Thoughts of the Practice of Healing

March 9, 2008

by Bud Alger

Good morning!   The topic today is healing, especially healing as a practice of our faith.  This idea follows naturally from Jesus' instructions to his disciples as reported by Luke: (Luke 9:1) "When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, [2] and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick." Or from James (James 5:13-16) "Are any among you suffering? They should pray.  Are any cheerful?  They should sing songs of praise.  Are any among you sick?  They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.  The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up: and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.  Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so you may be healed.  The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective."

Wow. If we, as followers of Jesus and the modern day disciples have a share in this instruction, I have to ask "How are you doing with that? If you are like me, you thought that was somebody else's job. We have somehow become separated from the act and practice of healing.  These days, we tend to turn these things over to experts – the medical community: doctors, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, hospitals.  Much of our feelings of inability come from confusing healing with curing.  Doctors work toward curing, stopping the effect of disease, or suppressing the symptoms. Healing, as defined in the United Church of Christ Book of Worship is "the reintegration of body, mind, emotions, and spirit that permits people, in a community, to live life fully in a creation honored by prudent and respectful use."  From what we know of the disciples, they were fishermen: common working men.  There wasn't an MD in the group.  As I interpret it, Jesus was telling the disciples to use what they had learned from their time with Him.  He was reminding them that healing came from following the Christian practices of prayer, touch, laying on of hands, forgiveness of sins, gratitude, and praise.  We still have those tools today, right now.  That means we can heal ourselves and those we love if we use them.
I chose this topic because I have had a direct experience of being healed.  Most of you have heard my story, but for the rest I can summarize it: In October of 2006, I was diagnosed  with advanced, metastatic prostate cancer.  The cancer had spread to my bones.  At that time, it looked like I might possibly live six months.  I was devastated.  I had a disease that would sooner or later kill me.   It was incurable, though hormone treatment, if it worked, might extend my life expectancy.  I had been married for two years to a wonderful woman and I didn't want to leave her so soon.  It seemed I had no choice but to accept that I was going to die (ok, who isn't?) and plan appropriately.  That Christmas was pretty grim.  I was in constant pain, mostly because I was trying to tough it out.  We were dying from cancer.  I really mean we: cancer is brutally hard on a partner.  I was in a pit of despair and darkness.  I think most people tend to crawl into a hole when they are suffering; maybe because we don't want anyone else to suffer.  I could not really connect with the experience. When I felt sorrow, I was afraid it was just self-pity. I was just waiting for the end, trying to be as little trouble as possible.

Over Christmas, we discovered Harmony Hill. A retreat center on Hood Canal, Harmony Hill offers free, three-day retreats for people with cancer.  I didn't really want to go--it seemed to require far too much effort--but Ann clearly did, and I hoped it might ease her sorrow.  As you all know, she is not too strong and definitely needs protection from the truth.  The retreats were booked far ahead, but sadly, cancellations are fairly common when scheduling cancer patients and we were able to attend a session in January.

What happened there was a miracle. The retreat format seemed very simple; we met in small groups with a facilitator, and we told each other our stories. When we did, some kind of healing started to happen almost immediately. It was not a curing environment, like the hospitals where cancer patients typically meet up. Instead it was a healing place, where people could speak truthfully about their experience and nobody tried to fix it. Instead of offering advice or competing horror stories, each listener really listened, with deep respect and compassion. Usually it wasn't just our diagnosis, prognosis and treatment.  This speaking came from the heart and our empathy made it possible to listen with our hearts. We shared our concerns: loss, pain, loved ones.  We quickly established a bond – battlefield camaraderie. We shared the things that gave us strength and hope. We reevaluated our own responses to our experiences.  All of us lived in two worlds: the medical, scientific world and the other world, call it the heart that was not being treated: the world we carried within us, where there were no pat answers.  We often don't show that world to anyone: the fear, the hopes, the grieving, and the loss.  Where do we go for treatment of that?  One young woman, an airline attendant, was angry at the loss of her career, her breasts, her hair and her husband.  What had been her life was gone, disappeared into cancer.  Another woman was living in fear because a doctor had said she had a ten percent chance of dying.  She had indeed survived cancer free for several years but was still furious at that doctor.  The doctor's answer was statistically correct, but not what she wanted to hear. Amazingly,, after telling their stories over 3 days, these women, like most of us,  developed enough healing to lay their anger down.  Surely they had told their story before, as I had told mine. The difference was that here, nobody was telling pat little made-up stories to hide our condition. Members of the cancer club don't like to upset the "civilians." Here, our stories were all about the truth; our helplessness, the uncertainty.  Tears and tissues were everywhere, but there was humor, too,; some women were glad they didn't have to fix their hair each morning because it was sitting on the bureau.

My healing experience came about from accepting permission and freedom to speak my truth. My truth included all the pain, fear, anxiety, and hope that was driving me at that moment. I think I felt free to be truthful because when each person speaks without interruptions, it stops the rest of us from jumping in with our suggestions, answers, or personal miracles that we so freely give away.  In many everyday conversations, while one person speaks, the other person is busy preparing their thoughts, snappy come-back or good advice – which often has nothing to do with what is being said.  When both partners are active listening in turn, both are able to be heard, maybe for the first time ever.  Being heard is a powerful, healing experience; it is also hard to do without practice. At Harmony Hill, this listening practice seemed easy. Maybe it was because this was a group that had been slugged, rather hard, by their life experience.  They listened to you like you might have some clue to ease suffering.  Consequently, you are drawn out to say the things you knew you would never say, to tell what was true about you.  Many couples expressed a desire to break down the barriers that kept them from being honest for fear of hurting their partner. For us guys, the hardest thing to admit is that we are scared.  When speaking in public, most men avoid the "f" word: feelings.  The only feeling we readily express is "I'm hungry!"  In a healing circle, once one man admits he hurts, he is scared, he doesn't know what to do, it opens up the whole group.  When his partner sincerely says "Thank you" for that honesty, it encourages him to go deeper.

To find our truest stories, we shared on topics like, What is your anchor? How do you manage pain?" or our favorite, "What do you do when you wake up terrified at 3 AM?" (The best answer was, eat toast and jam and laugh). As we practiced sharing our experiences, we could delve deeper even at meals or at bedtime. I got to the point where most of the time I was not protectively lying to Ann about my condition and feelings, and Ann obviously loved it.  Today, the thing that hurts the most is trying to imagine the pain, suffering, and losses that lie ahead.  I have learned that the only place of no pain is here and now, where  "The past is a memory, the future but a dream."

How does this fit with the healing practices of prayer, touch, laying on of hands, forgiveness of sins, gratitude, and praise? Our healing circle moved slowly from terrible truth to healing by using each of these practices. When we cried, many hands reached out in supportive touch. When we confessed our "sins" of hopelessness, of  anger at our doctors, of hating our own bodies, of feeling willing to die, we felt forgiven by the compassion of our listeners. When we allowed truth to emerge from fear and denial, gratitude and relief flowed effortlessly. For those of us with a spiritual practice, gratitude leads almost immediately to praise. In that healing environment, I discovered I had a lot to live for: my wife, life on this beautiful island, great friends and neighbors, and hope for a level of pain I could live with. I had a new circle of people who knew me and were praying for me.  My disease, my condition wasn't private any more.  It was a part of a larger community.

I see my experience of healing as having of three parts: community, the people that know and love you, acknowledging that we are all part of the same thing; forgiveness, forgiving yourself and others; and gratitude: appreciating the gift that life is.

Before I went to Harmony Hill, I hated to feel that people pitied me and now I know why. For me, a healing community is people who know me, know what I am dealing with, and offer empathy, sympathy, and fellow feeling, but never pity. Rachel Remen, author of "Kitchen Table Wisdom", writes: "Fixing is a form of judgment that denotes inequality of expertise that can easily become a moral distance.  When helping we also imply that someone is needier than we are. A hierarchy is constructed. Conversely, we cannot serve at a distance.  We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected, that which we are willing to touch. We serve life not because it is broken but because it is holy." I think this is what Jesus referred to as the healing touch.  When we connect this way, the line between you and me disappears.  This profound connection reminds of the greeting from India and Nepal: Namaste, which is sometimes translated as "The divine in me salutes the divine in you," recognizing that we are each expressions of the same spirit.  Healing me heals you, and healing you heals me.
   
Cancer takes a lot of forgiving, on many levels. Over and over, I had to ask myself if I was really ready to forgive and listening for a deep and true response.  Forgiving and forgiveness became a part of my life.  Searching for something to blame took me away from appreciating the here and now.  Instead, I started making a conscious effort to appreciate what I have.  This turned into a prayer: a prayer of gratitude.  It goes like this:  Think of something you appreciate, like water.  Then make up a simple prayer.  "For water that nourishes, cools me, warms me, cleanses me, Thank you." Sunshine: "For sunshine that warms me, colors my world, delights my eyes, Thank you." Food: "For food that nourishes me and delights me with tastes, colors, textures, that my body converts to energy, Thank you."

If you practice gratitude like this, eventually you can tie it to your breathing.  Think of something you are grateful for on the inhale, perhaps music; on the exhale, say thank you.  Keep that up and you can discover how to follow St. Pauls advice: "Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you" (Thes.5:16-18).   e.e. cummings wrote a poem about his gratitude, the only one I know that uses capital letters.  Here it is:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
 
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

I have come to realize that I have, through a combination of circumstances and the love of host of people, experienced what the Book of Worship phrased as "the reintegration of body, mind, emotions, and spirit that permits people, in a community, to live life fully."   I thank all of you for that.

I will look forward to everyday, for as long as I live.

 I knew I was healed when I woke up laughing.  This delighted and puzzled Ann.  It took me several months to figure out.  In looking at what I faced, I delved into what it was I thought I was losing.  It wasn't some great thrill that I hadn't experienced, or some physical accomplishment, (I couldn't do those anyway).  What "it" is, that was such a thrill, is what e.e. cummings was talking about.  It is this – being here.  It is that sense that comes as soon as you awake, that you are still a part of this life.  It is joyful.

We, the disciples of Jesus, were instructed by him to heal each other.  I have described this as three elements I use as a guide. If they fit for you, too, feel free to make them yours.  I think Jesus put it most  clearly when He said:  "Love your neighbor as yourself."