Journal of Sacred Work

Then Jesus said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man said to him, "My
teacher, let me see again." Jesus said to him, "Go, your faith has made you well." Immediately, he regained his sight and followed him on the way.   –Mark 10:51-52

   Christians often speak of the way Jesus healed people. But Jesus never took credit. Here, he does not claim to have healed the blind man. Instead, "…your faith has made you well," Jesus says.
   Jesus understood that he was a vehicle for God’s Love, not the source – that the healing came not from him but through him. 
   When we have an experience of helping someone else to regain their health, it’s tempting to take credit personally. But when we are successful, it is become we have become channels for healing, not because we have healed. How can healers become better pathways through which Love can travel?…

   The entire concept of meditation is an invitation by the human being to himself or herself. In meditation, we enter silent reflection during which we seek to easy back the noisy demands of our own egos. As we do this, the light of God’s love begins to emerge. We may experience this light as a sense of serenity or peace.
   The same kind of experience can be true for those wise enough to engage in art appreciation. No form of art can be appreciated "on the run." For example, many people miss poetry’s gifts because they race through a poem as if it was an email message from the poet to them. The poet, like the artist or the serious crafts-person has likely spent hours carefully choosing each word to create images sent like love-tipped arrows toward our souls. But the arrows have no chance of reaching our hearts if we don’t give loving attention to the work created for our viewing.
    Imagine the time it took for Rodin to craft The Thinker or for Michelangelo to sculpt the David or the Pieta. Yet most people give a few seconds glance and move on.
   Love requires presence. Jesus prayerful presence to God enabled him to be a vessel for God’s love so that out of him could pour the light of God’s gifts. Jesus mediated many healings by allowing himself to use his presence as a pathway for Love.
   In our much less perfect way, we too, can learn to mediate God’s Love but allowing God’s light to pass through us. The challenge is for us to quiet our egos, to somehow seek to get out of the way so that love may flourish and the person before us may feel, reawakened with them, their own ability to heal – their own faith in Love.
   That is the prayer for this Sabbath day – that our faith may make us well, and that in our rising state of grace, we may help others find healing.

-Erie Chapman