Beyond Coping to Healing

Today’s guest post is by a friend and colleague, Bob Clark, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Florida.  His post is a beautiful discussion of where we need to be after dealing with a crisis.  Just coping may actually be more harmful than the healing that is necessary and  possible.  I know you will find Bob’s post interesting and helpful.  John D. Clague, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Oregon.

There’s coping with a crisis….and then there’s healing it. And there’s a world of difference between the two. Healing is about transformation and renewal. Coping is about making do, staying put…just dealing with it.

Here’s an example. A good friend’s daughter made an award winning documentary about 9/11 called, “New York Says Thank You”. I hope you’ll take the time to watch it, because it documents the process of a huge collective healing. It shows how we can go beyond just dealing with it to healing it. It shows real lives being transformed, lifted out of crisis mode and healed.

As I was watching “New York Says Thank You” it made me think of other examples of the difference between coping and healing. For instance, our national health care system, at the center of such rancorous political debate right now, needs to move beyond the ruinously expensive business of managing or coping with disease to healing it. How can this happen?

Ten years ago at this time, in the wake of the 9/11 disaster, churches were overflowing. Attendance at churches, synagogues and mosques was peaking. Hollywood and pro sports were on hold. We all “got religion” so to speak. And healing began immediately. Nobody wanted to linger in the ashes of shock and grief. We immediately rallied as a nation. Our love for each other poured out and into Lower Manhattan. The healing process began immediately…and has continued for over a decade now.

Can we move our health care crisis beyond coping to healing? And can our collective response to 9/11 serve as a model? I think so. A collective, focused, prayerful response has immense power, as we saw in the weeks and years following 9/11. There are ways to move forward and innovations that can take shape as the result of prayer.

An October 14, 2008 editorial in the The Christian Science Monitor told us that “Paradigm-shattering innovation is clearly needed in healthcare reform.” The article, “Keep Choice in Health Care”, offers some valuable insights about moving together, as a nation, beyond coping with our health crisis to healing it.

We know how to move beyond the static state of coping to the dynamic power of healing. We’ve done it before. We can do it again.

by Robert B. Clark, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Florida

Hope and comfort from Japan

A Christian Science perspective: Insights from a writer in Tokyo, Japan on finding peace and calm amid devastation from the earthquake and tsunami.

By Fujiko Signs, The Christian Science Monitor’s religious article for March 14, 2011, shares how Fujiko Signs is praying (from Japan) about the tsunami/earthquake situation.

Here in Tokyo I have created an e-mail file called “earth blessings” (not “earthquake”) – a collection of over 150 messages of blessing, messages of hope that Japan survive one of the saddest events in our recent history.

The reason I named it “earth blessings” is because I insist on seeing the beauty of earth’s gifts, instead of the curse of nature.

• Japan is in our prayers
• Japan tsunami: Here’s how you can help

The only way we are improving this planet, our home, is to see earth more from a spiritual perspective, in order to realize the significance of “Thy kingdom come” and “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” – Christ Jesus’ declarations in the Lord’s Prayer for all humanity. The founder of the Monitor, Mary Baker Eddy, added her spiritual sense to these lines: “Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present”; and “Enable us to know, – as in heaven, so on earth, – God is omnipotent, supreme” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” pp. 16-17).

The only light at the end of a long tunnel of materialism is the spiritualization of our thinking. Amid devastation it’s easy to try to measure our existence from a material perspective – fear of deprivation and feeling the necessity to fight over a limited supply, whether it be of energy or opportunity. But this allows us only to repeat the history of material creation and destruction. And trusting in material force to overcome conflicts and unrest is another aspect of the unproductive, material perspective.

“You say you want a revolution?” [John Lennon]

123rf

By John D. Clague, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Oregon

As events unfold in Tunisia and Egypt, it seems as though protesters are fed up with repressive regimes and want more citizen participation in their governments. Listening to participants in the demonstrations,  you get an inkling of what they want for themselves: a better way of life, the ability to self-govern and to make their own choices.

And there appears to be similar rumblings in other countries of the region.  In 2009 there were uprisings in Iran after the presidential election there. People wanted their country to be rid of an autocratic leader who seemed to be disconnected from the majority of its citizens, and whose regime has been  repressive.

History is full of examples of popular unrest evolving into revolutions–people taking to the streets demanding a change.  But current events cause me to ponder whether or not the change being sought can be sustained. After all, history is filled with examples of revolution where intent and result didn’t match up.  Just how stable is this movement? Will it result in the betterment of society, humanity, or mankind? Or is this just an example of self- interest taking hold in a collective way that won’t result in the establishment of permanent good?

Is it really Science?

This post is written by another friend and colleague or mine, Bob Clark, Committee on Publication for Florida.  He writes about a topic which is very important given the merging of consumerism, materialism, and health care.   I invite you to read this post and ponder its message carefully.

John D. Clague. Committee on Publication for Oregon

In my travels around the state of Florida, meeting with lawmakers and news-shapers from Pensacola to Miami, I’m often asked in what way is Christianity scientific? It’s a good question…and I’ll come back to it.

But I’ve been interested to see that practitioners of medicalscience have been asked essentially the same question in recent months. How can you be sure it’s science?

Who would have thought…?

By John D. Clague, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Oregon, and Susan Middleton

photo: 123rf

We’ve been thinking about how different society is today than it was in the not too distant past. Sometimes I forget it hasn’t always been this way. Two years ago it was a big deal that the United States elected an African-American president. Now, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Politics aside, it seems sort of normal. We have yet to elect a woman as president. I am certain, however, that day will come too.

A little over thirty years ago we put astronauts on the moon. And yet, the chances of electing a president then who was anything but a white male were absolutely zero. So 130 years ago, a woman as a world leader? What are the chances? No way!

Well then, what if there were more handicaps involved than just gender?  What about a woman with no formal education? Or Perhaps someone whose husband died or deserted her, leaving her destitute?

What if this unfortunate woman were fatally injured from a fall on the ice?  Now she dies a nobody. A few friends and relatives hold a simple service at her graveside and she’s soon forgotten.

But that isn’t how this particular story ends.