Ah....Advent...

Advent is truly my favorite time of year. Although many people experience this season as a rather chaotic swirl of parties, meetings, travel plans, gift wrapping, food prep etc...I am most entranced by the fact that this season celebrates God coming to us. God comes. Why is this so important to me?

I think at various times in my life--I am not sure where I am or where I am going. It brings me immeasurable comfort to know that in these times, God can come to me. God does not always expect me to figure everything out on my own and do all the work by myself. In fact, many times God comes to us--and for me, Advent is the representation of all those times when God comes when I need it the most.

Advent is also about waiting for this coming...I can get all flustered and look for bells,whistles, and fireworks--but often God shows up in things that you might miss if you were not attending to them. One thing about Mary...once she said "Yes" to God it was set in motion and was going to happen. She really couldn't do anything to make it all happen faster or slower--9 months is the general waiting period for pregnancy--but it was going to happen. I think the same is true for us. When we really say "Yes" to God--even if it is inaudible to others and is only whispered in our hearts--God hears, and the plan begins to unfold. It is going to happen.

So, in this waiting time...when God's arrival is immanent, what do we do? We prepare. Just like new parents who begin dreaming of how their lives change (they have NO IDEA really...), they get a room ready, purchase a crib, find clothes, diapers, dishes, bottles, etc...to do all they can to be READY--even though people who are already parents know all this preparation is mostly to give nervous people something to do. Because when the truth is told...could we ever really be ready for such a coming?

We think we know what it is going to look like. The people between the testaments had 400 years to prepare. You would think they would be ready. Or maybe they got tired of waiting. Or maybe they thought God forgot and had moved on. Or maybe they thought they had heard God wrong..or....whatever. Nobody thought a baby born in a stable could be God. THAT couldn't be the plan...and yet, that was EXACTLY the plan. And for those who were listening and watching for it--God let them know that indeed--it was happening before their very eyes.

So to me, Advent is a time of watching, waiting, and preparing--for surely God will come to us.

"Not like that....!"

     Lately, I have been sitting with the fact of how often people (often the religious leaders of the time) didn't like how Jesus did things. In other words, they would basically tell him...."Not like that...!" which really took a lot of nerve given that He is God and all.

    What has particularly spurred on my reflection is a passage from the lectionary from several weeks ago--the story about a crippled woman who was healed by Jesus on the Sabbath (see Luke 15:10-17). Jesus was teaching in the local synagogue--and he noticed a woman in the audience who was "bent over and could not straighten up at all." She had been like that for 18 years. From a somatic perspective, can you imagine, in early Palestine, what being bent over for 18 years would do to your psyche as a woman? I think the woman should be given credit for even showing up for synagogue! She must have been very devout. (I know I have stayed in bed on a given sabbath for lesser reasons. I digress). She was there. Maybe even to see Jesus...we don't know. But we do know, that even though she did not draw attention to herself by crying out to him for healing--HE SAW HER...and called her forward and said, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." Then he put his hands on her (gotta love it--that was another "no-no" in that culture!) and it says she "immediately straightened up and praised God."

     Isn't that beautiful? Can you imagine being a witness to this healing? It says earlier in the passage that she had been "crippled by a spirit"--so that she had experienced not only limitations on herself physically--but perhaps spiritually she had been bound as well. And as soon as she was healed--her response? TO PRAISE GOD!

     Now, the very next verse sets up quite a contrast...the synagogue ruler got all bent out of shape (hmmm, wonder where the crippling spirit had come from...) and told the people in essence, "Come get healed on the other six days--not the sabbath." In the vernacular, he was protesting, 'The Kingdom of God is "Not like that!"...it should look like THIS (insert our beliefs and rules about how God 'should' work)...

JESUS WAS FURIOUS! And called the leader out--saying, very politely (-not-):
     "YOU HYPOCRITES!!! You are willing to untie your animals on the sabbath to lead them to water--why in heaven's name would you not let me "untie" this woman who has been bound for 18 years?????"
    Jesus was really steamed. These people had their "spiritual priorities" all wrong! He brings wholeness to a woman who had been suffering for 18 YEARS--and they are all upset how He did it. Yeah. If we want God to do a "new thing" by definition it can't be done in the old way.

      In this passage, Jesus also calls this woman "a daughter of Abraham"...such a tender phrase, really. She is recognized as being included in the covenant when women had so few "places" in that day and age. One of the regular prayers prayed by devout Jewish men of the day in essence, thanked God that they had not been created as women. In another passage (John 8) Jesus has a discussion with the leaders about who are the true children of Abraham...those who live by faith, and do the will of the Father. Back to the synagogue, it says that "His opponents (religious leaders) were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing." I don't think it takes a degree in theology to recognize which response brought joy to God's heart.

So--in what areas of your life is God moving in unconventional ways? It may ruffle some feathers--oh well. What would we rather have? The commendation of God or the praise of other people? We know what they did to Jesus--they persecuted him and crucified him. But that is not the end of the story--He triumphantly rose up from the dead--He invites us to do the same with Him by the power of the Spirit. Thanks be to God.

September 17, 2013 --Feast Day of Hildegard von Bingen  (12 century German Christian mystic).

Born Again...Does God have a Womb?

Well, my journey continues: trying to understand how we as women uniquely reflect the image of God. Yesterday, as I was praying and reading, the thought came to me, The phrase "born again" is a reference to a feminine experience!This hit me like a ton of bricks! Having grown up as a conservative Evangelical, the term "born again" was used constantly (almost to the point of losing meaning) as a description of having had an "experience" of becoming aware of relating to God in a new and close way. BUT IT NEVER DAWNED ON ME that only WOMEN GIVE BIRTH so that this phrase is pregnant with meaning (sorry, couldn't resist!) for women.

So, what do we do? If we are "born of God" and "born again" and "born of the Spirit...." these are feminine references about God's action, addressing the fundamental process of being initiated into the family of God. How can there not be a feminine dimension to God? How I never made this connection until I was 45 years old is beyond me...how did THAT happen??? I will have to get back to you on that...but it continues to reinforce in my mind, the fact that NOT using all the images for God provided in Scripture is actually a HUGE issue.

Dr. Kristina Lacelle-Peterson (Chair of the Department of Religion at Houghton College) writes:

Since God is, in fact, referred to with female imagery in various biblical texts, the question is not whether using female images for God will draw us away from orthodox Christianity, but whether using exclusively male metaphors will so distort our view of God as to render our concept of God unbiblical. Put simply: If we reject an entire class of biblical metaphors do we still have a biblical [orthodox] understanding of God?

Why is this all coming up now? Not fully sure. But psychologists know (yeah, I'm one of them) that when we hit midlife, we often reevaluate the first half of life, take stock, and determine what was missing and what we want to make sure we address in the second half of life. Well--what has been missing for me is how I opened this brief post: I am wanting to gain a fuller understanding of what it means for myself as a woman to reflect the image of God.

Woo Hoo! What a ride this second half is going to be!!!!!!

Prayer

Gracious Heavenly Father,
How thankful we are to not be "left as orphans.”

We acknowledge with grateful hearts that we are not “Fatherless”

But hear our cry, O Father,
Are we in this day, nonetheless, left to be “Motherless?”

Hear us, in your Mercy, O God:
We have voiced our plight to our brothers,
       Courageous among them have responded and affirmed,
       And some of them have also been ridiculed.
       Yet unlike Zelophedad's daughters
       Many continue to deny us our inheritance in Your Kingdom.

To whom now shall we turn?
There is no where else to go but to You,
    Creator of our own souls, made also in Your image.
    When justice is denied,
     And the oppressed are powerless in their plight,
We turn to You.
We cast ourselves on Your mercy,
Seek you with ashes on our hearts,
And rend our souls.
Fasting from seeking power and positions,
We seek You, God of all,
And long to hear You speak.

What have we lost,
By not knowing all of who You are?
We would never want to presume,
But seek the Truth of all Your Fullness.

We seek not only for ourselves,
But for the sake of Your Church.
She is often powerless in our day,
     Defrocked due to disobedience and abuses.
Hear us O God,
Not only for ourselves,
But for a world that needs You desperately,
And as Women,
We wonder if our time in You is now.     -Pamela Trice  7/25/2013

What/Who is Energy/Chi?

One of my instructors in massage therapy school was Randy Cummins, a Shiatsu practitioner in Chicago. I so appreciated his thoughtful and "chill" approach to teaching us. Several months ago I read a past post on his blog about "My Relationship with Chi (Energy)" and thought it was so sublime--that I wanted to share it with you all:

      The moment I heard that voice, the eternal hum, resonating and reverberating throughout my physical and energetic bodies, in that instant, I knew it was love.

      Chi – primal and eternal, motivator of action, purveyor of dreams, elusive by nature, saturating by design.

      My energetic soul mate and I have walked hand in hand, informed by the sage council of Shoshin Shiatsu, sharing with us its preventative properties, its base wisdom of stretching the fascia, opening and lubricating the joints, balancing the effects of gravity and emotion.

      The work continues to open slowly to me, informing my connection to the breath. The breath, my most intimate of all teachers . . . constant companion in this life journey, showing me with all immediacy the importance of being in the moment. Giver and sustainer of life, an anchor to my wandering mind, keeper of my hara fire, eternal example of taking in all inspiration and letting go . . . giving all with every exhale.

      In the context of Shiatsu, the breath as viewed in another and self, two-edged vajra, dissolving illusion, moving one into witness.

      The breath of practitioner, again sustains and centers, enhances connection through palpation, floats the weight of the hand down on a cloud of intention, sinking through skin, penetrating muscle, entering bone energy, clearing a path to the house of the true self.

       To have the faith in self to pull back, wait till the mud settles and the water clears, so one can recognize the underlying cause of it all – the kyo (yin) behind the outward jitsu imbalance (yang). The woman behind the crime, to paraphrase from the Neijing.

       A continuous process of letting go of result, expectation, adulation . . .  learning to honor and respect the pause . . . the stillness at the beginning and end of all movement . . . till we are delivered to the door of beginner’s mind.  --Randy Cummins,  May 25, 2012   (Black Swan Productions)

Two things....

One, This is a beautiful description of how a practitioner not only approaches their work--but also their life. I have always been fascinated with the concept of integrity--i.e., what you see is what you get--no matter "where you slice it!" When something is integrated--it is fully itself--to its core. My own best work flows not from my training (although that helps) but from my PERSON. This is particularly true of any work that is interpersonal in nature.

Secondly, I appreciate the fact that this description of chi/energy is conceptualized as feminine. I think few men understand how healing it is to have something written that affirms the feminine in such a powerful way. 

As I have mentioned in another post (I think :) the Hebrew word in the Jewish sacred writings (Old Testament) for "Spirit/Wind/Breath" is "ruach" which is feminine. It is unfortunate that in the Christian sacred writings (New Testament) the Greek word for "spirit" is "pneuma" which is neuter. In the West, we have a pretty negative view of anything that is "neutered." Although I must admit, it is a rather fitting "fix" we have in our Christian traditions that have in most cases "neutered" the power of the Spirit of God. How we got from a "feminine spirit" to a "neutered it" is a theological concern.

Gendered language makes an impact....more than we know until we read something that catches us by surprise.....

Ethics Embodied 2: Moral Muscles

Been awhile...and summer invites us to a different rhythm of life. Nonetheless, this July 4th I am thinking about the things that we believe are worth "fighting for" and how this relates to the previous post on Embodied Ethics. The founders of our country believed that certain freedoms are worth "fighting for." One could say this belief was pat of their moral tissue--or moral "muscle" if you will.

Moral muscle...hmmm. That has me thinking. How strong are our moral muscles? What and Who are we willing to fight for? The Oppressed in the world are often not lacking moral muscle, but are rather being overpowered by individuals and systems that are unjust. Will we engage our "moral muscles" to fight on their behalf? Will we embody our ethics? What would it look like to flex our Moral Muscles and fight back poverty, discrimination, hatred, hunger, corruption,...

Embodied Ethics. Let's put some Muscle behind it!

Moral Tissues...Ethics Embodied

 Edith Wharton (1862-1937) wrote the following in her novel "Sanctuary" (1903) about a mother who is trying to guide her son...

"It was part of her discernment to be aware that life is the only real counselor, that wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissues." (p. 123)

There is a lot packed in this little statement I think. First, I think unfiltered wisdom in our day and age is actually called "knowledge". Knowledge about things can be interesting, but what to do with knowledge, applied knowledge, is actually called "wisdom."  And wisdom comes from experience. So...what about the phrase "moral tissues?" That's a new one for me....but...this was written in 1903. I think this is a fascinating somatic idiom, the idea of "moral tissue." Maybe said another way: Ethics cannot simply be a cognitive or intellectual exercise...although clear and rigorous thinking must be part of its formation. Ethics and morality must also become a part of our "moral tissues"...a part of the very fiber of our beings, i.e., ethics must be embodied.  This a challenge for all of us. When the rubber hits the road, when the birds come home to roost, when the gig is up...you name it....our moral fiber is being tested to see if it is really true. We embody what we believe, more than we know.

Translating: From One Field to Another....

It has long been a calling of mine, to be a bridge person. Another way to say this is that I often find myself translating concepts of one discipline to the understanding of another. This in itself is ironic, because it is my elder sister who is the one who has a PhD in Linguistics! Lucky for me, I don't have to be able to spell or pronounce the words I use (thank God for spellcheck)...I just get to write about them :)

So...what is the latest translation/bridge I am working on? It is the translation of the concept of energy, Chi, or Qi--which Bodyworkers are very familiar with. But you talk to a mental health professional or a theologian about "Energy" or "Chi" and they think you have fallen out of your rocker. So...here goes.

For Psychology People: "Energy" can be translated to "Embodied Emotion." We know that we don't just have cognitions about how we feel...we FEEL our emotions. And that feeling often has a level of force to it, i.e., energy. Anger for example...when you are angry, you may feel like decking someone. That is a force to be reckoned with. Or maybe you feel love for someone, that makes you tender and attentive to them. Emotion "moves" you, and, our physicist friends know, that to move something you need ENERGY. Hence, emotions are energy expressed through the body. Does this reduce emotions to energy? No, of course not--emotions are more than energy--but energy is required to feel them.

For Theologians: "Energy" can be translated to "power [of the spirit/Spirit]." Energy moves things...and the spirit/Spirit moves things. Do we know how? Nope. Jesus said, "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." John 3:8. Of course, also interesting is the word for "power" in the Bible is also "dunamis"--the same word we derive the English word for "dynamite"--and we know that is powerful stuff. So when we talk about the power/energy of the Spirit of God, we may be using the word "dunamis." The Spirit moves things. This is often why, in a worship service where people find themselves, clapping, raising their hands, or crying--they say, "The Spirit was moving in today's service." Why? Because they felt their emotions connecting with their faith. They felt MOVED. And that is the job and power of the Spirit. Does this reduce the Spirit or our own spirit to our emotions--of course not. The wind is not reduced to its effects...our emotions may be the effects of the moving of our or God's Spirit.

So finally, is energy (chi or Qi) simply a force? This is where I would diverge from some bodyworkers. Some do believe energy is only a force. I believe that God is more than an impersonal force. We would surely be in trouble if God were reducible to a "force." A "force" cannot love, care, redeem, protect, etc. But God can--and does through the Spirit. So, God is more than this, but our language limits us. But our language, doesn't limit God.

Transmisson...

Nope--not talking about my car...although that is something I had checked last week! :)

One of the fascinating things about Somatic work is the concept of transmission/resonance. I think different theorists call it by different names,  but it is the experience of the Bodyworker's emotional (or energetic) state being picked up by the client by means of contact with the therapist. In other words, my own grounding and centered-ness as a Bodyworker can be transmitted to a client through my touch. Of course, in everyday life we do this when we put our hand on the shoulder of a friend who is upset. Our groundedness (peace) can be transferred to them by this contact. Bodywork amplifies this and focuses this experience. Particularly for someone who is anxious or upset.

Conversely--and many of you may have already made this connection--my other emotions can also be transferred to a client....Anxiety for example. If I am anxious before a session--my client may pick this up. Obviously, not a therapeutic session! This is why self-care for bodyworkers is so important--your client will pick up your stuff. Work on your stuff--less stuff for you and client. Very Important!

What this has meant for me as a practitioner is that I have found my own grounded-ness emotionally (energetically) functions like a lightning rod. My clients come in--and their emotional static (energy in the form of anxiety, stress, depression, etc) gets grounded and released by connecting with me through the bodywork. Fascinating Stuff. Hard to explain--but very real.

Change--How does it happen?

Well...have had a few days that were less "scheduled" due to inclement weather (about 8 to 10 inches of snowfall) so I have had time to catch up on some reading I have been wanting to do. I am taking a reading course on Somatic Psychology...and ran across this quote from an article by Ian Grand:

"In working somatically, one of the things one is trying to do is to allow the tissue state of a person to reorganize itself, learn different responses, and grow and form itself in a different way....It is generally recognized that to build a state of muscle with which one can lift several hundred pounds, or the cardiovascular and muscular ability to run 20 miles, requires a training that actually changes the tissue state. Alterations in muscle fiber, metabolism, capacity for oxygenation, liquid flow and hormonalization are required to permit these kinds of performances. The same thing is true emotionally. It is quite easy for someone to want to be more tender or more assertive or able to tolerate anger without violence or collapse; but to actually enact these changes requires an organismic learning so that the tissue itself can tolerate the different streams of sensation and feeling and project them into the world."

 WOW.  This explains a bit more about "How does it (bodywork) work?" which I have explored a bit before  (Part One here). Change does not just magically happen. Awareness that change is needed is usually the first step--even if one does not know what it is exactly--one just knows something needs to be different. What is the AA definition of insanity? "Doing the same thing the same way and hoping for different results." yeah. Doesn't happen. So change requires us to recognize, hopefully with either some degree of humility and hope--that something different needs to occur.

One of the gifts of Bodywork as a therapy is to introduce more options somatically (through touch, movement, breathing, etc) which then translates emotionally into a person's experience! Is that cool or what? This is good news--for it means there are several ways to introduce change into our lives. A change in one part of the system will impact the others. You can work directly to solve a problem--or go through a back door--but it will work. So, the Dove Chocolate quote of, "Change your mind--Change your Body" could just as easily be written "Change your Body--Change your Mind." (Yes--I love Dove Chocolates :)

Therapists of all stripes introduce new ways of doing things. Problem is with most of us, is we either are afraid to do new things (due to a negative experience) or don't think we can do new things (we reason--we would already be doing them if we could). Ah--but not so...we only THINK or FEEL we cannot do them....and that is where counseling, bodywork, personal training, tutoring, etc. comes in. Someone who is a few steps ahead of us on their journey helps us take the next few steps.

Bodyworkers are therapists--they introduce new ways of doing things.

For example, when a person is emotionally depressed, they often feel they have no more options (things will always be the same and they will never get better.) This feeling of hopelessness causes a person to "shut down" to conserve energy in what feels to be a "closed system." Somatically, a person who is depressed is also often "shut down" or kind of "curled in" on themselves--to save energy and to shield and protect oneself from others who are perceived to be dangerous. Only problem is that this kind of "shut down" prevents a person from at least 2 things:
1.seeing the other options that may be available
2. being open to receive good/nurture from those who are safe

So, a Bodyworker will help them to:
1. discover and work through what the original fear was that caused the "shut down" 
2. become more open to life and receive now that danger has passed
3. experience new options that are available.

So...are you ready to try something new in order to experience change? As the chocolate says:
"Change your Body...Change your Mind."

Faith...Can ya feel it?

Hmmm. A feeling faith. What do you think?

I cannot count the number of times I have heard people say, "You know, faith is not what you feel, it is what you believe." The suggestion in this statement is that what we feel is not to be trusted, while what we think/believe is to be trusted. As a psychologist, I can tell you people think a lot of things that are just plain not true. So, thinking our brains are somehow less impacted by the fall is poor theology. But in the West, we have elevated the mind to a point where we do tend to trust our minds more than our feelings. And I am not sure about the wisdom of that.

John Wesley may have had a similar conviction. Wesley believed that we should feel our faith. Faith is not just a mental assent or a cognition--faith should be experienced...i.e., FELT. A historian, Amanda Porterfield writes about Wesley's conviction:

“Wesley’s investment in religious experience complemented this interest in health and healing. His   understanding of religious conversion affirmed the presence of bodily sensation in that spiritual transformation…Wesley expected grace to stimulate feeling…In spite of his dectractors, Wesley’s openness to bodily sensation as a natural part of Christian life proved enormously popular both in Britain and in North America. His promotion of religious experience and encouragement of sensory and emotional feeling as part of that experience contributed to revivals on both sides of the Atlantic. By the 19^th century, these revivals made the Methodist church the fastest growing denomination in North America.”  p.164-65  Healing in the History of Christianity (2005).

Why was his view so embraced by the people? BECAUSE PEOPLE FEEL! :) In our everyday lives, we experience feelings and sensations. Why should we expect our faith to be any different? Every other relationship in this world causes us to feel things...we have feelings about our pets, homes, spouses, loved ones, children, etc...and Evangelical Christianity, by definition cultivates a personal relationship with God. Should we not realize that our feelings are just as much a part of our faith as our beliefs? I believe and feel (with great conviction) the answer is a resounding YES.

What this all has to do with Bodywork is that one of the goals of bodywork is to help people get in touch with how they feel. In general, people's awareness of their feelings increases as they receive bodywork. Some come in with locked muscles so tight--they don't feel anything in an area and usually they also can't move it. Get some focused bodywork and I will make a bet that not only can they start to feel--but the first thing they feel is pain. But the good thing is they usually can also start to move. And better yet--after it loosens up--they don't feel the pain, they begin to feel the good!

Back to faith. I think this is why people are seeking "spiritual experiences." Whether it be in a church, weekend retreat, chanting, yoga, etc....people want to feel their faith--we intuitively know that faith should be an Experience..an Encounter. We should feel something. Just believing is not enough. We want to know with our hearts not just our heads. And part of bodywork--and faith--is awakening to the feeling of the movement of the Spirit.

So...Faith...Can ya feel it?