Many years ago, I visited several times with a man named Edgar Jackson. Edgar was a pastor, a research scientist in behavioral pathology, and a published authority on grief. He was also a mystic and spiritual healer. Experiences that many people dismiss as nonsense were commonplace for Edgar, and he used the rigor of a scientist to analyze them. The furthest reaches of the physical sciences, he concluded, had touched upon a realm that transcended its methods; not all forms of energy can be measured by the instruments we use. Those unmeasurable energies were ones with which he had an intuitive and intimate connection.
I first met him at a conference of Methodist clergy; Edgar was the guest speaker. During his talk, he matter-of-factly stated that Jesus was married and had kids, a status required of any righteous Jew, and something the church would admit if it ever stopped treating sex as taboo. This came as news to the other ministers in attendance. They were a liberal bunch, and had no problem disowning the virgin birth, but a married Jesus was a bridge too far. Were we supposed to believe that Jesus had sex with Mrs. Jesus after a long day delivering the Sermon on The Mount? I, on the other hand, wanted to get to know this guy and arranged to visit Edgar at his home in Vermont.
My interest in Edgar wasn’t because he thought Jesus was married. I wanted to know more about the theme of his message, which concerned prayer and healing. A few occurrences in my life felt like interactions with a spiritual dimension and I wanted to better understand them. I wasn’t sure why they happened or why they happened when they did. The effect was one of being personally loved by something powerful, knowing, and beyond my reach that I experienced as the presence of God.
During our occasional conversations, it became clear that Edgar understood the presence of God in energetic terms, and he accessed that Energy through prayer. As a result, he took prayer much more seriously than most people.
As a pastor, he refused to open church meetings and gatherings with prayers, believing it trivialized something enormously important. He guarded the list of people with whom he prayed collectively, since people out of their depth could interfere with the process. He also explained that some people have an inborn sensitivity. Edgar was clearly one.
He told me a story. A woman in one of his churches had a skin disease that kept her from attending services because she was in a great deal of pain and embarrassed by her appearance. When Edgar learned about the problem, he went to visit and, with her permission, prayed for her healing. A few days later, the woman’s physician called and requested a meeting. The disease had resolved itself, and the doctor wanted to know what Edgar did, accusing him of practicing medicine without a license. Edgar explained his methods to the doctor, who simmered down, and the parishioner stayed well.
Edgar participated in many such healings. They were not dramatic affairs. In keeping with the Spirit at work, he called no attention to himself and asked for nothing in return. When he prayed for someone, he usually said no words, often touching them, mentally focused upon the loving Energy in which our existence is immersed. That Energy, which desires nothing but good, was the source of the healings; Edgar was adept at providing a connection for others.
He made clear that not all desired healings happen, just as not all prayers are answered, at least in the ways we expect. Gaining more insight into the processes at work was the main purpose for his research. But the ways of God, and the operations of this loving Energy, remain mysterious. As Jesus says, the Spirit blows where it will.
My first experience with his kind of healing was with John, a man in one of my churches. After a nearly fatal heart attack, he ended up in a coma. I went to the hospital to support John’s family, and also prayed for him at home. After about a week, he awakened, and went on to live into his eighties. One day, several months after returning home, John told me about waking up. He heard my voice, he said, calling to him, and he followed my voice back to awareness. Somehow, in an unmeasurable way, we had connected. We also became fishing buddies.
We are surrounded by a loving power to which we are largely blind, not having developed the means of detection. My hope is that someday it will be an ability possessed by everyone.
Photo of silhouette by Vojtech Okenka: https://www.pexels.com/photo/silhouette-of-man-standing-on-hallway-399772/
Photo of praying man by by 李磊瑜伽 from Pixabay
Photo of hand by Elias Sch. from Pixabay
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