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Scripture
14All that the Law says can be summed up in the command to love others as much as you love yourself. 15But if you keep attacking each other like wild animals, you had better watch out or you will destroy yourselves.
~Galatians 5.14-15 (CEV)
Wisdom Story
A woman unwittingly moved into a "sick building." Randi Armstrong moved from California, in 1996, to Staten Island with her two daughters. Soon, the girls and Randi began having recurrent itching, fatigue, headaches, and cold and flu symptoms. Randi spoke to the landlord and her doctor. But no one could identify the problem.
After suffering for months, Randi saw a television news program describing illnesses mold, called Stachybotrys atra (stock-e-BAH-trus AH-traj), caused, and that grows in dark, warm, and moist atmospheres. This mold had become a problem in some edifices on Staten Island, due to the high water table. Already, a library and day-care center were closed due to the mold.
Randi identified the streaky patches of black, slimy mold on some of the ceilings and wall of her apartment. Quickly, she moved out of the apartment.
Comments
Even as sick buildings make persons physically ill, toxic people-environments and noxious persons can make persons spiritually and emotionally sick. You are not being judgmental to identify toxic persons or groups and to avoid them fully, or as much as possible, anymore than you would avoid living in an apartment with virulent mold.
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A contemplative, being a person who experiences more intimately spiritual and emotional toxicity than the general population, due to refining inward spiritual receptivity by acesis, understands all environments have a quality of energy.
The contemplative, more than most persons, must care for herself from being sullied by such sickness, for the toxicity will have a more noxious impact on spiritually sensitized and lovingly open persons, while the non-sensitized can live numb to the illness of person or group and consequent venomous effects on the whole self.
Suggested Reflection
1. Reflect on the Galatians 5.14-15. How does it pertain to the subject of the story and comments?
2. Have you be harmed by participating in a toxic group? Religious group? Explain.
3. Do you give yourself permission to associate only or mostly with persons and groups that enhance your over-all health? Explain.
4. Do you experience your church as an emotionally and spiritually edifying people? Explain.
5. What are traits of a person or people edifying for your over-all well-being?
See next page for details on OneLife Ministries, Brian's book An Ache for Union, and material pertaining to sources used in the writing.
Feel free to submit a query. Thanks! Brian K. Wilcox
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