Today the air is cooler at last, and the leaves on the trees are beginning to change color and fall.  Late summer’s heat is settling down, and I feel called to quieter spaces: contemplation and memory, reflection and inquiry, intimacy and soul.   As the world spins with tension and fury, October in the northeast offers gifts of healing presence.

This month we explore what it means to be a community of healing. Through my work in chaplaincy and spiritual direction, I have found that healing is not the same thing as curing. Healing is more about wholeness than it is about the absence of illness or sorrow.  Healing can be experienced in the midst of great loss, and in the presence of great pain. 

Over the past few weeks, I’ve participated in several conversations where healing and pain have been present together. We hold concern for our world and nation along with personal losses.  Perhaps our many words might be reduced to two essential questions:  “What hurts?” and “What heals?” I invite you to hold these questions this month as we encounter one another in community.  As we seek honest answers, we might also discover what is most ours to do. 

I look forward to being with you on October 9th, as we contemplate the role of remembering, truth, and reconciliation in the work of healing.  While we continue to long for a cure to cancer and an end to violence, may we do the work of restoring relationship and journeying toward wholeness together.

In Faith,

Terri Pahucki