Editorial January 22, 2001 Issue

Wholeness will find you

Margaret Rogers

"Do not try to be saved, but let redemption find you, as it certainly will."^{ Selected Poems and Letters of Emily Dickinson, ed. Robert N. Linsott (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1959), p. 14.}

For days I mulled over this sentence the poet Emily Dickinson wrote to a friend in the hospital. It rang true to me at an intuitive level, but being accustomed to a proactive language of salvation, I had to adjust to it. Don't try to be saved—delivered, healed, whole, acceptable to God? Let wholeness find you. But how do you do that?

The question came up again when I heard a radio talk show on health and fitness that weekend. The show was devoted to the "health of mind, body, and spirit," and the speakers advocated a range of holistic practices, including nutrition, vitamins, exercise, massage and healing touch, learning from dreams, prayer. Whatever approach or combination of approaches to physical and spiritual health someone chooses, I thought, it seems like we're all trying to be whole.

Send a comment to the editors

This is the end of the issue. Ready to explore further?

Online features Audio