The Presence of Healing

Recently my spouse took so sick from the winter virus that has plagued so many of us this year we needed to call an ambulance and have her taken to the hospital.  Once there she was stabilized and I sat at the end of the bed while the attendants poked, prodded, pinched and squeezed the body into the direction of healing.  I soon realized that another kind of healing was coming in the presence of the  person sitting at the side of the one who is ill—the presence of healing.

I was, however, aware that I too was becoming sick.  I didn’t want to alarm my spouse so I quietly excused myself and returned home for what I thought would be a short while to pick up clean clothes and check to see all was well at the house.  But the virus was a mean and insidious creature that soon took me down with chills, aches and pains, toying with my mind and balance.  I was not going to make it back to the hospital. 

I lay on the couch wondering what to do.  The weight of my responsibility as a caretaker who should be at the bedside of the one she loved was almost as bad as the virus that had overcome me.  What to do?  What I needed most was to sleep and what I wanted most was to be at the hospital.  But I had no choice in the matter so I called a dear friend and asked if she would be my proxy and sit by the side of our beloved one.  She said yes, and I then fell soundly asleep until the next day.

The specifics of the events that followed are not as pertinent as the simple act of someone being present to another.  Not only did this presence begin to heal the one in the hospital bed but it began to heal the one who was also at home with illness.  There are scores of examples where the mere presence of another loving person has become a healing or calming factor in an otherwise chaotic scenario. I think of  Job and his friends who sat with him during his crisis; of  Mary and Elizabeth who found comfort in each other’s presence as they faced an unknown future; of soldiers huddled together in a trench seeking strength from one another’s presence, perhaps even calming an uncontrollable fear.  The list goes on.  Maybe you have your own experience of presence.

This week I walked the sacred labyrinth with other women from my church.  The walk is always a sacred step but this night, as I watched the faces of the ones I have come to know and love, I was particularly filled with peace in my heart by the holy presence that each woman had for one another as they walked quietly through the paths.  And I was especially taken by the light on the face of my beloved, now healed from her illness, walking rhythmically to the sound of the harp playing, the soft sounds of fabric, the gentle breathing, simple healing presence that another brings to the moment.

                                        the Labyrinth at Asbury First United Methodist Church, Rochester, NY