The Soul Matters theme for this month is Healing: “What Does It Mean to Be a Community of Healing?”. From the reflections, it seems that healing and the process and path to healing require many other practices such as patience and persistence, openness and caring, forgiveness and apology, determination and love. Being a community of healing is not just about making things right or fixing them when they are broken, although we will definitely try. It’s also, or perhaps even more so, about helping them become whole again, where whole is mended with life—even when mended may not be or cannot be a return to what was. “There is healing to be found even when there is no cure,” is one of my guiding mantras. Fred Recklau says it this way: “Cure alters what is; healing offers what might be.” “Cure takes charge; healing takes time.”
What stood out for me from all the materials in the Soul Matters packet; all the quotes and exercises, sermons, talks and videos, was a short anecdote by another Fred: Fred “Mr.” Rogers. The opening clause spoke directly to me from the past, and in the present. “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news,” it began. I am no longer a boy, but I often feel like a scared helpless child every time I check the news; police shootings, protests, bombs, war, wounded refugees, and then there is the ongoing presidential campaign. Someone please take charge; someone cure these problems. The prospect of the election is so troubling that the scared little boy in me couldn’t watch the debate. Now Mr. Rogers may seem too lightweight to you for such weighty adult concerns, but it might be helpful to take a moment and give him a chance to reassure the frightened child within each of us. Hear how his mother held his fears.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers—so many caring people in this world.”
Yes, of course, his mother gave him a limited perspective; she didn’t go on to explain that the helpers he saw were the ones who survived whatever happened. They were the ones still able to be of assistance. Now as I think about the election, I assume that however it turns out; whether it goes the way I hope and work for, or turns out to be the “disaster” that I fear, I’ll still be among the living and contributing. I will be one of those helpers, Mr. Rogers’ mom encouraged him to look for. And I’ll look around, and I know I’ll see you doing your part as one of so many helpers—so many caring people caring for this world. So many people, each of us, carrying on, living our lives and doing our part -with openness and caring, patience and persistence, forgiveness and apology, determination and love—to help heal the world.
Thank you, Mrs. Rogers.
— Rev. Jim McKinley, Minister