What would you do if you were a healer?

We have all heard of healers – mostly we think of them as religious, spiritual, historical beings.  Or else they live somewhere far, far away.  But what if one were living “here,” wherever “here” is for you?  What do you suppose would happen if someone like Jesus was going around now, healing skin cancers, making the blind see, and the deaf hear?

In times before global television and Internet, a healer could lead a pretty quiet life.  He or she would be known locally, perhaps, but even if rumors circulated, what would they say?  “Well, he’s kinda tall and thin with brown hair and a beard…”  That would probably describe 90 percent of the men of Jesus’s day.

But today?  The story would be all over the globe in about a minute and a half.  Then, there’d be a stampede to get to this guy.  In no time at all, people would be lined up – or more likely mobbed up – outside his door.  How would you function at all as that healer?  You can’t possibly see and heal everyone who needs it.  So how do you decide?  How do you decide how much time you want to spend healing people – as opposed to enjoying your life, maybe reading a book, taking in a movie?  And how do you get people who are desperate for a cure so that they can “have a life” to recognize that you are entitled to a life, just the same as they are?

If you believe the bible, Jesus said that anything he did, anyone else could do, too.  So we are all potential healers.  What if those of us who could truly heal have decided the price is too steep to pay?  But that assumes that there is only a limited number of healers.

Let’s expand that thought:  What if ALL of us could be healers?  What if all of us ARE healers?  That’s an even scarier thought!  Because it leaves each of us responsible for our own healing.  I don’t think many of us really want to take on that responsibility.  Even if it’s just for ourselves.  It’s easier to blame someone else:  society, God, karma, fate, bad doctors, whatever.  Just as it’s easier to take a pill than to fix whatever we’ve done wrong to ourselves to begin with.

But play with it.  Think about what the world would be like if you could heal anything and anyone.  What would you do?

Developing compassion is a good thing...

I have spent a great deal of time today thinking about compassion.  The Dalai Lama recommends compassion meditations where meditators think about an emotion or state of being they would like for themselves.  Then they imagine the same for loved ones, then for people for whom they have neutral feelings, and finally, for enemies.  You can bring these people to mind by naming them or picturing them.  For example, for a neutral person, you might choose someone you see on a regular basis but don’t converse with – someone who rides the same bus you do each day, perhaps.

So it might take the form of stating:

“Might I have peace, joy, and love.  Might I be free from suffering.

“Might my parents [or insert others by name or by relationship] have peace, joy, and love.  Might [insert name] be free from suffering.

“Might [picture neutral person if you don’t know their name] have peace, joy, and love.  Might [insert image] be free from suffering.

“Might [insert name or picture of someone with whom you have difficulties] have peace, joy, and love.  Might [insert name or image] be free from suffering.

“Might all sentient beings have peace, joy, and love.  Might they be free from suffering.”

The goal is to generate genuine feelings about the beings you are listing.  This may be hard at the start – not many of us can generate benevolent feelings towards our enemies off the get-go!  So the recommendation is to repeat each step a number of times before moving on to the next step.  In other words, repeat the step for yourself until you feel peaceful and loving.  Then move on to the next step repeating it about as many beloveds as you can think of.  Once you generate these feelings of benevolence towards your beloveds, move on to the neutral people.  Hopefully, if you have done the first two steps well, you will still have beneficent feelings left over for the “neutrals.”  At that point, step up to the plate and add an adversary.

This is where most of us come to a screeching halt!  “Oh, no!  I couldn’t possibly wish him well!”  So go back to the beginning, repeat it for yourself and your beloveds, and call it a day.  That way, you will end your practice on a high note which will hopefully carry your through the day.  Then try again the next day.  Eventually, if you keep this up as a daily practice, you will begin to actually feel compassion for those who perhaps do not have your best interests at heart.

So when is the best time to do this?  Most meditation teachers recommend first thing in the morning or perhaps last thing at night.  Both of these work well and have advantages:  if you do it in the morning, the feelings will at least get your day off to a good start.  If you do it at night, they will send you into peaceful slumber.  You can also do it during the day when you need to reset yourself – say during your lunch break at work or at the end of the work day to clear the day out of your system.  A lot will depend on your home and work situations.  Ideally you would pick a time and place where you will not be interrupted, when you can turn your cell phone off and not have people looking at you strangely…

You should also pick a time and place where you can do it every day.  That sets it up as a more sustainable practice.  Make a commitment to do this daily for a month and see how your life and your relationships change, then come back and post a comment to let us know what you learned.

Ice Breaker Ducks - Who Knew?

Design in Ice

Earlier this week we had snow.  The weather report called for 6 to 12 inches falling mostly during the day.  It was a pretty good day to stay home and I was fortunate to be able to do so.  Early in the afternoon, I looked out to see the snow progress and noticed that the retention pond next to my house had a lovely design in the ice!  The blob of white near the center of the design is a clump of grass. 

Design with its Creators

I thought it was fascinating how the design just showed up – another Mother Nature marvel like the individuality of snowflakes.  But the next time I checked the snowfall, the design was more complicated!  Then I noticed that there were 4 ducks out there.  I had seen a mating pair a few days earlier when we had a couple of warm days and there are usually a few eating from the pond early in the season.  I don’t know where they nest as I have never seen them with any ducklings, but the adults seem to show up every year.

Unfortunately, the first couple of pictures I took through the glass and screen on the window didn’t turn out.  You could see the screen, but not much behind it.  So these two pictures were taken about the same time.  If you look carefully towards the top right of the design, you may be able to make out a pair of the ice-breaker ducks whose swimming in the almost frozen pond created the patterns.

Everyone Needs Some Encouragement Now and Then!

If you need some now, check out this video from Kid President on Soul Pancake.  It’s one of my favorites.

You’ve probably seen it already – almost 32 million people have!  But if you haven’t, watch it now and keep this link handy for when you need it again.

What gives crabs their negative image?

I’m sitting here this evening pondering what to write about.  It’s not that I don’t have a wealth of ideas – my idea list is about 90 items long at this point (not including the things I’ve already written about…)  It’s more that I don’t “feel like” writing about any of those ideas.  I guess you could say I’m in a pondery.  It’s kind of like a quandary, but with a quandary you’re trying to decide which course of action to take.  Well, a pondery is like that but no action is required.  You just have to think about things.

So, one of the things I’m thinking about is where crabs got their negative image.  I mean, yeah, they’re kind of ugly.  But lobsters are ugly, too, and although someone might say you are red as a lobster if you get sun-burned or really angry, they don’t transfer those characteristics to the lobster.

But if someone is in a bad mood, we say they’re “crabby.”  Why?  I haven’t made a detailed study of crabs, but by my observations, they walk sideways, wave their claws around, and are basically ugly.  None of which translates, in my mind, to being in a bad mood.

I also consider them to be a negative calorie food:  you burn more calories getting the “meat” out of the shell than the meat provides when you eat it.  So it’s a perfect diet food.  (Mind you, the FDA has not approved this statement, so don’t go starting this diet on my say-so and really expect to lose weight.)

Anyway, if you’ve got any thoughts about this question, I’d love to hear them.  “Leave a message at the sound of the tone…”  Or, better yet, write a comment by clicking on the comment link below.