(Religion
Section: NWA Times / Arkansas Democrat Gazette NW Edition)
FAYETTEVILLE — When Barry Bennett first came to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church for a Healing Touch session,
he needed help getting onto the massage table.
Bennett suffers from multiple sclerosis and arachnoiditis,
an inflammation of the spinal cord. At age 42, he walked like an old man, head lowered and spine bent, he said. Excruciating
pain kept him from sleeping for more than an hour or two at a time. He had no feeling in his lower legs and feet.
When he climbed off the table, Bennett was a new man.
He could straighten his spine and lift his head, he said. He could breathe deeply without pain. He could feel
his legs and feet.
“When we were done, I was in such a pain-free
state,” he recalled. “I remember thinking, ‘This is how I must have felt 10 years ago.’ It was like
I had acompletely different body.”
The effects lasted only a few hours
before the pain returned, Bennett said. Yet with repeatedHe walks without a walker. He can sit through church services and
run his own errands.
“I’m just stronger. I’m calmer. I’m
able to breathe better. I’m in less severe pain. I’m doing so many things on my own.”
Healing Touch hasn’t provided a miracle cure, Bennett said. He still experiences pain
and fatigue. Yet they are much more manageable than they once were. His doctors are impressed with his progress.
“I’m happy. Life is good.
Healing
Touch and the healing ministry at St. Paul’s have played the biggest part in that.”
Energy Therapy
Healing Touch is a gentle therapy that works with
the body’s energy system.
Practitioners use light or nearbody touch
to clear, balance and energize the system in an effort to promote healing for mind, body and spirit.
Healing Touch sessions, the benefits deepened. Six years after he began the energy therapy, Bennett sleeps at night.
“The goal is to restore harmony and balance to the system so the
body can do its own healing,” said Jane Steinkraus, coordinator of the Healing Touch ministry at St. Paul’s. “We’re
helping bring the body back into harmony so it can do its own good work.”
The concept of the human energy system is foreign to many, yet people acknowledge its existence in common expressions
of speech, Steinkraus said. “He’s a wet blanket” and “She’s a live wire” describe two
very different types of energy.
Often, individuals are attracted to or repelled
by people on the basis of something that can’t be seen. That’s also the human energy system at work.
“We’re bioenergetic beings,” explained Mary Brenzel, a registered nurse
now working as a health and wellness coach. Brenzel is a certifi ed practitioner of Healing Touch. She has more than 10 years
of experience using the therapy with ill and dying patients in a hospital oncology unit and with outpatient care as a home
health nurse in Wisconsin.
Healing Touch was developed by a nurse to
bring greater healing and wellbeing to her patients, Brenzel said. Originally taught only to nurses, the training is now available
for therapists, counselors, massage therapists and anyone else with a desire to learn. A series of five workshops leads to
full certification, but people can begin practicing the techniques after the first level.
Numerous
studies have shown the effectiveness of Healing Touch in a wide range of situations, Brenzel said. One found that patients
who received the therapy before and after surgery had fewer complications, less blood loss, shorter hospital stays and quicker
recovery. Others show its eff ectiveness for pain relief and wound healing.
‘Porous To The Presence Of God’
The Healing Touch ministry
at St. Paul’s began in the late 1990s. The Rev. Suzanne Stoner, who helped start the ministry prior to her ordination,
said the church chose the Healing Touch model because of its grounding in Western medical ethics and protocols.
Practitioners in the St. Paul’s program - which has expanded to include practitioners
and care receivers from other faith communities - incorporate prayer with the various Healing Touch techniques. Working in
pairs, they ask the Holy Spirit to bring faith, healing and peace.
“It’s
being present in community in the name of God,” Stoner said. Practitioners understand they are merely vehicles, standing
in for a healing presence far greater than their own.
“It’s
an hour of quiet prayer that makes us porous to the presence of God,” Steinkraus agreed. “You can feel the Holy
Spirit moving in. ... We don’t command it. With Healing Touch, you show up and pray that your presence and your heart
and your hands will be used for the care receiver’s good.
“There
are times I almost literally feel that Christ has slipped his hands into mine. Mine are just gloves.”
Healing Touch vocabulary such as intention, self-healing and energy medicine sets off alarms
for some Christians, who associate energy therapy with Eastern or New Age beliefs.
But healing with intention and touch was a foundational part of Jesus’ ministry, Steinkraus said.
“If you look at the New Testament, so many of the stories about Jesus and the apostles
have to do with healing,” she said. “In the gospel of John he tells us, ‘anyone who has faith in me ...
will do even greater things than these.’”
Therapy Helps
Not all results are as spectacular as Bennett’s.
Often, care receivers report more subtle effects.
“If nothing else,
it makes me relax for an hour,” said Bud Planchon, a captain with the Springdale Fire Department. Planchon began receiving
Healing Touch last December at the urging of a friend. “Can I say that it’s working? I don’t know. I can’t
say that it’s not.”
Carrie McCabe decided to try Healing
Touch to help with chronic fi bromyalgia, which causes exhaustion and pain. Six weeks into the sessions, she reportedincreased
energy and lessened depression.
“When I leave here I just feel
such a peace. I really, really believe that when you minister to a person’s psychic and spiritual energies, like this
ministry does, it affects you physically.”
Attitude has a lot to
do with it, McCabe believes. When she started, she was skeptical. Yet now that she’s experienced results, she opens
herself to increased benefits.
“I say, ‘Spirit, be with me’
the whole time I’m on the table,” she said.
Sarah Williams,
who suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome, has been receiving Healing Touch for the past 18 months. She said it helps immensely
in relieving her symptoms of chronic pain and fatigue.
“What I
receive is quality of life,” she said. “It’s a wonderful thing to look forward to - and know that every
time it’s going to help.”
AT A GLANCE HEALING
TOUCH AT ST. PAUL’S
About 10 Healing Touch practitioners give
more than 600 sessions a year. They address needs from bereavement, depression and stress to cancer, diabetes and chronic
fatigue.
There is no charge for the services, which are available to any member
of the community.
Practitioners are volunteers at various levels
of training. Anyone who has completed the first level of training may take part in the ministry. 
