Receiving, and then giving back, is the way nature works. Since we are part of God’s earthly creation, we share in its cycles of living and dying. . . . Knowing that we will ultimately give back our physical selves—“these last few molecules of ‘I’”—to the earth, we can choose to live with either gloom or humor, which is delightfully related to the word humus, the Latin form of adamah.
I once had a colleague whose home contained an impressive array of house plants. Looking at the abundance of healthy green foliage, I asked her to share her secret. “My secret?” she responded. “When they begin to die, I throw them on the compost heap.”
The word healing comes from a word meaning “entire” or “complete,” and signifies a restoration to wholeness. For that reason it is a more “holistic” word than therapy. While many people are helped by psychotherapy, I suspect that there are also many like me who have benefited from occasional counseling but have received more help from spiritual practices such as prayer and lectio divina, or holy reading.
This prayer links the glory of God not only to Christ but to the church, the body of Christ. The church is the primary means by which God’s glory is manifest in the world today, but Christians must be careful not to take that truth for granted. The glory of God is not automatically or always found in the Christian church.
Luke, which is a familiar form of Lucius, was a Gentile, a physician, and a close friend of Paul (Col. 4:10ff.), a fellow worker with Paul (Phlm. 24), and a companion of Paul’s in prison, probably in Rome (2 Tim. 4:11). Greek was obviously his native tongue, as his language is flawless Koine, the common Greek of the time (which was much less sophisticated than the language of Homer and the great philosophers).
From Ignatius, whose other name is Theophorus, to the deservedly happy church at Ephesus in Asia; notably blessed with greatness by God the Father out of His own fullness; marked out since the beginning of time for glory unfading and unchanging;
But one word is left, which we must needs consider; Noster, ‘our.’ He saith not ‘my,’ but ‘our.’ Wherefore saith he ‘our’? This word ‘our’ teacheth us to consider that the Father of heaven is a common Father; as well my neighbour’s Father as mine; as well the poor man’s Father as the rich: so that he is not a peculiar Father, but a Father to the whole church and congregation, to all the faithful.
In explaining the nature of union to me, He said: “Don’t think, daughter, that union lies in being very close to me. For those, too, who offend me are close, although they may not want to be.
There have, indeed, been missionaries who, almost immediately after their arrival, having picked up a few broken phrases, commenced, as they supposed, to preach the Gospel to the heathen, but which preaching most likely consisted in nothing more than uttering some sounds wholly unintelligible to the hearers.
I am lying on my back. Maybe I am in a crib or a baby carriage, but I am not on someone’s lap. I am alone but I am not lonely. My eyes are following the yellow-green sparkles of light through a hazy screen. My arms are free and my hands reach to touch what my eyes can see and my heart can feel. I feel breath in me and in the trees and gently whirling between us.