When we face loss and grief or fragility and weakness, we miss out on redemption’s
invitation if we go straight to mind over matter (though mind matters a great
deal).
Here’s how I know... I was queen of mind
over matter. And my matter broke under the pressure of my mind’s willful insistence
to ignore everything life was saying to me. Now I think it’s something more
like Be mindful of the matter.
Even now, three years since everything fell apart (or fell to ground,
fell to heart) I sometimes feel
scared when my body starts struggling again. It catches me by surprise after all
of the lessons and learning...
After the acceptance and changing.
After all of the life-giving words I’ve written (mostly for myself)
about the gifts and gains of illness.
After all of the life I’ve
found in the midst of things dying off.
After finding a rhythm of resting when I am weakening or doing and
giving when I am able...
After all of this, I still feel moments of panic that I might end up back at the very
bottom. That bottom is a chaotic, desperate place with all of its uncertainty. I’ll
never forget. And though order formed and is forming out of that chaos and births very good things in my life, I don’t want to go back. I want to
think serenely, contentedly, confidently, unwaveringly. I want to have stoic certainty about the growth I’ve had along the dis-ease journey and live with stepford-wives-ignorance about how things might play out. But instead,
sometimes, I feel afraid of what I cannot know or control.
It shouldn’t catch me by surprise.
This is the human experience. This is what it means to live inside of our actual lives and not just inside of our head or our armor. This is what it means to live life, to be human and admit that control and self-determinism is an arrogant and fearful illusion we love. The sorrows and joys are inseparable. To grow into love and joy is to grow into sorrow. Likewise, to grow with trust, into sorrow is to grow into love and joy. They grow intertwined. (We actually have some good science to prove it.)
This is the human experience. This is what it means to live inside of our actual lives and not just inside of our head or our armor. This is what it means to live life, to be human and admit that control and self-determinism is an arrogant and fearful illusion we love. The sorrows and joys are inseparable. To grow into love and joy is to grow into sorrow. Likewise, to grow with trust, into sorrow is to grow into love and joy. They grow intertwined. (We actually have some good science to prove it.)
Living inside my life, inside my skin, teaches me with a deeper Wisdom
than anything I’ve done with just my mind. (And I’m a fan of the mind. I've always been a thinker and always will be. But my mind... well, sometimes it gets
jumbled and confused with everything. But my body... she always tells me the
truth if I will really listen.)
When the panic sets in and my mind is racing, instead of clamping down
and telling my mind what to do and how to feel (good luck with that), I need to
stop and pay attention to the mattered things and to the things that matter.
The fear comes from what my body feels and what my mind does with it,
yes, but you can’t just beat information top-down into the body to soothe her
or remind her of what is real.
I need to hike or watch the sunset or listen to
the birds in my backyard or water my garden. I need to cook something or create something. I need to play with the kids or ask Jason
for comfort. I need silence. I need the companionship of a friend, sometimes even
a dinner party (though not as often since I’m an introvert :). I need a good cup of
tea, a hot bath with candles. I need sleep or I need to sit by the river and
wait. I need to say I need help. And
while Wisdom comes near in prayerful silence, or serious study, or a
long-ago-memorized passage or verse – she comes nearest to me these days
enfleshed – the real, the tangible made alive and healing by the Spirit. It is
in the mattered that I hear the Spirit clearest. And why not? From the
beginning, matter and spirit came together - it was blessed and it was good.
Sometimes, if we’re lucky and unlucky at the exact same time, the body catches our attention in such a way that denial is no longer useful or possible. It
can be a wake-up call to life. A broken body can take you into despair and fear
and/or it can capture our heart’s imagination and open a deep abiding well of
healing. For me, it is both. I think it’s a wake-up call the able-bodied can’t
hear. (I definitely couldn’t.) Or at least, their snooze button still works.
But sometimes all of the buttons break and you can’t shut it off and you have
to get up and start walking into life differently.
In the middle of chaos, it’s a chance for me to come back to the
beginning. Back to the place where the Spirit hovers over what seems dark and
unknown and brings order out of it, blessing it. For me, the chaos becoming order now takes shape in very tangible, very real, very embodied
ways not just in the realm of ideas or doctrines about life, God, healing or
anything else. It is experienced. Being mindful of the matter is the most whole
way I have found to hear the still small voice leading me forward in love and
mercy and grace.
How about you? What are your spiritual practices of paying attention to the matter/to the body?
