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EDGES MAGAZINE Issue |
October 1998 |
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BISHOP
REFLECTS: |
Rt Rev
T.Brain, Bishop of Salford |
Healing
I have a
friend who often begins a phone conversation with the
expression "you're looking well," which causes
amusement! You can hear me but you can't see me! If he said "you
sound happy" that would make sense. But we know what he
means and we understand the joke, because it is something we
are always saying to each other when we meet. We can tell a
person's mood often from the tone of voice. We can tell a
person's health by the way they look. "You look in the
pink of health. " You look much better than the last time
I saw you. How have you done it? What are you taking? What did
the doctor order?"
Our bodily
wellbeing is reflected in our person |
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Sometimes
it isn't that we are sick physically as much as we are lonely,
or unneeded. And when someone talks to us, takes an interest in
us; encourages us, then we blossom again and it shows - even if
it only for a short time. "Oh it is nice to hear you
sounding so happy. Nice to see your smile back. I can see your
family likeness when you smile. You look lovely when you smile."
Our spiritual wellbeing is also reflected in our person.
You know what I mean? It's like the expression "the
eyes are the window of the soul": when we let the real ME
peep out from behind the facades and defences we put up at
times. Our soul, the real Me, is reflected in our bodies, just
like our health. And that real Me, body and soul together, was
created by God because He has always loved us - each of us, just
for ourselves. He tells us in the creation story of the bible
that this is true, and that we are created to be a reflection of
Him, our Lord and God.
"God said: Let us make
mankind in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves... God
created mankind in the image of Himself, in the Image of God he
created them, male and female he created them... God saw all he
had made, and indeed it was very good." (Genesis 1:26).
That should put a smile back on our faces: if we
really let it show that we are loved for ourselves by God. "What's
happened to you? You look brilliant - like a million dollars!"
Yes because we have discovered we have something that money
can't buy: that medicine, pills, poppers, uppers, downers,
mainliners - nothing can make us feel as we feel now. The thing
that gives me the power to touch my real ME, is God loving me.
And the more I understand that, the more I will reflect God
himself. When I look in the mirror I no longer see "the
morning after the night before." I see past that and I see
something - like in a mirror darkly - of God in the real ME. We
all know people who have something you can't put your finger on:
something real: something life giving. Something that heals.
People we like being with because they help us - really helps
us. And that is different from those people we choose to be with
because there is no one else: so I need them. They don't really
heal me, but I am afraid of being totally out on my own, so I
stay. Its different from those people we sometimes meet who seem
to say the right things, do the right things and yet ... there
is something in them too that stops the Lord reflecting through.
We know the REAL thing, when we meet it.
We all have
the potential to reflect the image and likeness of God and we
have to look after that power - that potential. Like looking
after our health.
In fact looking after our health is
a good way of beginning to use the power God has created in us.
If God loves me, and gives me this power then I should see
myself as he sees me. Because he loves me, I like me.
The one person who mostly reflected the image and likeness
of God was Jesus, the Christ: the Son of God. He told us "I
and the Father are one." "No one knows the Father
except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."
"Come to me all you who labour and are overburdened and I
will give you rest." "Shoulder my yoke and learn from
me." It's no wonder that people all flocked in great
numbers to Jesus where ever he was and asked Him to HEAL them.
Really heal them because we all know people who are physically
sick and yet still have that REAL thing which goes beyond our
bodies and makes them whole, wholesome, holy.
How
do you feel about all this? You're looking well! |
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 250,000
COPIES PRINTED UP TO NOW
Edges Magazine will soon be 4 years old. In those four years we
have printed over 250,000 copies of our publication. Our
readership continues to increase, and many people who feel
isolated and alone contribute articles for our magazine. We enter
into contact with people throughout the U.K.
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 REMEMBER
ME:
Kevin is still serving time in
prison; he asks to be remembered to all his friends in Edges
magazine.
He continues to write to Edges form his
prison cell.
At the moment he is studying and he hopes
this will help him on his release.
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