Healing is the process of renormalization, which takes place after injury. Injuries occur to us every day. I hit my elbow on the doorframe as I was carrying my computer and notebooks to the front porch so I could work on this assignment. Physical injuries are generally easier to understand healing in regards to. Within a few moments, it is likely I will no longer notice the pain in my elbow, which is already fading. Healing cannot be defined without also identifying what it is you are healing from.

Spiritual, emotional, and moral injuries, to name a few examples, occur far more frequently than we are aware often aware of and can be more challenging to heal from than a physical wound. There are times when we deny they have occurred and even when we notice them, modern medicine does not have clearly defined ways of treating them. There are also times when the damage from an emotional or moral injury exceeds the exterior physical injury of an incident, and this unseen pain dominates our thoughts and silently influences every action; I call this trauma.

            Healing is not going back to the way things were. Healing is not restoration but reparation. Something is considered healed when it has reached a new functional norm that is not the same as the previous norm. There is a line across my thumb where I sliced it with kitchen knife which has permanently changed the appearance of my fingerprint. It is healed, repaired, but not restored. Internal wounds can create scars which subtly alter our personalities, faith in higher powers, and trust in exterior agencies. These things cannot be reset or restored, but they can be healed. They can be repaired to a new functional norm where a human being works similar to as it did before but perhaps using a different mechanism to achieve this similar result. This is the work I believe ministers as well as therapists are called to do. We are healers, shamans, doctors, and nurses of the soul. Our job, is to help communities and individuals heal from life’s injuries to achieve a more desirable and functional normal state of being. Ultimately, if they are successful in the act of healing, they will move beyond being functional and into flourishing.