“Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.”
(James 5.16)
"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
(Julian of Norwich, Anchorite nun, ca. 14th Century)
“Services of wholeness and healing are one way of enacting the church’s ministry of pastoral care. The central element in these services is prayer, calling upon God’s saving grace or giving thanks for healing received, in life and in death, in body, mind, or spirit.”
(PCUSA, Book of Order)
In the early years of my ministry, I worked at a hospice as the Bereavement Coordinator. I made family visits, attended funerals or visitations, offered personal or group grief support. During my two years with this group, I attended close to 500 funerals, memorial services or funeral home visitations.
One of the most powerful lessons I learned during this time was this: Healing begins from the inside. Healing from grief is like how a skin injury heals. Under the visible wound the human body is doing a lot of work: bleeding is stopped, cells begin to “clear out” microbes, new tissue begins to grow, and new tissue strengthens. At the end of the healing process, it’s not uncommon for a scar to appear.
Healing from grief is a process although not as linear as some have suggested (so-called stages of grief). Healing from loss is mostly invisible. Emotional, psychological, spiritual forces are at play during a period of bereavement. Past memories, past hurts are intertwined with dreams of the future. Past, present and future collide which can cause upset sometimes causing grief to be complicated, tough to navigate.
Churches (as a body) experience grief for many reasons: loss of a pastor, loss of members, loss of identity, loss of vision. Healing from grief in a faith community means recognizing many griefs, and, since we all experience grief differently, dealing with church grief can be… complicated. But it can be done. The first step is recognizing the source of the grief. Leaning into the source is taking a stand for oneself by not allowing the source to push you down. (There’s so much more to be said about this but not now.)
Open Door will incorporate a Service of Wholeness and Healing (PCUSA Book of Common Worship) in its May 12th worship service. It’s a first step of confessing we are all in need of wholeness and healing, and that Open Door has experienced fair amount of loss during the past few years. Maybe we can say with Van Morrison, “And the Healing Has Begun.”