Health,Hope & Healing for the Modern Day Christian…
Wherever you are on your journey. (None, Done, Questioning,Deconstructing or ______________)
Thoughts and ideas swirl around in my heart and mind. I look at the words that form this title. I acknowledge the complicated emotions and sensations that accompany the swirling. Within this space, defining words feels important to my being. Along with the calling out of phrases and words that have been used to describe trends within church and church culture. It is said that the “WHY” of something lays the best foundation. I will start at that, the WHY.
I am a person acquainted with structured faith tradition. I spent a good portion of my life within the constructs of such. In all my journeys what I have found is that I wasn’t “Christian” enough for the “Christians.” I also experienced where I wasn’t “spiritual” enough for the seekers. I love the title that I came up with one day for a blog post of mine, “Just because their conservative Jesus isn’t Jesus, doesn’t make your liberal Jesus, Jesus either.” I love words. That title felt clever. Beyond clever, it felt like it inhabited my experience.
Decades within full/part time ministry formed out my being. Experience within the parameters of very defined expressions of faith, taught me much. The journey away from those spaces gave me room to breath, be and explore. I feel like Bilbo. When I wanted to write the next sentence, the words that felt like they hold the moment are, “there and back again.” I shudder at the idea of “back again.”
And here I arrive at my “WHY.”
In most of the moments of the last ten years, I would never fathom a return to places such as church or ministry. I’ve seen more vitriol to last a lifetime. The jealousy and envy that kill a staff, a person, a family. The unbridled pursuit of position and audience that rivals shows like Game of Thrones. The cruelty, gossip and hatred that flow from people professing to love a God and his son. But an experience I had at the beginning of my journey, I would have walked away from the whole lot. I found solace in expansive spaces of expression of faith and still do, I have always tended to the mystical expressions and found congruence in contemplative histories of all faith traditions.
In these days it has been a shock to me as I have witnessed my heart and thoughts turn back to a culture and a people. Let’s say a wooing of my heart and lessons learned this last decade have pulled at my attentions. I have spent most of my life these past years becoming a somatic therapist. Soma means body. I have watched as breath, movement and capacity to be in the present moment has brought healing and health to many.
There is this concept, in the reality of being a Christian, of the “Body of Christ.” There are statements in regards to such that speak of one part of the body may not and cannot say to another part, “I don’t need you.” There is a felt sense of heart and being, a oneness. There is a prayer, that resonates with the high priests of old, that Jesus utters towards the end of his life. It cries out for oneness within community, that body of believers. “My prayer… that all of them may be one,” coupling that with the sacred text in 1 Corinthians, “Now you are the Body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”
I have watched and experienced when bodies don’t work. I am speaking both metaphorically, as in the “Body of Christ” and literally as in the reality of a human being living in a physical body. In both spaces there is hardship, disease or dis-ease, decay and even death. I have also watched when bodies take up practices of health and healing. I have been witness to hearts, minds, bodies and a person’s spirit heal. I would have never thought that my journey that took me into yoga and somatic practices would be both the off ramp from organized faith tradition and the on ramp back.
But such it is and has been, my why is very clear…. because I have watched and witnessed horrific things happen in the name of Christ, I know great harm occurs. But I believe in the Body’s capacity to heal and walk in health. I know what it is like to live a dismembered life. I know what it is like to live in a fog, to live in a sleepwalk state, to live disassociated from a body. I know what it is like to not know how to inhabit a body because of abuse and neglect. I also know what it is like to be able to take a deeper breath. I know what it feels like to have a mind so taxed and broken, I know what it is like to feel calm in mind, body and being. I know it is possible. I am passionate about the capacity for health, healing and hope. I believe in the restoration of a person to themselves, others and to the Divine. It is to that endeavor that I step into all my work.
As a post note….. Recently, I witnessed once again the power of story. In listening to another’s sharing I was reminded, I was not alone in my experience. In sharing my experience, another had the consolation of being understood. Loneliness is part and parcel of the spiritual journey, it just is such that there are private places to dwell and mature that exist within those spaces. Yet, the power of expression and sharing of story, that says, “Me too,” grants consolation, health and healing. Most importantly, it supports hope. And even amidst long times of dry patches and lack, despair and dark nights, hope does not disappoint.
I will be posting stories under space of “Tales from the Pit (Pulpit that is),” here is the introduction…. come join and listen.
