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Winter Healing

I always found the antidote “Physician heal thy self” misguided. These past few weeks have marked a dramatic pause in my vocation as I think about isolation and discernment on where I’m being called to do good work. 

My involuntary pause of vocation is considered a medicinal remedy for “my own healing”.  
As the good doctor says, “only time will tell”. 

“Everything is a blessing” is another phrase to contemplate as I wonder if I am over-rationalizing recent events; never the less, as I tell my friends, “my schedule has opened up”.  

This Winter is a time for early evening darkness, the distant howl of the Great South Bay wind blows down our canal rustling the tarp-draped boats longing for springtime excursions. Early January is a time for fasting after the holiday feasts, as both body and mind look to regain their healthy ways. I am poured out like a libation, freed and wanting. 

I try to focus and reach into something positive. “You have a gift”, I’m told, to express what others experience in the deep, but can’t seem to bring to the surface. Guitars hang on the wall of my inner sanctum, a closet of unsung song snippets locked on the voice recorder app on my iPhone, whispering for liberty.  Maybe I’ll free them someday. 

Each Sunday I’m back to the pews, like a player on the disabled list, I have a new perspective from the dugout. Polite gestures are exchanged as we file out of the building to the sanctuary of our cars, as the weekend’s journey heads toward its finish. 

I lament and sing the blues much too badly, pain needs release and relief.  Prolonged anger infects the soul. Purge, purge away the anger. Pour me out again.  

Healing comes from above, as I swallow the medicine of time and the quiet. I pray for patience as this patient returns to the hope he preached about from the lectern not so long ago. I feel the distant tug of the keyboard stirring my imagination, that same keyboard, and writing which drew the ire of my superiors and the stoking of a storm, a criminal’s release, a wounded community, and yes The Coverup!

Restoration comes from above and healing must run its course. I see the misfortune of my plight. I am no lone savior, I am never truly alone. I must be an instrument for the greater plan. 

I offered up my ministry, and it was swept away, no right to complain or grieve, although I do. Hands outstretched I call out, help me Lord, help me. Great Physician heals me, help me, show me Your Way.   

My boat needs minor repairs and TLC. Soon it will be time to sand down the hull and apply a fresh coat of paint. My hope rests with the Great Navigator who brings me back on course.  I long for the Winter winds to calm, and long Summer days with moonlit nights to return, as I plan new excursions back into the deep. 


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