the Word became flesh.
The point is not that Jesus' anger proves he is human.
It is that a human being, in his words and actions, can claim the authority of God.
http://abbeyofthearts.com/classes/live-classes-and-retreats/coming-home-to-your-body/In our rush through life, we neglect the body’s wisdom. We work through fatigue and illness, pushing our bodies and feeling frustrated when they don’t keep up. Or we look at our physical selves with disdain when parts don’t measure up to some external standard (which is always designed to sell us something).
God became flesh. The Incarnation points to embodiment as one of the most important spiritual journeys we make and it is impacted on multiple levels:
- our relationship to time (do we rush through our lives or savor slowness?)
- consumerism (do we buy into the constant quest for self-improvement or rest into the beauty and bounty of our bodies?)
- food (do we eat just to fill our hunger or to truly nourish ourselves?)
- the earth (do we see ourselves as separate from the earth or in intimate communion?)
- and even health care (do we seek the quick fix or cure and lose patience with the slow process of healing?).
The Christian monastic tradition has left an unfortunate legacy of body denial. And yet, the very contemplative practices which are so nourishing for our souls can also be directed toward our bodies as a way of plunging into and celebrating the depths of our embodied beings. If we believe that God became flesh, how might we take the incarnation seriously by entering into intimacy with our own bodies?
In his book Touching Enlightenment, Buddhist author Reginald Ray says the body is “the last unexplored wilderness.” The ancient desert mothers and fathers journeyed out to the wildness of the desert landscape to find God there, at the edges of life, in the places where they felt uncomfortable and God was allowed to be as expansive as possible.
This is an invitation into the wilderness. We will learn ways to stay with ourselves in this new and sometimes frightening place until the vastness of the holy is unearthed right within us. The wilderness calls us to be with life’s messiness, to relinquish our desire to control what is happening, and enter whole-heartedly into life’s unfolding.
The body speaks truth if we would only learn how to listen. When we drop down out of the spinning voices of the mind, telling its tales of anxiety and calling us back into the past or out into the future, the body calls us full present here and now. This, right now, is the only moment for the body.
We find freedom in these body practices and in the dance. We begin to discern new paths that are body-guided. We start to live in rhythms and cycles which are nourishingrather than depleting. We touch into a primal joy that is our birthright.
Together we will integrate "contemplative embodiment" practices and develop new ways of being in relationship with our bodies that are renewing, wise, and offer us endless depth, as well as renewed trust. The expressive arts will offer us a language and way of expressing our new discoveries and having them witnessed. We can tell our stories in symbolic language, giving them shape and form and new perspective.
This retreat is rooted in the conviction that our bodies offer us the deepest wisdom, wisdom that can guide us through the river of life. The more we deepen into the body’s wisdom the more we will find greater freedom, joy, nourishment, rest, and empowerment for exquisite self-care. This is the dancing monk’s practice. This is the journey into the “last unexplored wilderness.”
No comments:
Post a Comment