Are we here to help people? Or are we here to heal people? Or are helping and healing one and the same? If not, how are they different? Do all people want to be helped or healed? Are there some people that are beyond both helping and healing?
“May we never applaud someone’s suffering, never weaponize our religion to do harm, never grow comfortable with hearts that are only capable of anger.” John Pavlovitz
This quote was posted on a Facebook page I follow. I “liked” it and thought it was pretty self-explanatory. Apparently, someone did not share my understanding and responded in the comment section with, “Not sure what this statement means? Further discussion would be interesting.”
What is to understand? Is it ever appropriate to celebrate anyone’s hurt and pain? If you know any US or World history at all, you know how religion has been used as a weapon in a broad spectrum of ways to justify shaming, displacement, mutilation, torture and killing. Wars have been and are still being fought in the name of religious beliefs with all participants believing God was and is on their side. How is that not obvious to the commentator mentioned above? A heart only capable of anger is one that Jesus warned against time and time again. In parable after parable, Jesus alerted his followers to the hazards of a hardened heart.
Seems like a very straightforward and sincere awareness to me. Notice how this person said further discussion would be “interesting,” not helpful, not insightful, not healing—but “interesting.” This suggests that this person just wants to argue the beliefs with which he or she is identified. Arguing from the perspective of an identity in the beliefs of separation is counter-intuitive and counter-productive.
Several friends who saw this person’s comment wondered how one would approach an individual with this mindset. One friend said, “I want to help people like (this person) but I wonder what the word “help” even means as I say it? To change (this person)? To persuade (this person) to think as I think? Am I making crazy assumptions by using the word “help”?
To which I wrote, “Maybe the word you are looking for is heal. You want to be an agent of healing, which is really our purpose here on earth.”
Perhaps there are different ways of looking at “helping.” Some people want to help others so the others can be like them, think like them, act like them, believe like them. But what about the example of the Good Samaritan who helped the man on the side of the road because it was the right thing to do, without asking anything in return. In that case, helping is healing because the Samaritan walked alongside the hurt man, joining and being present with him upon his journey to wholeness.
In Matthew chapter ten, before sending his disciples out on a particular mission, Jesus gave them instructions which included the following:
When you enter someone’s household, say, ‘Shalom aleikhem!’ (Peace be unto you). If the home deserves it, let your shalom rest on it; if not, let your shalom return to you.
Matthew 10:12-14
The peace to which Jesus is referring “is more than just the absence of conflict or a state of rest. It means completeness or wholeness, and it points to the presence of something else.” (wordsoffaithhopelove.com) Shalom encompasses not only peace but also tranquility, innate safety, well-being, welfare, health, contentment, success, comfort, wholeness and integrity.
If the home deserves it simply means, are the people within the home so identified with their beliefs in separation that their hearts cannot be open to Life, Light and healing? Basically, Jesus is saying, If they are itching for a fight, get the hell out of there and take your peace with you.
His words in verse 14:
If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.
Sometimes the best response to someone with such a heart is silence. By not engaging, we extend Grace and the person is forced to look inward to meet God.
In discussing a similar circumstance where my responding to a zinger would have meant re-entanglement in the situation, my cousin replied:
This person, not consciously but instinctively, the instincts of separation so to speak, knows how to try to entangle people into a continuation of some of his or her past drama they are still attached to (identified with). Our lack of response is a clear no, a no that leaves them nowhere to turn except back into their self … And that is where Goddess waits for them… When there is nowhere left for them to go except inward (because they have finally used up all outward options), they will, if they are truly willing, begin to realize (make real) their own journey with Goddess… This world of outward appearances we humans share in the beliefs of separation offers a lot of distractions, so this sort of spiritual “turning” we are speaking of now may not be for them to realize in this lifetime… No knowing…
People cannot see, cannot hear, we don’t know why they cannot see, cannot hear, and so we are disappointed… It will keep coming up for all of us who walk these paths, our many unique journeys being sort of like all the many threads of Goddess’s yarn on Goddess’s loom, that is in a sense weaving all of us who were never really apart back together in some wholly new ways…
Our disappointment in those who cannot hear, cannot see, shows us deeper into our own expectations and beliefs, around all the ways we still don’t accept and therefore still judge how things are not other than they simply are… What is, is…
Jesus spoke to those with the eyes to see, the ears to hear… He did not try to speak to those whose eyes and ears are so covered by dreams and beliefs and fears it is as if they are blind and deaf and do not even consciously know what it means to see and hear… He trusted that all was well, and that everybody awakens out of dreams and beliefs in their own time and ways, in relationship with God… This lifetime, next lifetime, some lifetime…
Nothing is, nor ever can be, left out of eternity… In the end ALL must return to Goddess… For after all, it was only ever an illusion believed, that anyone (or thing) was ever apart from what is everything…
Shalom aleikhem … or not.
Please also see Agents of Healing and Peacemaker, two essays posted here on this site.
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