Family

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It's great having a former nurse for a wife. She provides me so many insights I would not otherwise enjoy. For instance in the matter of debriding a deep wound. Even the pysical body prefers in these cases to heal superficially, so sometimes deep wounds that have scabbed over have to be reopened for cleansing so that dead tissue or foreign substance can be removed. How much more deep wounds of the soul. The prophet Jeremiah lambasted the religous leaders of his day for healing the people only "slightly'(Jer. 6 v14) Their shallow prescriptions and pat answers were welcomed because, after all, who wants to reopen an emotional wound or pay the price for a deeper more accurate understanding? The time of its infliction was bad enough. But to have to relive it in some way was and continues to be unpleasant business. Psychiatry was closer to truth when it discovered the value of catharsis: that a complex (like inferiority) had to be surfaced and rexperienced at its origins in order to be expelled once and for all. "Grieve" is a love word. Yet how we like to race through the grieving process that follows a painful loss, or just skip past it altogether. But to cut grief short is to cut love short. Love for whom or what is behind us now as well as love for whom and what is here and to come. It's like eliminating colors from the spectrum or notes from the keyboard at a time when we urgently need the total package.

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