Healing Through Connection

I appreciate the stories people tell me through the various ways we are connecting during this pandemic season. I am not so thrilled about the content. It seems that there is more keeping us apart than a virus. Our different opinions are separating us, our political preferences are dividing us. Our interpretation of current events fills us with certainty but also creates a chasm between us and others. This is damaging to so much more than the economy or the political process. It is wrecking our mental health and battering our capacity for resilience.

Centering prayer and meditation causes our brain to light up in the same way that it does when we are experiencing a secure attachment relationship. This validates our hope that we will improve our conscious contact with God when we pray. We are making a connection!! If isolation is part of the disease of substance use disorder, then our current situation is creating a petri dish where use disorders will flourish. Connection is part of the treatment; it serves as good preventative medicine; it heals that which has been broken.

This privilege, to connect with God, invites God to do deep work within us. It is union with the divine. It helps cultivate lovely things like love and empathy and compassion.

I know that all the cool kids will enjoy their arguing and certainty. Thus is life.

But for the rest of us. Those who long for a life that is filled with love and joy and peace. This is a way we find it.

Today, see if you can spend a few minutes sitting in quiet awe of a God who shows up for you.