Revealing Feeling is Healing

How are we healed of our wounding memories? We are healed first of all by letting them be available, by leading them out of the corner of forgetfulness and by remembering them as a part of our life stories. What is forgotten is unavailable, and what is unavailable cannot be healed. Max Scheler shows how memory liberates us from the determining power of forgotten painful events. “Remembering,” he says, “is the beginning of freedom from the covert power of the remembered thing or occurrence.”

If ministers are reminders, their first task is to offer the space in which the wounding memories of the past can be reached and brought back into the light without fear. When the soil is not ploughed, the rain cannot reach the seeds; when the leaves are not raked away, the sun cannot nurture the hidden plants. So also, when out memories remain covered with fear, anxiety or suspicion, the Word of God cannot bear fruit.

God grant us all courage to take the high road of health and truth and hope.