Amen for Acupuncture! Jesus as Your Qi
Ever wonder how your coworker quit smoking so suddenly? Have you been amazed by your neighbor’s striking ability to lose the sixty pounds she never thought she could shed? Maybe the last thing your Christian ears wanted to hear was that acupuncture was the way they did it.
Is acupuncture un-Christian?
No. Acupuncture is medicine and does not need to be tied to any religion or spiritual philosophy. True, it is an ancient form of medicine that has been influenced by Buddhist and Taoist spiritual and philosophical beliefs, but patients do not need to meditate or even think about any of those beliefs in order to be treated.
Well, if it’s not the occult or worship of a foreign deity, what is acupuncture?
It is the treatment of pain or disease by inserting the tips of fine needles at specific points to stimulate, disperse, and regulate the flow of your body’s vital energy and restore a healthy energy balance.(i) Western medicine is finally recognizing the validity of acupuncture. In 1997, acupuncture needles were reclassified from "experimental" to "medical device" by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).(ii) Many insurance plans cover acupuncture treatment.
Acupuncture is a 3000 year-old system of healing developed and practiced within Traditional Chinese Medicine that involves pricking the skin or tissue with needles in order to influence physiological functioning of the body and restore the body's natural flow of qi.(iii)
Definitions of qi are vague and various, even within the Chinese language. English translations include “energy flow,” “bioenergy,” or “lifeforce.” A Greek translation is “energeia.” One form of a French translation is “vital force.” Traditional Chinese Medicine has mapped the human body’s energetic circulatory system into meridians, or lines through which qi flow. Every living cell in the human body has qi.
Shouldn’t Jesus be my qi?
From one Christian to another, He is. Perhaps it was His qi, or life force, that Luke 8:46 describes when the hemorrhaging woman was healed by touching Him. “But Jesus said, ‘Someone did touch Me, for I was aware that power had gone out of Me.’"
Does Richmond have good acupuncturists?
Yes! I visited the Advanced Wellness Centre on Grove Avenue last summer for my first acupuncture session with Licensed Acupuncturist Taehee Cho, who I might add has earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s from two Christian seminaries. The purpose of my visit was to quit smoking. The visit consisted of just four needles that Taehee aimed carefully and inserted with the flick of his finger without causing me pain or a puncturing sensation. I took off my shoes so that he could insert needles into a point slightly below my first two toes on each foot. Then he inserted needles into a point between my index finger and thumb on each hand. I rested, I mean really rested, with the needles in position for twenty minutes. At first I felt that my nervousness was resisting the effects of the acupuncture, but then the tension in my stomach broke and I felt extremely peaceful, and even emotional. I got teary-eyed. Taehee kept an eye on me to make sure I was feeling well, and then he pressed several small needles attached to band aids into my right ear. He instructed me to press on one of those band aids any time in the next few days should I feel an urge to smoke. I felt a few urges over the next three weeks, but was successful in quitting smoking.
I left my session with a feeling of tranquility that I had never before experienced in 27 years of life. Since acupuncture deals with balancing the body’s qi, some people instead feel energized by their treatment.
Acupuncture treats illness and ailments with the understanding that mind, body, and spirit are interconnected.
“Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.” (James 2:17)
“Likewise also, deeds that are good are quite evident, and those which are otherwise cannot be concealed.” (1 Timothy 5:25)
http://www.lohas.com/glossary.html
http://altmedicine.about.com/cs/treatmentsad/a/acupuncture.htm
http://www.allyuspa.com/glossary
Lindsay Brown is a freelance photographer and writer. She earned a BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and will be earning a Masters in Journalism next year from Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland.
Please sign in to respond | | Register