Mtr Taylor Devine
Dear Friend,
Today’s Daily Office Gospel is all about Jesus healing - healing a leper, healing a Centurion Gentile, and healing one of his Apostles’ Mother-in-law. They happen quickly and with some drama - the kind of healing that makes us think of movies or caricatures of healing. This kind of reading can sting a little bit - why not here and now? Why not my wound, malady, or heartbreak? I think we can go a few different directions with this at least in a cursory kind of way - we might say “That was a story to make a point at the time,” or we might say “those things don’t happen anymore,” or we might say “healing happens but it’s not like that.” Healing is one of the trickiest things we pray for - with the most fervor, yes, with the most anguish, yes, and sometimes with the most doubt. We might also respond with “well I hope so!” In this reading what I come back to is trust - trust in Jesus’ hearing, trust in the power of Jesus’ name, trust that God’s redemption of the world includes illness and injustice and fear. I learn a great deal from those who practice trust and seek to learn what God is like from these words - healing is part of God’s identity.
This week I listened to an interview with Kate Bowler and Emily P. Freeman. Emily interviews Kate about her new book “No Cure for Being Human” and they speak about grief, and right-sizing fears, love that changes things, discernment, and life as a body, mind and spirit. It’s not a light episode. I haven’t yet read to book but gosh I look forward to it. Living with honesty about our fears while not letting them be the last word is a theme as she grapples with a serious diagnosis and its limitations, her faith, and suffering. Together I think they circle around the theodicy question with trust and grace. If you like podcasts I hope you might also be enriched by their conversation. I pray for healing for myself and those I love, and I deeply trust God, and I still need conversation partners who will walk around and toward those questions and hopes with me. It is fun sometimes for them to be theologians or podcast personalities, but it’s even better if my companions are those who I know and whose healing is linked with mine.
As we carefully regather it is such a gift to start to have those conversations again in person, on the phone, in the before and after moments of meetings, in the hallway! Proximity to people has made a difference in the way I feel can live my faith and pray afresh. Being in relationship together, even in a careful covid-times-way, is healing. I am especially looking forward to regathering for Mosaic Community Night on Wednesday evenings. We start this coming Wednesday with a book and small group discussion on a Sacramental life. More information can be found here if you haven’t had a chance to register. As siblings in Christ, as the Body of Christ, we have the joy and responsibility of relationship with him and with one another. In the sacraments and in a sacrament-inflected life we look for outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace - trusting who God is and how God is - redeeming, claiming, healing, being with.
With gratitude for both trust and wondering in community,
Mtr Taylor