6 mins
The Big Question
Paul Cathcart, DCS, Deacon at Glasgow: Castlemilk
“I’m a reflector by nature, so I need to have done something in order to reflect on it.
The downside to that is that I often find myself needing to stay busy.
“Castlemilk is vibrant and it is easy to be busy all the time, so I have had to learn over the years to find the quiet places so that I can make sense of the busyness.
“My call to the Diaconate was that of a small, unexpected voice like the voice Samuel heard, a quiet voice calling in the night rather than the Damascus Road experience.
“It is to that voice I turn when I need to top up my spiritual tank, to come to that same voice and be healed.
“For me this is the quiet place where I can stop and listen for the voice of God either affirming my calling or bringing me back to his ways if I have gone off track.
“Sometimes that means taking time out, spending some time alone and away from distractions, but sometimes that stillness I need is found in the midst of the busyness like the eye of a storm where even though all around is chaos you can be centred.
“The important thing is to go back to the place God can be heard most clearly and allow him to be the healer, reminding us that we are loved and valued.
“For me spiritual healing is to stop doing and simply be.”
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The Rev Dr Jaco Boonzaaier, minister at Findochty l/w Portknockie Parish Churches.
“While mindfulness has become a buzz word the concept of self-awareness was captured in the Jewish expression, ‘Physician, heal thyself’ (Luke 4:23).
Spiritual self-awareness keeps me grounded. Following Jesus Christ, my grounding is not in a journey into the soul but rather a constant yearning to encounter God in his revelation to us.
“This past year has been challenging on a global scale. In a pandemic-stricken world gripped by a panicdemic, I find myself connected to my surroundings yet not determined to these circumstances. I don’t want to escape the situation we’re in but rather experience God’s presence within even the darkest days and nights. How do I pursue this? By carefully managing the R-value. I hasten to add, NOT the R-value punted in the media. My R-value stands for relationship value and unlike the one in the media, I aim for the highest possible R-value in my life. Allow me to explain.
“I make an effort to connect with God and my neighbour and beyond. How? By taking my camera to capture fiery sunsets, the migrating geese from Greenland, and a glowing aurora borealis all the time reflecting on the might and majesty of the Creator God to whom I ascribe these wonders. This helped me to understand my ability to come through difficult times – after all, I dare to call him Father! “R-value also has the horizontal dimension of reaching out to others, the more the better. This has taken on different shapes and sizes – many of these novel ways to connect.”
The Rev Nigel Uden, Chaplain, Cambridge University
“Just as Methodism was born in song, so was my Christian faith. On my mother’s knee at the piano, as she sang Wide, wide as the ocean. In the village’s Anglican church choir, learning the psalms, as if by rote: The Lord is my light and salvation.
“And so it has continued. In one of Soweto’s tin tabernacles, where I cut my ministerial teeth: Lizalis idinga lakho (Lord, fulfil your promises); at the Church of Scotland General Assembly: Ye gates, lift up your heads on high; in a Cambridge College, at grace before dinner, Oculi omnium in te sperant, Domine (The eyes of all look to thee, Lord).
“In truth, my appreciation of music is not especially adventurous. I like a good tune and some rich harmony. All my life, those two have had power to heal me spiritually.
In part it’s to do with metaphor. I experience God’s grace in Jesus Christ as a soaring, enduring melody. Likewise, discipleship is that trust and service which are my counterpoint to the divine melody.
“Music is more than a metaphor though.
It also has the power to be a balm to my spirit when I play or listen. Times without number, as they are given life the dried ink dots on yellowed paper miraculously stir a visceral impact that heals me. In one moment, it’s as if the Spirit has placed her arm soothingly around my shoulder. In another, she’s arrested my somnolent body and sent me out for refreshed partnership with God in mission, in the world of dissonance and need to perform the symphony of God’s shalom.
“In his 1931 Music at Night, Aldous Huxley speaks for me: ‘After silence, what comes closest to express the inexpressible is music.’ Thus am I healed.”
The Rev Ross Blackman, minister at Hamilton: Old
“Can I heal myself? Is the ‘spiritual’ that which brings wholeness? “If the aspect of our holistic life that needs healing is spiritual, is that the purview of the Holy Spirit; and if God wants us to live life in all its fullness, is our part in that to accept or impede the potential healing we might receive – at the point that God wishes to give it? “God has given us numerous gifts, many of which we eschew: the breath of life, newness of life in the spirit, constant and seamless access to God through the intercession of Christ and the Holy Spirit, the Word to us that includes the power of story and experience and song, instruction, direction, challenge, forgiveness and restoration of spirit and psyche, wholeness through Christ’s redemptive power, a thankful heart, a church family to which to belong, works to perform that make a difference in the world, faith and hope and love, and the greatest of these is love that can be shared with all.
“On those occasions that I recognise [late] that I need healing, I can find myself impatient for God’s grace or discover that God’s grace is already present.
“We have physicians to aid the body’s silent mechanisms, and a church and devotional life to aid the spirit’s silent mechanisms.
“Instead of picking at spiritual scabs, may God help me to patiently let go and let God heal; and perhaps love myself a little as well as God and my neighbour.”
Joanna Love DCS, deacon, Wild Goose Resource Group, Iona Community
“‘Attention is healing.’ I cannot recall where I first heard this insight but it has proved to be a gem; a recurrent signpost to restoration. Being awake to whatever is present – simply taking time to notice where I am and how I am – somehow allows me to return to a state of being wholly in the same place at the same time.
“I can’t think that I’ve ever chosen words like ‘healing spiritually’ to describe that movement from fragmentation back to peace; less lofty language comes to mind – ‘out of sorts’ or ‘all over the place’ to more ‘together’.
“And which comes first – my recognition or God’s nudge? Does it matter who is chicken or egg? Grace is a mystery often disguised in ordinariness, sometimes humorously so.
“In this abnormal year, I’ve come home to God and to myself (one and the same experience, really) on many a summer beachcombing walk, many an autumn muddy woodland soaking. Or literally on my own doorstep, in moments with the neighbour’s kitten purring into my jacket as we pause together in the middle of the day. God is equally adept at planned encounters and beautiful surprises, endlessly inventive and tenaciously faithful in offering salve for the wounds of our existence.
“I do recall where I first heard a familiar announcement in a whole new light – on a Scotrail train returning from one of those restorative beach trips. ‘See it. Say it. Sorted.’ Notice, pray, be mended.”
This article appears in the February 2021 Issue of Life and Work
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