A White Man Makes the Case for Reparations, Part 2

Column by Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer on 17 September 2020 5 Comments

When I write as a white man about calling for reparations, this is the source and origin of the damages for  which we bear responsibility and for which we seek repair. The question I want to ask in this essay is this: how far removed from that source are we. Is it a distant relic of the past from which we are now utterly disconnected

Please login with your account to read this essay.
 

Question

 

Does God have to heal all the people who ask me to pray for them?

Answer

 

Dear David,

If God were like us, with an ego, I would say, “God doesn’t have to do anything,” but this has not been my experience of God.  In the world around me, I see God in the Life that is happening in you and in me, and in every living thing.  Our creation is God, generating life and learning and possibility every single moment.  Along the way, we get hurt, mistakes happen, events take place in ways we don’t like.

Prayers for healing are some of the best prayers we can pray.  It is never wrong to pray for a miracle or for a cure, but prayers for healing create space for outcomes we might not be able to see initially.  Healing is a space where any number of things may happen, and all of them are movements toward wholeness.  I pray for the health and wholeness of all beings each time I remember to -- and especially when I am struggling with the enormity of injustice or heart-break or another hardship that feels so, so wrong.

When we pray for the healing of others (and for ourselves), we are asking for God – the source of unfathomable Love – to bring us into wholeness with that love.  I don’t believe these prayers are ever “wasted,” because each one reminds us of our own intention to strive toward this sense of love and wholeness in our own life, and in our walk with others.  I hope you will keep praying healing prayers, when you’re requested to do so.  Life and Love are ancient and wise.  In ways we understand, and in ways we do not, they are always conspiring to bring us into divine wholeness.

~ Rev. Lauren Van Ham

 

Comments

 

5 thoughts on “A White Man Makes the Case for Reparations, Part 2

  1. WordPress › Error

    There has been a critical error on this website.

    Learn more about troubleshooting WordPress.