God Talk (or Not)

February 1, 2009 at 8:49 am Leave a comment

A priest who is a therapist offered these thoughts on Sacred Space, which is the website I use for morning devotional:

As a therapist, I have to be a methodological atheist. I do not take it for granted that anybody believes in God. God gave us our heart. If you can get back to the healthy centre of it, you can trust it. Religious friends sometimes protest if I write something which does not stress the God factor. I trust the God factor in an experience with people if I can help them to their inner health and freedom. Freud offered an elegant definition of mental health: the ability to love and to work. If I can help people to love again (and to work again if they are of such an age), if I can help the love to flow again in a family, the Lord is there. You do not need a label or picture of the Sacred Heart. God is there.
One scriptural phrase that stays with me is that the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us. I see that in a tangible way when confronted by people with serious problems, people often weeping on the phone, in enormous emotional tension, but under their distress, they are still driven by love.

It’s Martha again. I noticed among the circle of caregivers I know, there is a wide variety of emphasis on the “God factor.” And yet there is invariably a holy quality in people with the capacity of caring for another human being who is weak and failing and often demented. Perhaps the talk of God is there. Perhaps not. But the walk with God sure is.

Peace, Martha Sterne