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LISTENING TO THE SCRIPTURES
And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment: For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.
*Matthew 9.20-22 (KJV)
RECEIVING SACRED TEACHING
To be made whole is to have healing. This is Shalom teaching - wellness, joy, and blessedness - Jesus received from his Jewish faith.
Jesus' physical healings, a mission of Shalom, indicates Spirit's potency to put back together the pieces of our life. "You leave," writes Caroline Myss, "fragments of your spirit here and there over the years" (Entering the Castle). This is one way of saying life has a way of eating away at us, or eating us away.
What fragments persons? We could list many things, among them - broken family relationships, any trauma, loss of faith, abuse - either physical or emotional-, loss of loved ones, involvement in the occult, being sexually violated, loss of a job, abusive neglect, betrayal by a religious leader or faith community, a mental breakdown, abuse of drugs or alcohol, divorce of parents or oneself, betrayal in a relationship, unresolved resentment, unwillingness to forgive, loss of a child to an early death, ...
Myss compares these detached fragments to barnacles on a ship. The "barnacles," she writes, are "glued ... to various places, objects, people, memories, and unfinished business." About our past, these fragments manifests as a "dead zone." Literally, a person can, at times, recall an incident and place, remembering the very moment he or she lost part of herself or himself. She or he was, as we say, never the same after that.
These, spiritually, form attachments. This means we cling to these losses of self. We come to see ourselves as less than whole, as unhealed. We may not feel okay about that, but that is the self we have become, oddly, comfortable with. Then, we can resist healing.
Why? Again, we become identified with the unwellness, lack of wholeness. Also, there is an "energy connection," a "currency of power" entailed.
If you have ever been freed from an old un-whole pattern of responding, you may know how scary and unfamiliar wholeness can be. All of a sudden things are different, and a door opens for you to be and act differently. There is a loosening of the potency of the past. I have known this more than once and become aware of it happening, not to know how to relate to the new freedom.
So, oddly, we can perpetuate our suffering, our un-whole-ness. We can keep falling into sick ways. We can use our suffering to gain attention and pity, to control those around us, and to have an excuse not to move on with life. We, literally, get stuck and, at some level, choose to remain stuck.
This dead zone can come from our family past. Often, if a parental system does not show the right for wholeness, the child internalizes the message: "I cannot be whole. Wholeness is not for me." Or, "To be whole would be denial of my parental heritage."
This woman, in the Scripture for today, wanted to be free. She wanted the newness of wholeness. She reached out for it. She got it. Notice, Jesus did not say, "I made you whole." Jesus spoke, "Your trust has made you whole." Her will, which issued in faith, created the inner conditions for the wholeness.
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