Open To God

" Some people brought to Jesus a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. After he took the man aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put His fingers into the man's ears. Then He spit and touched the man's tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, 'Be opened!' (Ephphatha!). At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. The people were overwhelmed with amazement. 'He has done everything well,' they said. ' He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.' " [Mark 7: 31- 36].

Many will read this story of Jesus healing a deaf man, as a matter of Biblical history, relating that phase of Jesus' life when He traveled with His disciples, healing others and performing miracles. Others will see this story as a parable that is more a metaphor for the power of Jesus' Love.

I see this story as a mirror of my own experiences.

I was raised in a family that was cruel and abusive. Gradually, in the house that was not a home, I shut down.

When I was age two, already I did not trust humans to physically raise me. By age two, I was teaching myself to undress and use the wash room. When I was five, I was putting myself down for naps.

Then I went to kindergarten at age five. I remember standing with my back to the wall in the classroom, not trusting who these people were. I decided not to participate.

A sibling was calling me ugly every day. I would stomp my feet and get angry and cry. My mother would tell me that I was "too sensitive". She told me that if I did not cry or get angry, the verbal abuse would stop. I decided to show no emotion.

But still the verbal abuse did not stop. And then things would escalate to my sibling hitting me. I decided that maybe showing no emotion was not enough. Maybe people could see my emotions inside me. I decided not to feel emotions.

By this time, at around age 8, I was avoiding others' gazes and not smiling. It was concluded that I was merely quiet and serious.

But things got no better for me. By age ten, I was giving up. I decided not to speak.

At around that time, I started having trouble sleeping. I would keep myself  up at night reading, until everyone was in bed. If I did sleep, sometimes my mother would find me sleep-walking.

By age 11, I was hoarding candy in my room. I was eating poorly at home, but finding other sources of food at a neighbor's house or at school.

At age 14, the treatment for my chronic lung disease stopped. I was having trouble breathing--- up at night coughing, with no medicine to help me.

That was the year that my family stopped taking me to church. I buried my faith deep inside me. They had taken church away. Could they take my faith away too?

I had become a shell of a human being. No one had ever hugged me and told me that they loved me. I was not interacting with others; not showing or feeling any emotion; not eating; not sleeping; not speaking; breathing poorly. And with the repression of my faith, my shut-down was complete.

How can a child, who is so damaged, ever be healed? How can she ever trust enough to open her heart again?

The miracle of my story is that I never gave up on the possibility of Love. There is a seed of Love inside all of us. We are all born with the deep desire to give and to receive Love. No one in my family had ever shown pure love to me. So how did I know what Love even was?

And yet, it was Love that saved me. That desire for Love comes from God. For God IS Love. [1 John 4:16]. No one can take away from us the innate desire to receive Love, or the capacity to give Love. Love fulfills our destiny as human beings. It is what opens us up to the full range of human experience. One cannot give or receive Love without being open.

I also never lost the God in my heart. As we are born desiring Love, and God IS Love, so we are born longing for A Sacred Being who can bestow on us Infinite Love. Human beings can take church away, but no one can take away your Faith, and your sacred desire for God.

Holding our faith deep inside us as a tiny seed is a start. But, as in the story of Jesus healing the deaf man, we need to ask to be healed! I came to the point that my life was so upside down and painful, that I actually thought that God was gone. I had become blind and deaf -- even to God. In retrospect, that is a ridiculous notion. God is for Eternity. He does not just "disappear."

I went to see my pastor, who told me that God was still there, but I had not made any time for Him. I had to learn to cry out to God. I had to talk to Him as I would to an old friend-- to pray, and to ask Him to make His presence known.

As soon as I cried out for God, He came back to me. Finally, I could hear God again! It was then that I heard, 'Only say the Word and I shall be healed.' That is the call to the Eucharist.

A few years ago, I began to receive the Eucharist again. It is an emotional process for me, but an essential one. I cannot be healed without receiving God and Jesus, and their Love. I cannot receive God and Jesus without being open to them. To fully heal, is to fully receive the Love of Jesus, is to be fully open to the possibility of God in my life.

Yes, when we walk up the aisle to receive the Eucharist, our heads are bowed and our hands are clasped shut. But at the moment that we receive the Body of Christ, we look up, our searching eyes meet the face of the pastor, and we hold our hands open to receive God.   

Healing is a process. For me, it has not been a sudden, miraculous Opening as it was in this Reading. It is an Opening nevertheless, a gradual blossoming, in the same way that a flower unfurls its tiny bud, one petal at a time, until the flower is fully open, turning its face to the sun.

(c) The Spiritual Devotional 2012. All Rights Reserved.