The Healing Water

I believe that each person has the choice to adhere his/her own ideology in a Deity.  Whether you refer to this entity as God, or a Higher Power, Supreme Being, or Allah, really is circumstantial.  For what I've inordinately discovered in my 61 years the one element you need to pursue this idea, is faith.  Faith has never been an issue for me, but perseverance and application have.  I really prefer to shun dialogues involving religion and faith for mine has always been uncharacteristically cloistered and rather confined.  Although, I can look back some 45 years ago and wonder what kind of priest I would have made, had I completed my studies having the kind of outlook I hold true today.  I guess that's where the "Spirit" would have had a significant role in my formation and the issue hopefully would have been mute.

But I'm digressing here and you're wondering where's this post going??  Today's Gospel was the story of the blind man who sat in front of the temple.  Jesus hops along, spits in the ground, makes a paste and packs it on the man and tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam.   The man does as Jesus instructs and lo' and behold, he can see.  There is ensuing discussion from the Pharisees about Jesus healing on the Sabbath, and was this right, and why was this guy blind; was it because of his parents who sinned or was he a sinner.  For the purpose of this post, it's irrelevant to me but the healing water and the "faith" this man had are.

I listened to a Holy Man today weave the intricacies of this story into a spiritual tapestry for not just my life, but for many as well.  I am often spellbound by his knowledge and his grace of how he weaves these parables in such an informal enthusiasm without resonating fire and brimstone.  He struck a cord that our lives are often reflected by significant events where we need that faith to extract us from either rejecting our God or positioning and aligning us stronger.  He used the example of his brother dying several years ago and it put him in a tailspin of despair of which I was easily able to identify with.  It was his faith and the healing waters of his baptism that brought him through.  And it will be with my undying faith and the healing waters of my baptism that Christ will bring me through as well.  The idea I'm trying to convey is that our lives are often a struggle, a roller coaster of successes and failures.  How or what we choose to use to uphold our dignity and determination hopefully is predicated on one's faith.


I think it Carter Chambers may have said it best, "Our lives are streams flowing into the same river towards whatever heaven lies in the mist beyond the falls, My dear friend, "Close your eyes and let the waters take you."

good night Dancer