Wholeness & Healing

I took the above picture during a week-long contemplative retreat at St Bernard’s Monastery in Cullman, Alabama.

The reason for the title? Besides the fact that we will be having a service for wholeness Sunday night at the church I serve? Besides headlines from Ferguson, MO and places like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia? Besides the vitriol I see too often on the pages of Social Media?

Listening to the speech that Martin Luther King, Jr delivered on this day 51 years ago made me think about a lot of things.

The years pass and yet the dream is still out of reach… Hopeless?
The fact that the dream is still alive in growing pockets around the world… Hopeful!

When I need to renew… When I need to be in God’s healing place despite the messiness of life… I go…

To woods and trails such as the one pictured above…
To the beach where I can listen to the waves washing up…
To our back deck or prayer room where I can be still and know…

So I turn today to the silence…
Seeking inner healing and peace…
Lifting a hurting world…
Lifting people I know…
Like the homeless man named Winfield whom we prayed with in New Orleans…
Lifting people I don’t know by name but who live on this earth…
Sisters and Brothers… Created by God in God’s image…

Lord help me to be…
Your instrument of peace… Of healing… Of love…
We are all in need of that wholeness and healing…

And so… I pray…