Health—Healing—Habit
Mat 13:14 “In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE;
Mat 13:15 FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.’
Mat 13:16 “But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear.
Mat 13:17 “For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
Do you see the health in this section of scripture? Do you see the profound independence from the habits of the common world and the habits that can be made out of pure dependence on the Creator? All the prophets said these words, and all the faithful before the prophets knew these truths; but not only did they know them, they lived them. WE need only to know what the Father tells us to do in our health walk, and when we are sick, none other.
“Sometimes, I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments, I’m hurdling across space between the trapeze bars.
Mostly, I spend my time hanging on for dear life to the trapeze bar of the moment. It carries me along a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I’m in control. I know most of the right questions, and even some of the right answers.
But once in a while, as I’m merrily, or not so merrily, swinging along, I look ahead of me into the distance, and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar looking at me. It’s empty. And I know, in that place in me that knows, that this new bar has my name on it. It is my next step, my growth, my aliveness coming to get me. In my heart of hearts I know that for me to grow, I must release my grip on the present well-known bar to move to the new one.
Each time it happens, I hope – no, I pray – that I won’t have to grab the new one. But in my knowing place, I know that I must totally release my grasp on my old bar, and for some moments in time I must hurtle across space before I can grab the new bar.
Each time I do this I am filled with terror. It doesn’t matter that in all my previous hurdles I have always made it. Each time I am afraid I will miss, that I will be crushed on unseen rocks in the bottomless basin between the bars. But I do it anyway. I must. Perhaps this is the essence of what the mystics call faith. No guarantees, no net, no insurance, but we do it anyway because hanging on to that old bar is no longer an option. And so, for what seems to be an eternity but actually lasts a microsecond. I soar across the dark void called “the past is over, the future is not yet here.”
It’s called a transition. I have come to believe that this transition is the only place that real change occurs. I mean real change, not the pseudo-change that only lasts until the next time my old buttons get punched.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the transition zone is the only real thing, and the bars are the illusions we dream up to not notice the void. The void – it’s that scary, confusing, disorienting nowhere that must be gotten through as fast and as unconsciously as possible?
Right?
No!
With all the fear that can accompany transitions, they are still the most vibrant, growth-filled, passionate moments in our lives. And so transformation of fear may have nothing to do with making fear go away, but rather with giving ourselves permission to “hang out” in the transition zone – between the trapeze bars – allowing ourselves to dwell in the only place where change (and real growth) really occurs.
It can be terrifying.
It can also be enlightening.
Growth-filled. Passionate. Expansive.
Jeana Anderson, C.N.H.P., MMT, CLT, CEIM, CBS
Natural Helping Hands, LLC
