Praying for the Sick -- the Principle and the Practice

Ernest Holmes wrote that if you see a sick person in a hospital room, you should turn around and walk out. It doesn't seem like a very compassionate and caring attitude for the founder of our organization to have, but its meaning is profound. If you see sickness, you can never perceive health.

It is the same idea as turning completely away from the issue.

When praying for someone to recover from an illness, you must learn to look with your spiritual eyes and see the perfection, wholeness, vitality and life in the person. As practitioners we train ourselves to see with God's eyes, then we can only see God or Good. Think of what happens when you love someone. You notice everything about them and you describe it as good.

A similar thing occurs when a practitioner visits someone in the hospital. We have taught ourselves to see the Divinity in the person, even though they may be struggling to catch their next breath. The principle states that we learn to see their wholeness, not their brokenness.

This is a relatively easy principle to grasp, but, when it comes to practicing the principle, it may prove a bit more difficult.

Recently, I have made several visits to the hospital and there have been times when I was challenged to see past the physical manifestation to the spiritual truth of the person. Eventually I get there. It helps me to remember that the physical body is an effect of consciousness. It helps me to remember that each one of us is eternal beings but that the physical body will wear out. Death is the Universal Way to slip out of the physical body. Death of the body is inevitable. As the Buddhists say, "Everything is impermanent."

Something that has helped me over the years is to see the beauty and truth of the person BEFORE they are making that last journey.

And when the loved one passes, it is more than acceptable to grieve, to feel sadness and all the possible feelings that accompany grief. It would be strange if you didn't feel sad when a friend leaves us.

When we did Wise Women weekend, we almost always did some processes for self-love. Until you love and accept yourself, you will have a hard time really loving and accepting others. We often did a process using the words of the song, "How Could Anyone" written in 1988 by Libby Roderick.  Each woman would sing the song to her partner, and then she would pick up a hand mirror and sing to herself. As I was searching for the perfect version to share with you, I found this one, the San Francisco Gay men's chorus. My hunch is that many of these gorgeous men were told hat they were anything but beautiful. I need a tissue to watch it.