Sometimes it takes something particularly remarkable to spark me into blogging, at which point I remember the 493,403 other things I should've written about. So, okay, one of those particularly remarkable things just happened and as I sat thinking about it (and thinking about the millions of other pastor-y things I should be doing) I realized there were no fewer than four other things I really should also be blogging about. I mean, other than the fact that Christmas is sneaking up on me and preparing to whack me upside the head. So, this is only 20% of the ultimate catching-up on this blog, which means you'd better stay tuned.
Anyway, on with the show.
In my church we have a lady who does healing touch. I'd only peripherally heard of it before meeting her; I knew the "new-agey" hospital in the area offered it to patients along with aromatherapy and guided meditation. I knew it was healing-oriented, and I knew people who had done it thought it was really cool. So when our local practitioner offered me a free session so I could see what it was like and consider offering it to people who might benefit, I said yes.
It took us a while to find a time to meet up, but we hit on today. I was feeling a little nervous and skeptical, but I set it aside and joined her in our prayer chapel. We go over a brief health history, I kick off my shoes, lay down on a massage table thingy, and we're off.
She explains that she may touch me or the energy around me, she might hear things that she needs to tell me, she might need to adjust something, that sort of thing. So she just sort of waves her hands over me, and I start to kinda tune out.
Then her face clouds. "You have a really jittery energy," she states. "I just had some coffee," I offer. "No... that's not it..." she says, as she continues to think. "Well, I think I'll just clear this out." So she keeps sort of waving her hands over me, and something weird starts happening. I feel... light. Almost shaky. Peaceful but energized. Oddly enough, all I can think of is that Gary Spivey character who's always on KDWB, and whenever he tells people something he immediately says, "See how you got hot right there? You feel light right now, don't you?" I always thought he was just telling them what to feel. I think maybe I was feeling that way. Without his help. Take that, Gary.
She asked me lots of other questions, some actually too personal for the blog, as she worked on some other things. Apparently, my heart chakra is actually pretty empty, so we spent a lot of time on working to fill it back up. I was encouraged to do nurturing things for myself (hooray for good excuses for hot baths and massages!) and to not give too much energy to others without sustaining myself. I was also encouraged to take communion three times a week - odd, but okay, I'll take it into consideration. She encouraged me (for a variety of reasons) to cut my caffeine down to every other day. Also probably a good thing to consider.
Then things started getting pretty deep.
As she kept clearing energy, she stopped and told me she had to tell me something, but she knew I don't take compliments well, so she wanted to prepare me in advance to hear the compliment. Guilty as charged. So then, the compliment: God says I give really good sermons, that they come from the head and the heart, and they fill people up. Jesus says I am doing his work. And the healing touch practitioner got tears in her eyes. And I did, too. Now, okay, she is one of my parishioners, and I think she likes me, so could it be that she was just passing on what she already felt, but it sounded... comforting. Encouraging. Like maybe God did indeed want me to know that I shouldn't be so hard on myself, that I can be confident in the work I do. Maybe I needed to hear that.
She also told me that I had six angels around me, three on each shoulder, and that they were baby angels, or child angels, or something like that - she wasn't sure how to describe it, but there were six angels, and it was a good thing. It felt good to know. Why, I'm not sure, because... well, let's be honest, this is starting to sound weird. But who cares if there really are three baby angels on each of my shoulders? Just thinking it, picturing it, felt good. Made me feel confident. And really, how can that be wrong?
Then she paused. "So, we're done," she mused, "but we're not done. There's something else..." She trailed off and stopped, like she was listening. "Okay, she said, this is from Jesus." Both the skeptic and the believer in me perked up a big. "He's saying that you and him are like this," as she lifted up her crossed index and middle fingers in that "best buddies" or "promise" gesture.
I stopped dead.
For years, especially since I knew I'd be a pastor and started taking religious classes, I found myself responding to people about faith, life, and God. Sometimes someone would bust me for doing something not very pastor-like (like cussing) or question if I knew what I was talking about (like my theories on evil). I would respond by saying, "It's cool. Jesus and me are like this," and I'd lift up my crossed index and middle fingers.
A cold reading coincidence? Of course it could be. But it immediately brought tears to my eyes, and I belly-laughed like I haven't in a long time. I explained to the practitioner why it was, and her eyes got huge and she just sat down, laughing and crying right along with me. "I'm so happy to hear that," she said. "Sometimes I think maybe I'm just making this stuff up, but when I hear things like that - I know it's got to be from God."
We sat and talked for a while afterwards. She only started doing healing touch later in life when a friend encouraged her to try it, even though she though it was "really weird". As she started taking classes, she realized she was intuitive and could sense what people needed even without using the techniques taught by the course. She started to learn that she could sense messages from people who had died, from spirits and God, and could pass them on to people if they needed to hear it. She tries not to read people unless she's actually working with them, but she can indeed see energy or hear voices when she's not trying to.
And to hear her talk about it, it's not creepy or false-sounding at all. She was raised Catholic, is now Lutheran by church attendance, and has a deep, doctrinal faith. She is grounded and compassionate. While the doubter in me thinks it's probably just someone who's over-emotional and a good cold-reader, there's something to it. I mean, the deeper I go in this whole pastor thing, the more I realize that there are things about faith and life and death and spirituality that I just don't get. Who am I to say that some people can't align energies? How do I know that God doesn't still speak through people? Why do I assume that those who have gone to their glory can't send healing messages back to us?
Afterwards, I was definitely feeling that jittery energy she was talking about - but after about 10 minutes, I had shaken it off. Maybe it's in my head, but I feel calmer. Even the cold I woke up with is not quite so nagging. (I still think it'll hit me like a snowplow soon enough, but I'm not so frustrated about it.) Could it just be because I had a half hour to relax and focus myself? Probably. And yet, it seemed like there was something else there.
I think what I'm saying is that if you want a recommendation for a really good healing touch practitioner, I'll let you know. And you can trust me on that, because Jesus and me are like this.
Just in case you didn't think I was crazy enough...
10 hours ago
