Available Light

Copyright unknown Over the last week on retreat there have been two Bible passages which have haunted me. In 2 Kings 5 there is the story of Naaman the Syrian, a powerful and important man, who became ill with leprosy. The least important person in his household, his wife's slave girl, knew of a prophet in her home town, Samaria, with the ability to work miracles and who may have been able to help. Desperate, Naaman took notice of this advice and travelled to Israel and sought out the prophet, Elisha. He took with him lavish gifts of gold, silver and textiles to pay for the services of the holy man, but when he arrived at Elisha's house the prophet didn't even bother coming outside to see him. Elisha refused all payment and passed on a message to Naaman that if he wanted a cure he must dip himself in the Jordan 7 times. Although he was greatly annoyed at the prophet's cavalier attitude Naaman nevertheless took the advice and was healed. In L...

The prayer of silence, whatever specific form it might take and whatever tradition it is practised in always works from a particular premise: that the truest part of ourselves is found within; and encompassed within that deep part of ourselves is something wiser and older and deeper and better than we are. So I sit in silence. I withdraw from all those things which occupy my everyday life. I try to be as still as possible beside this great well of life and meaning which opens up in the parts of me I am never able to directly observe. When I first started doing this, many, many years ago, I would be engulfed, every time I tried it,  in a sense of peace and wellbeing as I sat beside this deep inner pool; but I have learned to see this experience, attractiveas it is, as a distraction, drawing me away from the pure depths which are my heart's true focus. Sitting in that place of silence isn't easy. My personality is a complicated web of attitudes and habits and predispositions...

Part of the farm attached to Living Springs campsite. I brought a camera but didn't use it for any of the more typical bits of the week's activities. This shot will have to do.  This past week was spent at Totara Springs, near Matamata, attending the international conference of The Order of St. Luke . I was there to deliver a keynote address and lead a workshop on meditation. The OSL has as its raison d'etre the promotion of the ministry of healing, an aim with which I have developed a considerable sympathy over the past few years. I had been a member many years ago, but let my membership lapse. Back then, in my thirties, I had found my fellow members to be a decade or two older than me and their ways of doing things a little too highly regulated for my taste. When Archbishop David Moxon moved to Rome and could no longer attend the international conference I agreed to take his place in the programme. Coincidentally, the invitation to attend and speak came at about the ...

Photo courtesy http://www.facebook.com/pages/Damian-and-Nicky-on-974-MOREFM/83550471126 Yesterday I took part in the Relay for Life , the cancer society's annual fundraising and consciousness raising event. I arrived early, saw the teams from the Diocese of Dunedin, and from Anglican Family Care, and went to the official tent to collect the purple sash which marked me as a cancer survivor. Clemency wore a green one, given to those who have supported loved ones through cancer. The event this year was held in the Forsyth Barr stadium, so it was weatherproof. It's a great event with a sort of carnival atmosphere. Organisations and businesses raise teams who commit themselves to walking for 24 hours in relay. A small entrance fee is paid and the teams raise money through sponsorship, so a considerable sum is accumulated to pay for cancer research and for the excellent supportive work of the cancer society. Each team sets up a little headquarters and the members are inclined to...

I've had a good day. My meditation went especially well this morning. I've dropped 4kg in the past month and my pants fit better. I had a great breakfast of the world's most delicious muesli and spent the day meeting and talking with interesting people. I had a cup of coffee in a very pleasant cafe with my friend Richard.  I've felt ridiculously fit and well all day. Preposterously well. Absurdly, egregiously, farcicaly well. There was a fleeting moment of anxiety as I headed into Mr. North's office but it was dispelled somewhat by hearing him conversing with his nurse immediately before the appointment. He was describing a Monty Python skit and laughing like a drain. He wouldn't do that if he had to shortly put on the black cap before passing sentence on me, would he? No, apparently not. His news was good. I have some measureable PSA but it's now heading down into margin of error territory. Over the past few months  it has a) stopped growing and b) started ...

Brian Broom is a medical specialist in allergies and a consulting psychologist. His book Meaning-full Disease describes a phenomenon he has seen countless times in his professional life: that people's diseases often seem to follow a pattern and history that mirrors what is happening in their lives. Illness often seems to be a bodily metaphor for the underlying issues the person is dealing with. The book is filled with intriguing examples, such as a woman "putting a brave face" on her husband's depression (her words) developing a chronic rash on her face. The model of disease underlying Western medicine has no time for this approach. Broom describes the Western medical paradigm as "the body is a biological machine. Body and mind are separate entities...and it is appropriate to deliver healthcare by focusing solely on the body. 'Real' disease will be adequately and completely explained by physical mechanisms; thus, mind, soul or spirit aspects are periphe...

Titoki healing centre, where I spent the last few days, is set in farmland just out of Whakatane. Titoki began in the mid 1970's when Don Ferguson, the Vicar of St. George's, in Tauranga left his parish to set up a healing centre. Don had been interested in the healing ministry after a dramatic answer to a healing prayer early in his priesthood. Later, a time in the Solomon Islands convinced him of the link between physical health and mental and spiritual states. He regularly held healing services and sought to deepen his understanding and expertise in this role. Gradually, he became convinced that he needed to set up a healing centre similar to Burrswood in England. In 1975 he found a suitable property, and taking an immense leap of faith, abandoned his regular stipend to found Titoki. Thirty years later the centre is flourishing. The original farm house has been added to over time, so that now, accomodation wings sprout out of most of its sides and modest houses for staff n...

Today I got to the point in Ian Gawler's book where I am on quite familiar territory: the bit where he explains his theology of healing. It's a theory I know well in various guises, a theory that crops up time and again in various Eastern and/or esoteric philosophies. He says that we have seven bodies, only one of which, the physical body, is accessible to the senses. The other six - the emotional, intellectual, intuitional, spiritual and astral bodies - are of varying degrees of subtlety and while some people can "see" some of them they are invisible to most of us. Illness happens when the energies of two or more of the bodies are conflicted and healing occurs when coherence is restored between them. I'm not sure what I believe about this theory: I'm probably too steeped in my Western world view to embrace it fully but it's  disconcerting  that some practices based on this idea, such as acupuncture,  seem to have real, measurable effectiveness, as does Ia...