Healer heal thyself

Before you speak of peace,

you must first have it in your heart….

 

We have been called

to heal wounds,

to unite what

has fallen apart, and to bring home

any who have lost

their way

 

Frances to the First Friars

Legend of the Three Companions, Number 58

(quoted by Richard Rohr  in The Wisdom Pattern)

 

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Ἰατρέ, θεράπευσον σεαυτόν,

Medice, cura te ipsum, (Luke 4:23)

 

Healer heal thyself

 

From Aeschylus to ancient Jewish rabbis

(physician, physician, heal thy own limp)

to Jesus comes this plea

 

attend to thine own illness

which causes my mind to jump to another proverbial statement

 

remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye (Matthew 7:5)

 

and another

people who live in glass houses, should wear clothes (5 year old version)

 

I have not come to talk about hypocrisy however

I have come to talk about healing

 

and what occurs to me as I reflect upon all of this is that we are

all, as Henri Nouwen pointed out, “Wounded Healers

 

There is no debate about this

we all have those fragile places, those privileged places

we all spiritual cracks and fissures

those place where we bled anger, or hate, jealousy or greed

 

but still, wounded as we are (I don’t like the term broken)

we are still called be to healers

 

to be people of compassion and generosity

to be people who unite and support

and touch a very broken world

with love

 

but we can’t heal, unless we have experienced some degree of healing

(probably not cure, just healing)

we can’t offer love if we have not received it

we can’t offer peace if we don’t have it

we can’t embrace forgiveness if we have not been forgiven

 

which is why

whatever we do to address the ills of the world

must come from the deep places of the heart

and must come out of an intimate encounter with Sacred

 

which means (or so my logic suggest)

that meaningful social change must come out of spirituality

 

which means we must nurture our relationship with the Sacred

 

which means we need

meditation and silence, lament and praise

worship (however we define it and practice it)

 

we need Sabbath

times of rest and reflection

times to sink our roots more deeply

into the fine soil of God’s love

 

before we speak of, and strive for peace, justice, joy, love

we must have it in our hearts