healing is non-negotiable (erin jean warde)
〰 please note: I won’t be sending a newsletter next week, because I will be deep in the throes of moving. I promise I’ll be back the next Tuesday! thanks for your patience. <3 〰
inspiration
“Theology can perpetuate the illness or it can capacitate the cure.”
—Catherine Keller
contemplation
I often wonder what the spiritual life — the whole spiritual body of all people — would look like if everyone understood the central act of our prayers and meditations to be healing through the power of the Spirit. healing as adoration and worship, healing because we dared to grow in knowledge, healing received through the ache of laughter, healing in our minds, healing in our bodies, healing in our souls. I wonder if understanding the central work of the heart to be a movement toward healing might force us to move away from harm, not all at once of course (because we’re still human), but in the sense that even if you get lost, if you keep going north you’ll rarely find out you’ve been going south.
I love theology — the theo & the logos, the God & the talk — but I love it, because it opens up God for me in a way that feels like balm. I struggle when I look into the pursuits of faith when I feel like I can’t squeeze a single drop of ointment from it that would be fit for a wound. in this world, our specific world, with its vast and deep need for healing, I have to believe the spiritual life looks like receiving people who have wounds and making sure we have even a drop of ointment to place upon the tender place they worried spiritual types might not dare to heal.
our practicing of theology, the ways we grow in faith, how we nurture our spirituality, these actions have the ability to perpetuate the illness or capacitate the cure, and I pray the Spirit would illuminate a path forward that understands healing is non-negotiable. spirituality can be a way of service and worship in which we are ordered toward healing; healing is our north star. no, we won’t always get it right (because we’re still human), but if we would risk making healing our north star, even if we got lost, we would at least keep going north, we’d still be moving into a closeness with the Spirit. spirituality can be known as the ways we bear the ointment, how we carry it for those who hurt, and as the experience of receiving the balm we offer onto our wounds just the same. if we are ordered by healing we are ordered toward one another. by my healing, you are healed, and in your healing, I receive the balm I seek.
reflection
what wounds do you hold in your mind, body, and soul? how do you seek healing?
what ointment do you bear? how could your spiritual life become more ordered toward healing?
programs & offerings
〰 I’m booked for April, but I am available for 1:1 coaching in May, if you’d like to get signed up & book your sessions!
〰 I will also be open for more spiritual directees in May! say hi if you’re interested, so we can discern whether or not we’d be a good fit.
interests & joys
〰 I finished the first draft of my book last week! The best news!
〰 … and I move Monday, yikes, lol.