The Lost Soul

I waos catching up on my television watching on Saturday afternoon watching the previous Sunday's Gray's Anatomy. One of the story lines was about a 20 something Hmong girl who needed immediate spinal surgery to remove a tumor. Her father would not allow it until she had regained her soul which involved brining in a Shaman for a Homong religious ritual. While she waited for the Shaman to arrive one of the young doctors reminded her that she was about to go off of the morphine drip. The Hmong woman responded that that was OK because "it was impossible to find one's soul when one is medicated." That line really hit me and I have been musing on it ever since.

My first response when I heard this was to immediately think about the ways we self-medicate: mostly alcohol and drugs. But as I thought more about it I recalled that there are hundreds of other ways that human beings self-medicate -- shopping, overeating, seeking that adrenalin rush, watching television, sex,work, etc. And I thought about what all that self-medicating does to our souls and what does it mean to walk through the pain to recapture and find our souls. And then for purposes of this blog I thought about ways in the church we might be teaching children to self-medicate through the ways we do children's ministry. Are we caring for children's souls or driving a wedge between children and their souls. Just something to ponder as I will continue to do.