Healing ways.
Treks teach me tons.
Take, for example, a drive North for a pause for prayer.
Less stimulating noise and work is stilled some. And, like a tornado, the frentic pace pulls, pokes and pretends to accomplish and achieve, yet, meaning amounts to little in haste. Masks only pretend that all is well like a cosmetic and superficial covering. Deep down, the wound cries, however.
Pastoral pastures of Cheboygan, MI., and beyond, calm me in the maternal genetic birthplace of Edith Wichlacz, my mother's maiden name. Her marriage to dad, John Ventline (Wendt-land) has roots running deep in relations in Michigan's thumb, Port Austin, as well. And, Thursday, Aug. 23rd, a reunion back in Cheboygan unites our families in the circle, the loop of Love.
Quiet time takes me once more to T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets," and, his "East Coker."
"Our only health is the disease," pens Eliot, and, that "to be restored our sickness must grow worse."
My boyhood pastor, Edward Popielarz, founder of a class in accepance, borne of his own drowning demons in alcohol attachment disorder, suggested that denying the dysfunctional disease required sometimes "inducing the bottom," if mending, morphing, and more makes its way to recovery.
"The whole world is our hospital," evokes Eliot for us to embrace. And, parish churches, and people, are those in emergency wards, and hospital rooms, and trapped within their own souls/selves yearning for healing and health in all kinds of "fixes" that fail to satisfy.
To restore sanity to a crazy and wild sort of world, it seems that awareness must emerge and the poison paining us all must surface to the top, if the denials these days, and, in these times in the US Government, among divisive parties, factions of who is in and who is out, who is right and who is wrong, who is on top and who is pressed to the bottom, coupled with the meltdown of my Catholic Church hierarchy, is to heal, and, be well again, minus the power grabs and condmenations of most anything from the Girl Scouts to . . .
While a parish I serve aches these days at the loss of their pastor due to allegations of sexual abuse, I sense sorrowful grieving amid a grab for power that is particularly demonstrated in one parishioner. The parishioner seems to deny the swallowed grief of depression faced in multiple unresolved losses in her own life.
An apparent grab for influence, in chargeness, and lording over others with "power," only deepens the ache and alienation of the unhealed wound for that hurting parishioner who makes her presence with authoritarianism, and a "I need to know everything around this parish" attitude.
And, authoritarian mandates, like those popping up with condemnations of so much these days, only pushe denial deeper into one's soul. The addictive cycle is like that. And, fear of facing the demon freezes one to circle the wagons around the fort, if you will. Defending is like that. Denial also.
Until one names and claims the festering wound and loss in life, the healing taming of amazing grace is foreign. The "power" drug, and fixes like it, cause further oppression with the authoritarian perpetrator feeling in charge, and, in control of loose wagons, for example. Look at dying regimes.
Toxins have to rise in a culture, in a person of denial, like a cooking chicken's scum in boiling water, that surfaces to the top under pressure. And, the scum and poison is removed from the kettle like denial has to rise, and, rid itself for healing to happen.
Recovery is a process.
Uncovering (taking off, purging the masks we wear), discovering ("illuminata") and recovering (divina unitiva) the original True Self is what Merton mystics, and the like, teach in the spiritual life.
Fifteen minutes twice a day, for me, in centering prayer helps the "scum" of the False Self to gradually and ever so slowly fall away to give way to the True Self. Resting in Divine Love without words, doing anything, is like that. Holy Acceptance, I call it. Amazing. . .grace!
Circling wagons 'round the fort, if you will, only "protect" the denial, and, the unhealed wound, as it were, slowing the healing process. Defending one's turf and condemning deepens the sick denial.
Authoritarian ways replace Love, and its exertion, as witnessed in the local and global church, for example, achieving little if anything. Fear and oppression always ends with protest for more, and, the better life for the common good. Look at oppressive regimes in Syria, in Communism, in Poland's past, for example, among others. Centuries of resentment require recovery then. Look at how authoritarian regimes have falled over the past decades, and more.
Misusing power is at work in government and church today. The common good suffers when that occurs until such misuse is matched with healing and recovery beyond a denial that only locks leaders into more fear.
Healing happens when the toxic fear and authoritarianism give way to recovery, devoid of the grab for the next "fix" and addictive power people reach for when they know not how to heal by the grace of God. Addictions work that way. They recyle over and again until the "bottom is induced" giving way to letting loose the poison that surfaces.
Trappist Thomas Keating, among others, teach centering prayer that watches and witnesses the falling away of the False Self, over time, when one gets out of the way of the True Self.
Healing God, help us listen long and in quiet stillness for your Voice to mend and morph.
No comments:
Post a Comment