Both/And #reverb10
Being a fan of postmodern/emergent sorts of thoughts, I dig the “both/and.” Down with dichotomies. Yay for integration.
This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?
What an amazing question!
Looking back on the journey of this year, there are two moments that really stand out as moments when I moved past the artificial distinction between my spirit and body and really claimed the fullness of who God created me to be.
The first would be my ordination. So much of that day was surreal. It was so large and expansive and crowded and yet intimate and personal. My biological family and my church family came together to celebrate the day with me. And kneeling up there with my mentors pressed in close around me, with three bishops’ hands grabbing a hold of me, I felt bodily the spirit that is within me. “Take authority!” came the voice and the spiritual calling and the physical person became one. The feel of the linen cassocks, the brilliant reds of the stoles, the warmth of the hands, the weight, the smell of bodies and perfumes, the light, the word being proclaimed, the touch of the bible under my fingers… each of those experiences of my senses was intensely spiritual and holy.The second moment is a bit more casual. At a training session for the church, five folks gathered together at lunch. We were lamenting the fact that we had rushed through the process and felt like we were fumbling. We had come up with a theme – a launching point – a framework – for this process we were leading the congregation through and it had flopped. It was forced. It didn’t work. And we let go of it.
We sat there at lunch, near the warmth of the fire blazing at Pictured Rocks Camp, and we let the Spirit take over. As we waited and listened and ate – we realized that eating is a spiritual discipline for our congregation. Food is holy. It brings us together. The physical and the spiritual are one. And when we got our own perspectives out of the way and made room for God it was amazing. We transformed our entire process during that half an hour.