"Going Up" Mortified



 



As I child I was fascinated by faith healers on television.  I thought the ones who told you to put your hand on the television to be healed were silly, but it looked kind of neat when people would be stuck by the Holy Spirit and fall over backwards.  Kathryn Kuhlman seemed like a sweet, if slightly eccentric aunt.  (I just watched some videos of her.  She was more than slightly eccentric . There is a look of madness in her eyes.  And with all the money she supposedly made, couldn’t she have done something with her hair or paid someone to do something with it?  Or asked God to do something with it?)

Of course I “knew” that it wasn’t real.  At the very least people appeared to be healed because they had been caught up in the moment and their own belief.  Somehow their minds made them feel better.  Or everything had been psychosomatic in the first place.  Or they were part of the show.

At best, the faith healers were well-meaning, delusional people, who had been tricked by their minds into believing they could help others.  At worst, they were cynical, hypocritical frauds, with great acting skills.

That made me sad.  I wanted to believe that people could be healed through belief.  It was like magic.  And I hated to think that those charismatic people who seemed so sincere were simply exploiting other people’s misery.

As I got older, what made me even sadder was that I wanted to believe.

Episcopal healing services aren’t like that.  Or at least I’ve never been to any that were.  My church has a healing service about once a month, and I usually "go up."   The priest puts his or her hands on one's head and asks for healing.  Since I have arthritis, I usually have something that needs some work, even though my arthritis is "mild to moderate". (One time I even had lice! I was so mortified! I asked the priest not to touch my head and later at coffee hour, when I was sure no one would hear, I explained. Of course, probably having heard a lot worse in his career, he wasn't shocked and was very understanding.)

 And receiving a blessing does help me -- physically. If a more “rational” friend says the whole thing is in my head, I will say that God is causing my mind to think that I feel better.  And I will take that.  It’s certainly better than a headache or nausea.  (This is not to say that I don’t use medicine and doctors.  They are also available because of God.) 
  
 But what is even more important is that by going up, I am telling myself that I can receive healing and the healing is from God and this affirms not just my belief, but the fact that I believe. By acting as if I believe, I will come, through God’s grace, to believe even more strongly.