My Body Prologue Giraffes surrounded me on the wall, those long necks. Covered by plastic, they were cold when I touched them. The smell of alcohol reminded me of the nurse who would dab my arm with a wet cotton ball and prick me with a needle. Dr. Constad’s voice was warm gravel. “Look at you,” he said, squatting so his eyes were at equal height with mine. “You are a miracle.”...
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(by Kathryn Belicki) Five years ago I had a remarkable lunch with my friend Linda. It was a tough period for both of us—Linda had cancer and dearly wanted to avoid the prescribed surgery, and so had turned to naturopathic medicine and prayer. I had an undiagnosed neuromuscular disorder and was in the nail-biting “wait and see” period, which would tell whether this was benign or something that would kill me. After...
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(by Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt) Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of...
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