Council for Health and Human Service Ministries

Word and Deed: Thoughts on Faith-Based Leadership

A heart that is closed can become open when it is broken, and our sense of compassion is deepened in the healing process. We experience this globally through large catastrophic events that leave an indelible imprint on our souls causing us to heal collectively - one body, one mind, and one spirit. Every day healing occurs in communities and among family and friends and often slips by unnoticed; transforming us at our core and expanding our capacity to love. This type of healing is like water, which seeps into the cracks and crevices of our souls and touches those tender spots that are often hidden.

The essence of these healing moments are captured by Ann L. Hallstein, ordained UCC minister, in a book she has written entitled Every Day Healing - Finding Extraordinary Moments in Ordinary Times. We don't have to make a pilgrimage to Medjugorje or Lourdes to be healers. Homemakers, people who mow their lawns, people who line up at the post office and those who buy milk at the convenience store, are all in the business of being extraordinary healers. They are everyday, genuine people whose hearts have been broken open via love, pain, and/or extenuating circumstances that have planted a seed of desire to be of service to others. As faith-based leaders of health and human service ministries, we're open to God's grace every day in every way. In the following comments, Ann Hallstein reminds us that ordinary spaces are dwelling places for extraordinary graces.

  1. Healing comes through God's presence, which can be found anywhere, anytime . . . healing happens where it will; it will not be confined to our ideas of it. It knows no borders, no "appropriate" settings. It awaits any who are open to it, in the moments that happen in ordinary days.
  2. Our surroundings, our habitats and places of work and play, need to serve our humanity and spirit. There is power in being in the right place. We need to live where we can be reminded of the "rightness" of our humanness and feel connected to the earth and nature and God. We need proportion. We need harmony. We need "fit."
  3. Grace is not limited to working only through the ordained, at altars. Grace is not constrained. It works in its own ways. It works through ordinary people. Imagine!
  4. Touch, in and of itself, can be healing. To be touched with extreme gentleness, to feel the quality of mercy, which is, indeed, not strained: the entire being responds because we are soft animals and we need softness to keep supple, healthy, and whole. It is healing to be dosed with gentleness weekly, just because it is lacking in our taut, sinewy lives.
  5. Beauty carries life's energy in its very being, and anyone who experiences beauty can be healed by it if conscious of it and open to it in whatever moment it is revealed.
  6. Silence is a "place" to meet God. We need infusions of quiet to recalibrate ourselves somehow, or let God do the work of calibration. Quiet heals. Finding quiet when it is needed can feel like salvation, restoring our bearings, bringing us back into alignment with life as it was meant to be, reflective of God.
  7. Love carries healing by its own nature. God's love, our love, the love of an animal, whatever form it comes in, love heals. Anytime love enters our lives, it heals. Opening to love in unexpected places, we experience extraordinary moments, and they hold the promise of healing.

Shirley Nelson

The Rev. Ann L. Hallstein is interim pastor at First Church of Deerfield in Deerfield, Massachusetts. Although her book, Every Day Healing - Finding Extraordinary Moments in Ordinary Times, is out of print, she has copies available for $10. Please email her at soho@crocker.com to learn more.

 

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