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3 Instructions on How to Touch the Hem of His Garment
Today is the day to come to Jesus and touch the hem of His garment. Isolation, from others or from God, due to negative emotions such as shame or grief, often leave us enduring a kind of perpetual anxiety. We need contact with God and with others in order to feel safe and loved. The story of the woman with the issue of blood is a case in point. She was ‘unclean’ due to the physical issue she suffered. Ritual impurity is not something we identify with in our society, but the aspect of shame and isolation is. Our negative emotions flow from us, defiling others. In those days, no…
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The Superstitious Christian: Manipulating God
When I hear the word, superstitious, I see Michael Scott from The Office, saying to the camera, “I’m not really superstitious; I’m just a little stitious.” The other image that comes to mind is a young person in 18thcentury garb anxiously bathing a toad by the light of the moon in order to rid themselves of warts. Nothing but anguish and futility in that, I imagine. Superstition takes so many forms, and not surprisingly given human nature, is still present in the current age where science is supposedly doing away with old wives’ tales and replacing them with the light of cold hard reason. But the superstition I am more…
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Your True Self: Tossing the Catalogue of Selves
In the parlance of psychology, a person needs two things in order to be emotionally healthy; a sense of being and a sense of well-being. The first seems obvious at first. We look at ourselves and say, “Well, of course, here I am”. But if it were so simple, we would not suffer the crisis of identity, both personally and in the church that we currently endure. A struggle with one’s identity is a battle for a sense of being, and it is reductive to claim an easy or guaranteed path to success in this endeavor. This search for who one is and what one stands for begins in infancy…
Healing Through Art & Words
