Seeking Healing Waters

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    February 25, 2024

I was back. Back in the healing waters of the aquatic therapy pool. And apparently, it showed.

“What’s your secret?” One patient asked as we passed each other walking the length of the pool. “You’re absolutely beaming,” another remarked. A third person wondered, “What’s behind that smile?”

After an absence of nine months, I was back in the pool, back in the community of bodies and souls seeking healing. What had kept me away? Not a lack of desire. Not a lessening of my appreciation for what aquatic therapies offered my wounded body. Quite simply, time and space. A full schedule of retreats from May through December had meant I would be away from my home base for many days.

So of course I was beaming and smiling at my return to the pool. As anyone who’s engaged in physical therapy knows, water is so much easier than land as a medium for exercise. The pool was the conduit to wholeness and that partially explained my visible joy. But beyond that, entering the therapeutic waters was a deeply spiritual experience.

I imagined myself returning to my mother’s womb, afloat in that warm, protected, nourishing space. No wonder babies wail when they emerge under the glaring lights of the delivery room! Who would want to leave such a sheltering place? I imagined myself at my Baptism into the faith, feeling the holy waters poured over my infant face. I imagined standing knee-deep in the Jordan as Jesus stepped into the water and heard the words addressed to him but also to me: “You are my beloved.”

In the healing waters of the warm pool, stiffness was soothed. Limbs were set free. Bodies were no longer fettered. The pool offered all of us a liberation, a loosening, a harbinger of what might be possible.

Which led me to reflect on this Lenten season, for after all, isn’t that our call in these forty days? For the hardened heart to become tenderized. For the dry bones to take on muscle and flesh and move freely, maybe even dance in gratitude. For the crushed in spirit to discover hope. For the tight fist to unfurl itself in a handshake or an embrace. For the soul hardened by anger to open in a slow, halting knowing that grudges hurt only the one who holds them, that it is forgiveness that tenderizes and heals.

A few questions to accompany us on our Lenten journey:

What healing do I long for in my life at this moment?
What might help to loosen or unfetter my spirit during this season?
What is the kindest thing I could do for myself right now?
What practice could grow my spirit and also draw me closer to the heart of the Holy One?   

Takeaway
Sit in silence with the Holy One.
Place your hands on your lap, forming a tight fist.
Reflect on any issues that constrict or limit your ability to be a loving presence to others.
Slowly open your fists and keep your hands on your lap, palms upturned.
Ask the Holy One to fill you with the gift of healing for yourself and for our beautiful yet wounded world.

Featured Image: Haley Phelps, Unsplash

NOTE:
March 4-6:  Please hold in your prayer my travel and presentation of a Lenten retreat, “A Heart for Our Time and Place,” at the IHM Conference Center in Bryn Mawr, PA. Thank you.

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