Spiritual Healing Tools

[Joseph Hain]

The Lord gives us tools to help us chart our relationship with God in the tumultuous ocean of our lives and be able to return safely to shore. Some tools he gives us are:
1. Meditation
2. Counseling
3. Wisdom from the Church Fathers
4. Contemplative prayer

When I say meditation I refer to how it is practiced in Buddhism mainly but this can also be applied to Jewish meditation(specifically Merkavah practices) and Christian methods. Meditation allows us to be still mentally and spiritually. The goals may be different from the Nibbana of Buddhism to the hallowing of ourselves to become a vessel for the Holy Ghost(associated with Jewish practices). Meditation allows us to still ourselves and get our bearings.

Counseling can be of use as it allows us to reach out to others when we truly need help. Many people will bottle up their insecurities and problems. This can lead to a proverbial emotionally explosion and create further problems. Mental problems like clinical depression and burnout can be distressing enough but bottling up pent up frustrations is unhealthy. This can make us further lost in the proverbial sea of life.

The wisdom of the Church Father can act as a map handed down through the ages. The Fathers studied the Bible extensively and wrote several treatises on how to negotiate the sometimes unclear directions in the scripture. This does have its faults as they come from the personal biases of the author. One can read the words from figures like St.Ambrose, St Augustine of Hippo St Pacomius, St Moses the Black, etc and still not quite have their bearings. Like all maps, they are designed by the cartographer’s own experience and may vary by the person

Contemplative prayer is like the proverbial GPS or Sextant that can help orient ourselves with the North Star that is Christ to help get us back to the safety of the shore. Like meditation, it can help still us but it goes further and orients ourselves with Christ.

I would argue that all of these tools perform the best when used together. To use the sailor metaphor, using the sextant(contemplative prayer) without a map(Church Fathers) or assistance from your crew(counseling) or not even being level headed(meditation) can potentially further disorient the sailor, thus making him even more lost. If one is further lost then they can risk spiritual death alone at sea.

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