Stories That Can Heal Us

I recently listened to an interview with physician and author, Dr. Naomi Rachel, who recounted how her life was shaped and inspired growing up surrounded by doctors and one mystic. It was her grandfather, an orthodox rabbi and student of The Kabbalah   who she described as a "flaming mystic." When she was only four years old her grandfather told her this creation story, which he called the Birthday of the World. Here are her words in the retelling:

In the beginning there was only the holy darkness, the Ein Sof, the source of life. And then, in the course of history, at a moment in time, this world, the world of a thousand thousand things, emerged from the heart of the holy darkness as a great ray of light. And then, perhaps because this is a Jewish story, there was an accident, and the vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke. And the wholeness of the world, the light of the world was scattered into a thousand thousand fragments of light, and they fell into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden until this very day.

Now, according to my grandfather, the whole human race is a response to this accident. We are here because we are born with the capacity to find the hidden light in all events and all people, to lift it up and make it visible once again and thereby to restore the innate wholeness of the world. It's a very important story for our times. And this task is called tikkun olam in Hebrew. It's the restoration of the world.

 

I was deeply touched by this story. Listening, I felt a lump rising in my throat, a tingle in my arms, telltale symptoms when a great truth penetrates my heart. I sense this is a story that can heal us all, no matter, our affliction or restriction. It speaks of our spiritual essence that Thomas Merton described as a hidden wholeness.

As minister, and student of life, I have witnessed the miraculous healing power of stories. Stories reveal the whole context, the implications and revelations of lives touched by circumstances, the telling of which reveal how we can be transformed by our challenges and difficulties, not merely laid low. Out of context, sans story, there are only the bleak facts of cancer, divorce, pink slips, and abandonments. But I've heard and been touched by stories in which such diseases of body, heart and spirit gave way to revelations of Being, sacred insights, and enlightened perspectives. I've seen people stricken by difficulty find their hidden wholeness and emerge with a deeper and truer sense of themselves and a renewed compelling  purpose for their lives. I've lived such stories myself.

How do you define healing? What would it look like to you? Is it the eradication of disease in the body, or a relationship that becomes your expectations? If you widened your lens of understanding of healing in a spiritual context what story might emerge? If you intended to find the "hidden light in all events and circumstances" how would the story change, or your measure of healing progress?

There are stories that can empower our lives, in which we make a profound difference right where we are, just as we are. The only barrier to our healing is our willingness to find our place in these stories, and adopt them as the context of our lives. We do not have to judge by appearances, and live in constant dis-ease. We can allow the grace of spiritual insight to reveal the grander story in which we discover and heal into our wholeness.

Believing Is Seeing

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.        -  Helen Keller      I recently re-read a number of quotes by Helen Keller and what struck me was the number of references she made to the importance of sight, vision, light, seeing and beholding. Remarkable advice from a woman who had no physical sight. Though deprived of the view of life that we sighted people enjoy, she developed clear perception of the invisible world that sustained her. "What I am looking for is not "out there", it is in me." I observed this phenomenon in my own mother who lost most of her sight to macular degeneration in her later years. As her view of her outer world dimmed she became more aware of the reality of God's presence within her. I found this remarkable and inspiring. Most of us would assume that it is the great miracles of preference, like sight being restored to the blind that would quicken a person's faith. My mother's faith was not diminished but substantially increased through a great loss. Perhaps it is the vision of one world that costs us the vision of another. Without eyesight, there is still insight, perhaps even more keenly. It is human nature to want to see life working out according to our preferences. We think we know what would be best for us, make us happy, or serve our life purpose. Yet many of us got what we wanted, and happiness remained elusive. Or we avoided some awful fate, and never dealt with our deepest fear. When we ask the question, what is best for us, we must be willing to abandon personal will to make room for soul wisdom.  Then we find a path to our growing edge and enlarge our capacity to believe in the invisible self that surpasses human understanding. This is the place where we can build our faith in the hidden reality of our Being. For many of us a process of subtraction becomes a great boon to our spiritual understanding. As visible forms of life change before our eyes, we are spun around and dropped into the lap of a Presence within. While eyes search in vain for the happy outcomes in the night, insight reveals the unseen comforter; the eternal blessing. To some people, the fruits of their faith are measured in getting what they pray for. This is visualization; using creative power to manifest according to our will. This is a useful tool, but builds a fragile faith, entirely dependent upon circumstances for its strength. A deeper faith comes by uncovering a persistent state of well being, that remains unperturbed through whatever arises.  If my faith in God is predicated on how my life unfolds in a purely outer sense, I am assured of a wobbly faith, built on sand. Yet if I resist the temptation to "judge by appearances" and seek the grace within my own consciousness, I will be sustained by knowing that I am one with the eternal presence power and love of Spirit--- whatever may come.  This is why we pray and meditate, so that we can improve our inner vision and come to know that the presence of Spirit is inseparable from us. Then when outrageous winds of change come and change the landscape of our visible world, we will look within to find the good, true and the beautiful which steadfastly remain in us, for us, and as us.