I miss Charles Shultz. Like so many of you the Peanuts cartoons were an important part of my life as I was growing up. Believe it or not, I too was a nerdy, round headed kid with little self-esteem. Over the years Charles Shultz succeeded in expressing that Charlie Brown in all of us. By seeing him in the comics I've been more able to accept that whiny, defeated side of myself and to grow up beyond the limitations of my little buddy.
When life is especially difficult however, Charlie Brown comes to visit. When I am stressed out or ill or feeling rejected, that little insecure boy shows up again in search of a dog to love him or a cute little red-haired girl to hold his hand or a good shrink to help him put life into perspective or even a Pastoral Associate to empathize with him.
We all need to be healed. This is a basic fact of life. In this church right now there are people who have cancer, others who have heart disease, who are HIV positive; there are those who suffer from addiction, depression, grief, loneliness, and all of us live with the fear of illness and death.
What we have in common is that we are suffering human beings and we want and need to be healed. And this is a place of healing. We are a congregation of healers. When each one of us walks through the door of this church and talks with another, listens to their words, is entranced by the music, is moved by the sermon, shares a joy or sorrow, lights a candle of remembrance, meditates and prays, we are healing and being healed. When you think about it, the purpose of every element of our worship is healing.
Please don't make the mistake of thinking that the ministers and Pastoral Associates are the only healers in this congregation. We all are. One of the primary purposes of religion has always been healing. Moses, the Buddha, Jesus -- to name just a few of the leaders of world religions -- had a mission to hold up a vision of health and wholeness to their people.
In many scriptures we see prophets miraculously curing the sick and dying, but for me those are metaphorical stories about the spiritual transformation of the individual from brokenness to wholeness. These stories tell us what it means to be healed.
This morning I want to talk about how we heal each other, whether we are Pastoral Associates or ministers or members and friends. To heal we need to reconnect each other with the true meaning of health and wholeness, to reconnect with a deeper purpose and spirit in our lives, and to reconnect with the healing power of community.
To reconnect each other with the true meaning of health and wholeness we must first realize that healing does not mean that we are cured of our illness. Cure is the elimination of the disease. Healing is much different. Healing is bringing someone who is suffering from sickness back into a state of wholeness. The difference between health and wholeness is that you can be ill and still be whole. We may not be physically healthy, but we can have purpose and meaning in our lives.
In the book "Healing and the Mind", Bill Moyers interviews Racel Naomi Remen, the medical director of Commonweal, which is a retreat center for people with terminal cancer. She explains the concept of healing that they have at Commonweal.
"Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn't you--all the expectations, all of the beliefs--and becoming who you are. Not a better you, but a realer you." She goes on to give us an image of what she means.
"I bought a little, falling-down cabin on the top of a mountain. It was so bad that when Michael Lerner, [Commonweal's founder,] came to see it, he said, 'Oh, Rachel, you bought this?' But with two carpenters, an electrician, and a plumber, in three years we have remodeled the whole thing. We started by just throwing things away--bathtubs, light fixtures, windows. I kept hearing my father's voice saying, 'That's a perfectly good light fixture, why are you throwing it away?' We kept throwing away more and more things, and with everything we threw away, the building became more whole. It had more integrity. Finally, we had thrown away everything that didn't belong. You know, we may think we need to be more in order to be whole. But in some ways, we need to be less. We need to let go, to throw away everything that isn't us in order to be more whole."
Healing then is bringing us back to wholeness, but how do we become more whole?
In western society it has been assumed for centuries that the body and the mind are separate entities with distinct purposes. Today we are on the crest of a revolution in science that is recognizing that we are one seamless web of being, an intelligence that is always seeking to bring us back to health and wholeness.
To unleash our own healing power we must recognize that the mind and body are inextricably interconnected. In fact, experiments have shown that the brain and the immune system constantly communicate to and affect one another.
Scientists used to think that the immune system was a world of its own, that it was autonomous, not affected by the rest of the body and yet able to send us spinning into illness. Now we know that not only is the immune system influenced by the mind and body, but everything we do or think or feel impacts upon our health. This is a radical notion, but it is born out by an ever-growing wealth of research. In more and more hospitals doctors are discovering that in many cases meditation and movement work better than surgery and drugs.
We are learning that another way to bring about health and wholeness is by helping each other reconnect to the deeper purpose and spirit in our lives. How do we serve purpose? We serve purpose when we contemplate the Why? of our lives. Why are we here in these bodies? Why do we exist? What is the meaning of our lives?
Rachel Naomi Remen tells of a cartoon in The New Yorker "which shows two yogis sitting on a ... a mountain in the Himalayas. Sitting there cross-legged, they obviously have been interrupted in their meditation by a 747 airplane which is flying by. One of them looks at the other and says, 'Ay, they have the know-how, but do they have the know-why?'"
When we know why we live, our purpose in life, and when we are committed to that purpose, then spirit becomes a major factor in our health and healing. That doesn't mean that by living committed, spiritual lives we will never become ill, just as it doesn't mean that if we are ill it is because we haven't been living purposeful lives.
The purpose of life is to grow in wisdom and to learn to love ourselves and our world more fully. Our purpose as well is to heal each other and our Earth.
If our lives serve these purposes, then health serves these purposes -- and illness serves them as well, because illness is part of life. I believe in the power of prayer, not as a petition to God but as a way for us to journey into our deepest selves to search for our purpose and to find ways to live it out.
In an article in the Noetic Journal, Rachel Naomi Remen, who by the way is one of my favorite writers, tells us is that "Health is not an end. Health is a means. Health enables us to serve purpose in life, but it is not the purpose of life.-- ["Spirit: Resource for Healing--, Noetic Journal, Autumn, 1988]
The prevailing attitude in our society is that without our health we have nothing. Just look at the people we worship in the media: they are young and beautiful and the epitome of good health. Their function is to resemble perfection as closely as possible, and that means to portray no impairments.
But the reality is that many people do have impairments and as we grow older all of us become more encumbered by physical afflictions. Does that men we are any less human? No! The truth is that one can serve purpose with impaired health. And the truth is even deeper than that: one might even regain health through serving purpose.
There seems to be something essentially spiritual that can happen when we are struck down by a terrible misfortune. We are forced in those painful times of our lives to reach down into the center of our being in search of that spiritual strength, that wellspring of meaning we have stored up over the years, and then we grasp hold of that purpose and become more committed to living it out in our lives.
Teveh in "The Fiddler On the Roof-- that our own Chalice Theater players have been putting on for these past two weekends -- and doing it extremely well I might add -- is an example of a man who is able to cope with a multitude of problems and predicaments because he has a purpose to his life which has been given to him by his faith. The traditions and faith of Judaism have helped Jews throughout history to deal with unimaginable suffering.
We too need a purpose to our lives if we are to be whole and healthy human beings. We need a reason for living and a commitment to manifesting the meaning of our lives. And our church and faith is a rich resource for finding that purpose.
The third way that we heal is by helping each other reconnect with the healing power of community. There can be no doubt that we need each other to help us be healthy and whole and to find our purpose in life.
Rachel Naomi Remen reminds us that "We are all healers of each other. Look at David Spiegel's fascinating study of putting people together in a support group and seeing that some people in it live twice as long as other people who are not in a support group. I asked David what went on in those support groups and he said that people just cared about each other. Nothing big, no deep psychological stuff. People just cared about each other. The reality is that healing happens between people. The wound in me evokes the healer in you, and the wound in you evokes the healer in me, and then the two healers collaborate.--
Isn't this what we all know in our hearts? Each and every one of us is wounded and every one of us has the power to heal. You heal me and I heal you. When we show genuine concern for each other, whether it's through prayer or sharing our stories, we bring healing to our lives.
Researchers have discovered that anything that promotes a sense of isolation leads to chronic stress and, often, to illnesses like heart disease. Conversely, anything that leads to real intimacy and feelings of connection can be healing in the truest sense of the word: to bring together, to make whole. [The Healing Powers of Community by Carolyn R. Shaffer and Kristen Anundsen, Utne Reader, No. 71]
We have always known that the ability to be intimate is a vital key to emotional health. Now we know that it is essential to the health of our bodies as well.
You may have heard of a study done a few years ago showing that people who go to church on a regular basis tend to be healthier than those who don't. The religion, denomination or church makes no difference. The reason is simple: when people belong to a community of people who care about them and who they care about they are naturally healed and made whole.
Our Pastoral Associates help those who are ill and isolated to reconnect with the healing power of our congregation. Our new Covenant Groups do the same by gathering people together into small groups where they are invited to share their joys and sorrows, their life stories, their feelings and thoughts.
Another way that we help affirm our sense of community and to heal each other is through touch. Holding hands at the end of the service is healing as are the many hugs shared by so many in this congregation.
"Hugging is healthy,-- writes Jack Canfield in "Chicken Soup for the Soul--. "It helps the body's immune system, it keeps you healthier, it cures depression, it reduces stress, it induces sleep, it's invigorating, it's rejuvenating, it has no unpleasant side effects, and hugging is nothing less than a miracle drug.
"Hugging is all natural. It is organic, naturally sweet, no pesticides, no preservatives, no artificial ingredients and 100 percent wholesome.
"Hugging is practically perfect. There are no movable parts, no batteries to wear out, no periodic check-ups, low energy consumption, high energy yield, inflation proof, nonfattening, no monthly payments, no insurance premiums, theft-proof, nontaxable, nonpolluting and, of course, fully returnable.--
There are some people who aren't comfortable with hugging, just as there are some who are not comfortable with prayer, and we need to be respectful of their needs. I invite you to find your own ways in which you can heal and be healed. Find what works for you and then use it.
Let me close with this moving story by Rachel Naomi Remen in her wonderful book, "Kitchen Table Wisdom.-- This story sums up so well the three different ways that we heal each other: by reconnecting with the true meaning of health and wholeness; by reconnecting with a deeper purpose and spirit in our lives, and by reconnecting with the healing power of community.
"I had a man in my practice with osteogenic sarcoma of the leg, which was removed at the hip in order to save his life. He was 24 years old when I started working with him and he was a very angry man with a lot of bitterness, a deep sense of injustice and a very deep hatred for all the well people, because it seemed so unfair to him that he had suffered this terrible loss so early in life. After working with this man for a couple of years I saw a profound shift. He began "coming out of himself.-- He began visiting other people in the hospital who had suffered severe physical losses and he would tell me the most wonderful stories about these visits. Once he visited a young woman who was almost his age. It was a hot day in Palo Alto and he was in running shorts so his artificial leg showed when came into her room. The woman was so depressed about the loss of both her breasts that she wouldn't even look at him, wouldn't pay any attention to him. The nurses had left her radio playing, probably in order to cheer her up. So, desperate to get her attention, he unstrapped his leg and began dancing around the room on one leg, snapping his fingers to the music. She looked at him in amazement, and then she burst out laughing and said, 'Man, if you can dance, I can sing.'"
This is a beautiful story because it shows how strong we can be in spite of our diminished health -- or perhaps even because of it. But listen now to the rest of his story:
"...At the end of therapy you do a review -- people talk about what was significant to them and you share what was significant to you as a therapist working with someone. We were reviewing our two years of work together; I opened his file and there folded up were several drawings he had made early on. I wanted to return these to him, so I unfolded them and handed them to him. He looked through them and said, 'Oh, look at this.' And he showed me one of the earliest drawings. I had suggested to him that he draw a picture of his body. He had drawn a picture of a vase, and running through his vase was a deep black crack. This was his image of his body and he had taken a black crayon and had drawn the crack over and over and over. He was grinding his teeth with rage at the time. It was very, very painful because it seemed to me that this vase could never function as a vase again. It could never hold water.
"Now, two years later, he came to this picture and looked at it and said, 'Oh, this one isn't finished.' And I said, extending the box of crayons, 'Why don't you finish it?' He picked up a yellow crayon and putting his finger on the crack he said, 'You see, here -- this is where the light comes through.' And with the yellow crayon he drew light streaming through the crack in his body.--
This story gives us a life-giving message. It tells us that we can grow strong at the broken places. We can find purpose in our pain. And in the darkest of times, in the turmoil of grief, or the depression of disability, we can let the light of the spirit shine through to heal the heart.
Amen.
