2024.02.18 Why NOT Tell? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post.

There is a series of healing stories in Mark’s gospel in the New Testament. All of them are healing stories —the transformation of some painful condition that interferes with someone’s wellbeing in life, health, or the normal progression of what is expected. In all of them Jesus of Nazareth is identified as the healing agent. He makes these miracles happen.  

Healing means change. Healing means restoration to the fullness of Life. There’s the healing of Peter’s mother- in-law. There’s the healing of a leper. There is the healing of a paralytic.

What is startling, is that in each one of these healing events, Jesus specifically warns the healed and the witnesses NOT to TELL.  Why not? Is this not all Good News? 

Is this secrecy because Jesus is not in full command of his powers yet? Is it that these healing stories are hints of his yet unrealized identity as Messiah? Or was it hasty, delusional reporting by the first gospel narrative, Mark?  

I don’t know the answer. Perhaps it was simply timing. There were many healers and “miracle” workers in first century Palestine. Who’s to say that Divinity is not at work in them all—and in the creation of amazing wheelchairs like this. 

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I do know I need to make my own recent wheelchair-bound dependent condition more clear to my readers, and I do know that healing is not magic but requires the full participation of the healing agent, the one who desires healing, and Mystery.  

-In early December, 2023, I felt a twinge in my back as I was doing a familiar Yoga post I’d done many times. I stopped.

-Soon my legs became very weak and I felt pain when I put weight on them.

-Ct scans showed a compression fracture at Lumbar #3.

-One day my legs gave out completely.

-I ended up in our Health Center/Hospital for physical therapy and more. There I learned how to use my walker for assistance in walking, bathroom use, transferring from bed to walker, and getting in and out of a wheelchair.

-I am now back in my apartment working with various therapies to strengthen my legs with the goal of walking on my own—in view and not yet accomplished.   

I’m appreciative of all prayers and more grateful than I can say for the presence of my beloved husband, Dick, who is managing all other household chores, his own worries, and our joint irascibility.  I’m also grateful for all our children who call, visit, and care.

*  *  *  *

So, for this Lenten season I am giving up giving up! Some days the task of weight-bearing on my legs is so painful I am tempted to stop trying to walk at all. I wonder if Jesus was also sorely tempted to STOP trying to persuade the people that this God who created all earth desires liberation, wellbeing, fullness of life and love—on earth as it is in heaven?   

2011.09.28 Secrecy and Transparency

I think that too much secrecy and too much transparency are both unhealthy extremes in human systems, individual, family, organizational.

Both secrecy and transparency as strict policies preclude the obvious middle way—MODESTY.

SECRECY is not the same as confidentiality because it is often fueled by fear more than it is by respect.

TRANSPARENCY is not the same as freedom of speech or right to know because it too is often fueled by fear rather than respect.

I know systems get trapped in extremes of behavior and then try to change but too often change happens quickly and reactively not allowing proper time to discern and discriminate about right choices in different situations. So we set policies!

Parish search committees in the Episcopal Church, for example, are rife with secrecy mandates. Such policies when rigid become paranoid.

I remember visiting a parish for an interview, asking about bathroom privileges (my sarcasm) and being whisked in and out quickly with the comment. “Someone might see you.” I’ve never relieved myself so fast in my life.

Rigorous secrecy is injurious to clergy interviewees who are sequestered and only meet a committee and perhaps a vestry before they appear on their first Sunday. Behold! Clergy never get a chance to experience a community at worship and the community never gets a chance to hear a sermon or see a priest celebrate.

It is also unfair to congregations who have no opportunity to ask questions or shake a hand or listen to a voice. They have a vote but no voice.

Transparency in the extreme however is also not a good idea because political gossip and lobbying easily hobble the discernment of the search committee and may prejudice a candidate.

The process is really quite sinful when it’s too blind. It disallows participation even at a modest level of both parties in what in the Church is still called, for better or worse, a “marriage” between a priest and her/his congregation.

A modest appreciation of the needs of both parties in filling such a key position as rector is possible. Other traditions hold open meetings, including mutual opportunity for respectful questioning between parishioners and each finalist. And some invite each finalist to preach and, yes, go to coffee hour for schmooze time. Imagine!

The modesty approach is worth looking at in the Episcopal Church because there is much boo-hoo talk about what we call “failed searches.” WHAT ARE WE AFRAID OF?