You cannot make somebody else heal, or do the healing work for them. It is hard to watch people we love struggle, but it is important to remember that there is no timeline, no deadline, and healing is different for everybody.
-Marin Smith (CLF)
How do you make space for others to heal?
Healing always takes time – whether it’s a cut or a scratch or a relationship that needs attention and listening and understanding. We must be patient and do the work required to allow for healing.
-Judy DiCristofaro (CLF)
“In my mind, there is a direct relationship between the healing of my body and the healing of the world. Where healing and peacemaking are one, they are the bridge between individual healing and the healing of the community. I do not ask for my healing without committing entirely to the healing of the other as the small possibilities of the healing of the world are sacred gifts extended to me as well. The world’s body. My body. The same. This is the very nature of healing.” -Deena Metzger
How do you know yourself as part of the world needing to be healed?
Sixteenth century Jewish mystic Isaac Luria told a story of creation in which God, in order to make room to create the world, stored divine light in earthen vessels. Some of these jars broke, and the light that they stored scattered with the broken pieces of clay.
In Luria’s account of creation, the goal of humankind was to gather the divinity scattered with these shards, and to separate this sacred light from the sharp, jagged pieces of brokenness. Luria named this goal tikkun olam, the repair of the world.
How do you participate in the healing of the world?
One of the difficult parts of healing from COVID-19 is that in many people, long after the virus is gone from our bodies, our brains struggle to return to health, remaining foggy. It is a pathway of healing that most of us are not used to – and it means we have to re-think our expectations for ourselves and others.
-Rev. Dr. Michael Tino (CLF)
How has the notion of “healing” changed for you since 2020?
