Spiritual Healing for the Future

This article is a book review of Dennis Linn, Sheila Faricant Linn and Jesuit Fr. Matthew Linn’s insightful book, Healing the Future: Recovering from Societal Wounding. The Linns have now written over 21 books translated into 20 languages. However this is the first book in which they have looked at the effects of our toxic society with the violence and economic hardships many endure (or at least watch on TV and at the movie theater). Here is what the reviewer, John Dear has written in The National Catholic Reporter.

Spiritual Healing for the Future

Dennis, Sheila and Matt Linn have spent decades teaching processes for healing from personal brokenness in more than 60 countries. Their 22 books have sold more than a million copies in English and have been translated into more than 20 languages. For the last few years, however, as they faced their own despair over the world, they began to make the connection between our personal wounds and the wounds we all suffer from this toxic culture.

Healing the Future takes their work in a new direction and suggests that healing ourselves individually includes facing the illness of our culture and being part of healing our entire society so that the cycle of violence and wounding will not continue into the future. These last few years of war, terrorism, corporate greed and climate change have hurt us more than we realize. The Linns invite us to integrate spirituality, emotional healing work, social awareness and a new understanding of the universe itself to help us recover our peaceable humanity in a more intentional, conscious way.

The Linns' new book is the fruit of retreats and workshops to thousands of people in the last few years. People everywhere have told them -- and me, too -- that they feel overwhelmed and paralyzed by the state of the nation and the world. The Linns want us to learn how to stay healthy and open and not be overwhelmed by fear and despair so we can go forward and do the work that needs to be done to create a more peaceful, nonviolent world for ourselves and our children.
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The Linns’ new book is not available through Amazon as yet, but it can be purchased through Paulist Press. This article really strikes a chord with me as being accurate and something we should all be aware of. I’m not sure how our society became so negative and fear-producing, but the psychological effects are already being felt by the increase of childhood obesity, increase in ADD and ADHD problems. I especially like their idea of noticing and returning to what works for you to deal with current situations. Do you have experiences where negative societal situations influenced you? Please share you comments below for others to see.