Restoring the world – Tikkum olam
Dr. Rachael Remen has been one of my mentors ever since I first read Kitchen Table Wisdom and later My Grandfathers Blessings. On November 22, 2018 the On Being podcast rebroadcast the 2005 conversation between host, Krista Tippett and Dr. Rachael Remen whose training as a healer began at age 4 when her grandfather told her of the birthday of the world. It was not until she was diagnosed with Chron’s disease and she began her search for healing that she more fully began to understand the application of this story to the art of healing. Since that time, she has created a recipe for healing which is a spiritual process and not about curing.
Her recipe for healing continues to evolve as she listens, reclaims the wisdom of her ancestors, attends holistic and alternative trainings and trains her listening ear. She begins the On Being conversation with a story her grandfather told her when she was four about the birthday of the world. The story recounts when the vessel holding the light of the world broke and the fragments of light fell into all events and people. Her grandfather’s story claimed that humans are born with the capacity to find the hidden light and, thus, restore wholeness. “The task is called ‘tikkun olam’ …restoring the world.”
In many ways, for me, the day following Thanksgiving begins the time to remember and rededicate myself to my understanding of the teachings of my old testament ancestors, of the teachings of Christ which in my mind are the teaching of Buddha which remind me of the teaching of Plato to “know thyself” which remind me that I am the author or perhaps the one who must uncover my story. In many respects, as Dr. Remen’s grandfather suggest in his birthday story, our story is already written. It is our task to uncover the truth of “all things work (or can if we pay attention) together for good.” Much of Dr. Remen’s healing power is related to the search and openness she claimed following her diagnoses of Chron’s disease. It was then that many of the stories she learned as a child took on a deeper meaning and were more intricately woven into her practice of the art of medicine. Ironically, perhaps many of the stories of her ancestors, including those of both her grandparents, arose out of the light they uncovered hidden beneath the wounds of their own oppression and the historic oppression of the Jewish people.
I suspect that in the midst of the deep fear and resulting violent divisions throughout the human world today, we have the opportunity to uncover the light of the power to love. Daily we are reminded that life can end in a second because of an accident, a bomb, an illness, a drug overdose, the so called “justice” of a state, or because it is end of the life cycle. While we seek new life and not death we can use the reality of this uncertainty to claim the power to uncover the bits of light which together can restore the light of the world. I think of the wholeness which we are to restore as another way to talk of God.
Today each of us has the power to uncover the light which is often hidden beneath pain and suffering; the light which is hidden beneath fear.
Written November 23, 2018
RSS Feed