Speaking of Spirit

Photo Art: (c) 2019 Rev. Linda M. Rhinehart Neas In the Catholic church there is a prayer said before Communion - "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but say the word and I shall be healed." I don't think I ever really thought about what was being said - what the words meant - until I watched a new series from Britain called, Broken .  The main character in the series is a priest who is struggling with flashbacks from his abusive childhood. He is a good man, dedicated to serving the people of his parish. He is compassionate, thoughtful, respectful, gentle and understanding with them, yet he struggles to be this way with himself.  Not until his mother dies, after he has forgiven her for her part in his painful and traumatic childhood, does he finally understand the words he speaks each time he celebrates the Mass.  The realization for me was that we say words, rote prayers and often do not connect with the words. Like a record that skips, we keep re...

Talk to the Hand (c) 2019 Linda M. Rhinehart Neas Did you know that holding grudges can make you sick? In a New York Times article, Tim Herrera talks about how people keep grudges and how this can cause them serious illness.  The opposite of a grudge is forgiveness. Forgiveness is the gift you give yourself. There are very good reasons why I say this.  Dr. Frederic Luskin, founder of the Stanford Forgiveness Project said,  "Holding onto a grudge really is an ineffective strategy for dealing with a life situation that you haven’t been able to master. That’s the reality of it. Whenever you can’t grieve and assimilate what has happened, you hold it in a certain way.  “If it’s bitterness, you hold it with anger. If it’s hopeless, you hold it with despair. But both of those are psycho-physiological responses to an inability to cope, and they both do mental and physical damage.  “The hopelessness shuts down and dampens immune response, leads to som...