I began a new job this week. Full disclosure: Not since my first nursing job have I felt this overwhelmed and I doubt that I have ever had this much of a “deer in the headlights” look. First, there is the new vocabulary. Thankfully, I love words. There are two new software systems I need to master. Thankfully, all of my new colleagues are learning one of the two at the same time as I. I need to set up a new office. Since my last office was my car, I feel a little pressure to get the look right. I did have my own office about 8 years ago and for some reason “space” just wasn’t that important to me at the time. I have transitioned back to full time. Gratefully, I have done this a couple of times before. I am back again to dressing is street clothes as nurses call them. That means I have to take a little more time on personal grooming in the mornings. I have done this too. (Taking time to dress before I leave the house). Scrubs do have an advantage. But I love change. Change energizes me. I love mastering knew information. Learning energizes me. I heard someone say today, “If you don’t learn something new every day, you just didn’t try.” How true. New medical term for the day, (and actually I learned about 100 today, this is just the only one I can recall), moyamoya disease. If you are dying to know what that is and how it can possibly kill you, text me. Yes, it is rare and typically has a chromosomal component. No, none of my readers known to me are at serious risk. I am also for the first time in my career actually getting paid to find the deeper story and write about it. And I love a story, especially a deep, complex layered one. I have always been the nurse who “knew the rest of the story,” but have never really actually been financially compensated for it.
Healing people has always fascinated me. I suppose I am one of those people who believe healing is far more miraculous and far more dependent on God than the Westernized, modern, highly technical world wants to give it. And though this means people are living longer, although not necessarily healthier lives, healing is still a mystery.
Today, in the Daily Office, we read about my favorite healing miracle. It is the craziest thing. Jesus uses mud and spit to restore blind man’s sight. I have no idea why the gospel writer chose to tell this particular healing miracle. We are given details of about 35 healing miracles in the canonical gospels, although the gospel writer of John seems to imply there were countless more. So, I don’t think Jesus was trying to prove the efficacy of mud and spit. I don’t think Jesus was trying to provoke the religious cultural leaders of the day. Making mud and healing on the Sabbath are forbidden. Although he did. I don’t think Jesus was trying to prove he was sent by God. Who else uses mud and spit to heal? And I don’t think Jesus was trying to model a compassionate response. And certainly we need to remind about compassion again and again and again. I wonder sometimes if Jesus wasn’t trying to teach us again and again and again how the most disabling force in the entire world is our own limiting beliefs. The greatest disability in the world isn’t blindness, deafness, cancer or even a terminal illness. It is not believing that your ordinary life can make a significant difference in the world.
Spit and love have a lot in common. Everybody can make dirt into mud by spitting and everybody can love. You don’t need dirt to love. Everybody can love. Love is the greatest healing force in the world. The greatest people in the world were all disabled in one way or another. What they had in common was their ability to love to use that love to change the world.
Love on purpose and it will rock your world. Love the person you don’t think you can. Love the person who doesn’t love you back. Love the person who isn’t going to thank you, praise you or even need you. Love the person who doesn’t even know you love them. Love sacrificially. If mud and spit restores sight, love will heal your world. The good news, the gospel message is this a a qutie simply this: We all can love and therefore we can all heal. That was what Jesus was saying. Loving is a simple as spitting in the dirt.
All is grace and grateful and joyful and thankful for September blessings…
The space between goodbye
Rooms cool enough for sweaters
Rain upon rain upon rain
New beginnings
Smiles
New books
Watching movies with friends
The mysterious space of intimacy
The space between friends
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