Mtr Taylor Devine

Dear Friend,

Today’s morning Gospel is from the Gospel of Mark who famously races through to the cross—the stories are short in this canonical Gospel. But not so much this one. The Gospel writer takes pains to include details: there were scribes among the crowd with the Disciples and Jesus. We hear details about how the son in the story has been afflicted by a demon. We can nearly see the father in anguish crying out “I believe; help my unbelief!” Jesus said, after this public healing, privately to his disciples who had some questions, “This kind can come out only through prayer.”

I am often wary of speaking too much about healing; this is one of the most clear ways that church wounds have been inflicted over our broader church history. Thoughts like “if I had prayed harder,” “if I had been a better Christian/person/wife/parent,” and other laments have been unfairly the internal voice of so many. Jesus’ identity as healer, though, is a beautiful one. To so completely redeem a situation as to make it a new life—that is a jolt to faith and understanding.

When we see healing we know it. My siblings’ relationship has recently been a site of healing after decades of challenges. Neither is now perfect, but there is a union and love in their relationship that I would never have anticipated to see. We know it when we see it. I’m also amazed by the gifts of healing that people share in their professional work—nurses, doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, occupational therapists, physical therapists, specialists of all kinds use their minds, hearts, and bodies to bring as much healing as they can to the places that hurt and are broken. That is amazing.

This week a family stopped by while on vacation. They were here visiting family, and wanted to visit where they got married. They brought their elementary school-aged boys, and we talked about their moves for school and work. We all got chills when they visited the place where they indeed were married, blessed, received Communion, and joyfully set out on their life together 13 years ago.

They met on a rotation; she is a physical therapist and he is a doctor. I don’t know the details of their work, but I know from our brief conversation the way his mind and heart was shaped by growing up in a beautiful church in southern California, and his time while in school here, worshiping at Saint Philip’s which felt like his home church. Their work of healing is somehow in part empowered by God’s power. All of our good works are.

Thanks be to God for the ways our efforts can be used for things that look like Jesus: love, healing, the next right thing, forgiveness, trying again, looking back and looking forward, remembering and hoping. I’m so grateful to serve in a place that helps to form people to go out into the world and do those things.

In Christ,

—Mtr Taylor