Bringing Faith to Life
Posts tagged faith
The Big Finish
09 months
Dear Kinesthetic Christian friends and fans,
Since July of 2012 I have been posting to this space, as a way to explore and share ideas about an embodied faith — a faith that lives and moves and has its being in and through me. Perhaps it feels so also with you. Thank you, Dear Reader, for your time in commenting, responding and encouraging me along the way.
At 835 published posts, I am drawing the Kinesthetic Christian blog to a close. But before I go… I have reorganized the Kinesthetic Christian site to feature my favorite “evergreen” posts in categories: “FAITH,” “HOPE,” and “LOVE.”
As scripture tells us, “Faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.” Surely, you’ll agree, our world needs more of all three. I hope you’ll visit the site and share what speaks faith to you with those you love.
Faithfully Yours,
Wendy Rilling LeBolt
Kinesthetic Christian
How can I connect with a Creator I cannot see?
29 months
We connect everyday with things we don’t see, many of them in an old, familiar way. What does this for you?
For me it is my dad’s old sweatshirt. Turned inside out, it was my favorite outfit as a kid. Even in the coldest weather, I could put it on over whatever else I was wearing, push up the sleeves, and shoot hoops on my driveway. On wet days, the puddles didn’t stop me. If I missed a rebound and the ball went splat, I’d just wipe it on the tummy fuzz of my sweatshirt and put it back into play. That shirt worked just as well for hitting tennis balls against the garage door, fielding grounders off the brick wall, catching pop-ups in the backyard, or circling the driveway in roller skates.
Yep, I was always on the move. Not because my parents told me to, and no, I wasn’t practicing for a big tournament or to make the all-star team. I just loved how it felt to move, whether I was lofting a ball that swished through the net, striking a ball in the center of my racquet, catching a ball securely in my mitt, or propelling myself around the turn on wheels. Movement taught me how to listen to my body so I could feel the inside of me. Physically. Through trial and error, adjustment and repetition, I improved my aim and perfected my form.
It would have never occurred to my eight-year-old self that movement could be a contemplative practice. But my grown-up self knows that it certainly was and still is. It helps me to listen, to be thoughtful, reflective, focused, and stilled – just not always while I am still. What could be more natural?
We each have a body and the Psalms tell us each is fearfully, wonderfully, and uniquely made by our Creator’s design. Where better then for God to meet us than in our very own flesh as we experience life according to that design? Even if we aren’t primarily kinesthetic learners by nature, our physical selves are the one thing we know God gave us just for this lifetime. We take our bodies with us everywhere we go! And wherever we go, God promises to go with us.
This notion is the launching point for Made to Move: Knowing and Loving God Through Our Bodies. It is not a fitness book or a weight loss program; it is a devotional workbook inviting you to use your body as your textbook.
As Christians in progress, seeking to live lives that more closely resemble the life of Jesus, we are commanded to love God fully with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves. That’s an invitation to experience faith physically. When we allow our bodies to help us connect with God and neighbor, not just metaphorically or philosophically, but tangibly and concretely, we make our faith real. That God is as close as our skin, as mobile as our joints, as strong as our muscles, as magnificent as our minds, and as constant as our heartbeat.
Made to Move is also a fresh way to introduce faith to others (children, teens, family, friends) who are skeptical or who have had little or no religious background or Christian education. Because we share a physical nature, the body and how it works provide a great meeting ground to kick off discussion and conversation. For instance:
- We want a strong core so we can both stand firm and move well: what is at your core?
- We need a firm foundation so we don’t slip and fall: how firm is your foundation?
- Our heartbeat is constant and responsive to our needs: what is constant for you?
- Human arms are designed to hold, reach, and lift: why do you think we were made that way?
People today are looking for reasons to believe. We need to give them some concrete examples and opportunities to ask questions.
As a practitioner of a physical faith, I have come to call myself a kinesthetic Christian. Movement was my first language, and it remains my learning language; the best way I know to connect with the God I have come to know more fully as I have matured in faith. Even though my middle-aged body can’t do all that it used to when I was an agile youth on the field of play, God is still teaching me through it. It’s the place we meet and have a loving conversation in the language we both know, the language of the human body.
If the whole purpose of our lives is to know and love God more, surely God has given us a way to succeed. What could be more unique, more personal, or more perfect than the bodies we came with?
Can God speak to us through our bodies?
010 months
God speaks to us through our bodies.
Why is that so hard to believe? We say that 70% of communication is non-verbal. Why do we insist that God speak through our listening ears? What do we perceive non-verbally?
Well, this may sound nonsensical, because in normal conversation, what we mean by non-verbal is messaging though “body-language.” What do their facial expressions say? What does their hand-positioning tell us? their posture? their movement? This is the language of their bodies? God doesn’t have a body — at least not one we can see and touch. At least not me.
What if God is speaking God’s nonverbal expression through MY body? Uniquely and specifically to me? How would I listen? How would I interpret? How would I attend to what God is speaking? If am not aware of God, is there something getting in the way and scrambling our communication?
Much depends on my relationship with my own body. So what does you body say to you when you address it? is your body telling you?Do you find yourself in any of these? here?
- the avoider: I don’t want to talk about that. Let’s change the subject. let’s talk about something else. So, how are you doing…?
- The excuse maker: I don’t speak that language. (I’m not coordinated, not good at sports, never got picked for the team, really not very competitive.)
- the ashamed: I can’t talk about that. Am uncomfortable talking about my body. am ashamed, embarassed, have been hurt of abused.
- the guilty: There’s nothing wrong with what I am doing. Nothing to see here. Move along. unaware or blind to the connection between body and God, in denial
- the arguer, reasoner/rationalizer: The Bible says the flesh is bad, but the spirit is good. I choose to focus on the spirit. After all, this body of mine is just a temporary possession. gonna perish anyway.
Avoiding, excusing, shaming, denying, and arguing are all ways we step away from this conversation. In doing so, do we miss a blessed, poignant and personal way God created for us to be aware of Him? Forfeit an intimate connection? Miss perhaps 70% of what God is speaking?
Perhaps this is the most essential message of the coming of Christ: fully divine AND fully human, incarnated. Here in the flesh. God, knowing our reluctant selves, argumentative, avoidant, shamed and guilty selves, said, I can live in that body. When I do, I can take the helm, if you give it to me. I will speak course correction, signal change of heading, chart the course, and apply the rudder. Heck, I can even still the winds blowing us off course.
The keys are two: attend to My touch and apply my direction. Use your body’s awareness of me to accept my guidance. (like horse and rider)
Try: ask your body to respond to these commands/instructions:
- slow,
- calm,
- focus
- look
- listen
- breathe
- imagine
- attend
- release
- turn
- wait
- GO!
These commands are activated in our flesh, through our physical nature. God speaks to us, so God can speak through us.
Of course, one can only be guided when one is moving. Nothing (but God) can correct the course of something that refuses to budge, arms crossed. Movement in any direction, God can work with.
Folded hands which signal I’m not budging is something God refuses to override.
We are made to move. Our bodies — heart, soul, mind, strength and spirit — remind us of this everyday. It’s the way God intended to get and keep our attention. It’s why God gave us a body — to incline us to follow Him in this earthly lifetime.
*(This is the thesis of my book, Made to Move: (learning to) Knowing and Loving God through our Bodies, find it here.)
A functional faith: the Struggle is Real
1I want a functional faith —
not just a faith of works,
but a faith that works.
a faith that works out,
a faith that works for,
a faith that functions.
I want a faith that does,
while I am doing other things,
faithfully.
a faith that works its way
into my day,
along my way,
every day.
I want a faith that
stands up, stands under, and stands for,
but doesn’t need to stand and be recognized,
a faith that builds up,
works construction,
brick and mortar, clay and water, flesh and blood.
Please, Sir, may I have a functional faith?
Did. Done. Doing.
Now, go and do.
Finding Calm in Stormy Seas
0
“All hands on deck!” the captain hollered, as another towering wave crashed over the bow.
The cabin of our barely sea-going vessel was already knee-deep with water. We were bailing as fast as we could, but the storm was beating us down. How do you make headway in a blinding rain when every wave threatens to throw you overboard?
“Cap’n, we’re gonners,” I shouted between bucket fulls. “This little fishing boat’s not…” A mouth full of salt water interrupted me as the next swell tipped us nearly sideways and sent me sprawling. Dragging myself upright, I was surprised to see the death grip I had on my bailing bucket. Nope. Not gone yet.
Thank goodness I’ve got me some sea legs. Always did love being out on the ocean. Those churning waves never bothered me. Never made me queasy either. I’d even tease ’em by standing deck side with feet spread and arms wide to ride the waves like a surfboard. Not a one had ever bucked me off my feet. Until now.
“Just bail, sailor,” shouted the Cap.”Best give that mouth a rest.”
That’s when I saw him – yes him, Jesus, whose bright idea it was to set out across the lake. He was asleep in the stern. SOUND asleep. His head on a pillow, having a nice dream, judging from the peaceful look on his face. Sure, the boat was rocking mightily and the waves were drenching him over and over. But he was paying ’em no mind. Just sleeping.
What was WRONG with this man? “Teacher, can’t you see we’re about to drown here?!”
Another wave, even bigger than the last, submerged the bow and swamped the cabin again. All of us were tossed to our knees as the boat was slammed by the cresting wave. It was a miracle the boat held together at all. Our little crew of twelve was helpless in the face of it.
And there was Jesus coming awake, rising to take in the scene, perfectly balanced and not a hint of falling. No proud bucking bronco rider, he was standing calm and still, like it was nothing, as if there was the firmest of ground under his feet. The look on his face was not panicked or anxious, not worried or rushed. He simply surveyed the splay of men, kneeling waist deep in water to his right and to his left, and frowned.
Then he looked up at clouds and sky and sea and raised a hand to them. “Quiet! Be still!”
And I’ll be damned if the wind didn’t stop and the lake didn’t turn still as a pond on a windless day. And there I was, incredulous and staring, frozen and kneeling at his feet. He shook his head slowly and spoke to me, for I was the closest to hear him. “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
I took the hand that he offered to help me up, and I stood right there. Right in the place where my Teacher stood, I turned to look as he had been looking from the stern of the boat ahead to the bow. The stormy sea still raged to our right and to our left, the ocean roiled, the rains pelted, and the angry clouds persisted. But here where I stood, it was still. Perfectly still. Without exertion, preparation or effort, I could stand as if on solid ground.
“Set a course for straight ahead,” the Teacher said.
Looking around, we could not find him. Not I, nor the Captain, nor the rest. But bailing done and sails raised, the Captain gave the command. “Straight ahead! Steady as she goes.” We set sail with the prevailing wind toward the land on the distant horizon which was our destination. To our right and to our left, I knew the storm raged on. I could hear it. But I didn’t turn to look. My faith depended on it.
I was no longer afraid.
“What kind of man is this? Even the wind and the water obey him!” ~ Mark 4:41
Islam: A Question of Faith
0The Muslim observance of Ramadan chanced to fall during the 2014 FIFA Men’s World Cup (June 28-July 28 in 2014). As a sport scientist I knew that fasting or even skipping meals was not a recommended nutritional practice for sports participants, so fasting from sun up to sun down? That couldn’t go well. Wouldn’t this put observant Muslim athletes at a disadvantage?
What a terrific angle to pursue for my sports blog! Unfortunately, I knew very little about Islam or the Muslim observance of Ramadan, but I knew someone who did. An old high school friend, Zarina, whose family emigrated to the US from Pakistan and whom I knew to follow Islam, was kind enough to welcome my questions. She walked me through her practice of Ramadan, what it meant to her and what it meant for her practice of faith. (Just as an aside: World Cup soccer players actually found fasting from food and water (and other prohibited activities) to be strengthening rather than depleting in their competition! Here is my article in case you’re curious.
This conversation became a touchstone for our friendship as we renewed connection socially, and otherwise via text, email and Facebook. It’s amazing how telling Facebook posts can be, right? Zarina’s mother suffered from ALS, so Zarina took the ice bucket challenge, completed the 5K Walk to Defeat ALS and shared information about the cause. One day she posted a picture of her mother who had recently passed. It was captioned: “Today would have been my late mother’s 80th birthday. I miss her every day. She would have been horrified at what is happening in the world.”
That got my attention. I had been watching the news, reading the papers and shaking my head, but pretty much tip-toeing my way above the fray. What was it like to be an immigrant and a Muslim in the USA of today? I knew someone who could tell me.
In September, I emailed Zarina. “Dear friend, you have been on my mind. Your comment about your mom resonates deeply. I just can’t believe where our nation is. It frightens, abhors and befuddles me. Somewhere, the conversation needs to begin. Most misunderstandings come from ignorance; I admit my ignorance. Can you help me understand?”
She replied, “Thank you so much for reaching out. I have my own interpretation of this, but I’d like to get my dad’s take on it as well, and share both with you.”
And so began a series of triangulated email exchanges of the most honest and generous sort. I know that if I had posed these questions online, posted them on Facebook or spoken them from pulpit or podium, I would have gotten spit at, censored, shouted down or worse. Zarina and her Dad honored me in answering what I asked.
“I’m glad you’re starting this dialogue,” Zarina wrote.
We proceeded to tackle jihad, Bin Laden, violence, hatred, treatment of women, and even verses of the Quran addressing violence and killing. We discussed worship, holy texts and “the Book” Christians know as the Bible, along with prophets, Moses, Jesus, even the “European Crusades” and extremism like Nazism and the KKK. Yep, all of this in reasoned and God-honoring email conversation. Zarina’s father – whom I have not seen in decades – was so gentle in his responses. Each time his answer contrasted or took issue with my understanding, he began his response with “your friend says this, but …”
What a means of grace: where there are differences, first remember this is a friend asking.
This conversation actually got me thinking about how others might misunderstand the scriptures I consider holy if taken piecemeal or out of context. It allowed me to consider more deeply how others might perceive the behaviors of some Christians which may send a wrong message. It had me wondering… if anyone were to look down from above, how they would know who was Muslim, Christian or Jew?
Could I be distinguished by my worship, my profession, my practice? If we sing … they will know we are Christians by our love.… how does love act?
I think love asks. And then it waits for an answer. Evil is an opportunist and will take full advantage of ignorance. Unfortunately, our social media may blind us to this. But perhaps what we are seeing now overtly are the biases that have been brewing under the surface all along. Now that they’ve been made plain, we have the opportunity to acknowledge and address them. I confess I did not believe their extent. Now, I cannot deny it. That means I have a responsibility to take action. Fortunately, I have friends who can help.
Zarina and I met for lunch a few weeks after this email exchange. She invited me to join her for a rally in the nearby community square where representatives from law enforcement, the county schools, community organizations and every major faith tradition would gather to speak. Together we stood in the frigid late November air, but the warmth of the sun and the stirring of the spirit felt very welcome.
***
Zarina forwarded this wonderful article, Meet My Friend Saj, A True American about her father, Dr. Sajjad H. Durrani, which appeared in a the Montgomery County paper shortly after our get-together. She told me she chose not to share it on Facebook for fear of the comments it might receive.
There’s an Invisible Man Under My Sticky Notes!
2Is there an invisible man in your life?
Hiding under your bed
Behind your curtains
In the shower
Under the covers
Behind the wheel of your car?
These are all places I’ve gone looking.
Not really searching
But definitely seeking.
Where thoughts can drift
and ideas jump out at you.
Sometimes they startle and you scream.
Sometimes they delight and you giggle.
Sometimes, they awe you into silence.
Those times, you marvel.
And scribble them onto a sticky note –
A Post-It note for you sticklers.
Over time … those notes gather.
Until one day,
you toss them together
and they take shape.
Invisible Man,
how long have you been waiting for me to find you?
Good Grief, Multiplied
12A dear friend has died.
She gave her life to her family, her friends, her church, her God. She had given everything but the last of herself, and now she has given that.
In his book, Life of the Beloved, Henri Nouwen says, “In the giving we are chosen, blessed and broken not simply for our own sakes, but so that all we live finds its final significance in its being lived for others.” We are given. Given as bread for the world. Who can we be for each other? How can we out-do each other at serving, helping, supplying a need, lending an ear, loving?
In life, Mary Anne was for me, my certain reader. On any given day, she was the one I knew was reading this blog. If I posted, I knew Mary Anne was reading. Sometimes she would comment or respond or share something in reply. Always, she was listening to what I wrote, and that was life-giving to me.
When I sat down to craft some words, I could picture my sure-reader. I knew exactly what she looked like, where she was, how she might respond. This is gold to a writer, to be able to picture their audience. In fact, it is essential, to write to the one and let others listen in. It’s what draws life out of lifeless words and animates ideas, otherwise dormant.
Today’s is the first post Mary Anne is not here to read. How then do I write? To whom?
Nouwen offers, “If love is indeed stronger than death, then death has the potential to deepen and strengthen the bonds of love…. and holds the potential to … multiply itself to fulfill the needs of countless people.”
Somehow, by freely handing over life to death, it takes on greater life to all who would receive it. A sumptuous meal will be served around the table, with enough for guests, newcomers and the wayfarer happening by, and still there will be leftovers. It multiplies itself in the giving.
I remember a conversation from years ago when Mary Anne shared the difficulty her aged mother was having, physically ailing as well as confused and forgetful. Having no experience with this, I wondered about correcting the poor disoriented woman to help her remember. Mary Anne advised patiently, “Even if they don’t remember what you said or even who you are, they’ll remember how you made them feel.”
Even in grief, we carry goodness when we touch the heart of the other with our presence which speaks the love for us. When the hearing is gone and the words no longer make sense, Something else speaks.
Sunday morning last, I woke up to the roar of a rushing wind. Pentecost Sunday had arrived and with it the Spirit of God who swooped close to claim and collect His own.
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. ~ Acts 2: 1-4
Funny, I think Mary Anne read the Kinesthetic Christian because she seemed to marvel at the way I could speak a language she understood but couldn’t write and thought she didn’t have the words for. Now, she has expression for everything she desires. Thanks be to God.
“The spirit of love, once freed from our mortal bodies, will blow where it will, even when few will hear its coming and going,” Nouwen supposes.
Mary Anne, I can still hear your voice clearly: your clipped phrasing for what was not acceptable to you, your sense of humor, your honesty, your fierce loyalty, forthrightness and clarity. Oh, you knew what you were in for and what was coming just around the bend. I know you held on for as long as you could and then let go gracefully. Probably with a “To heck with this body. Bring on the new one!!”
How quintessentially you is the opening to your obituary: “Faced with the prospect of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Mary Anne Noland of Richmond chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God on Sunday, May 15, 2016, at the age of 68.”
Yep. Mary Anne to the core, to the end, and to the everlasting. How you embraced dancing in the rain. Sleep in heavenly peace, dear lady. One day, we will see each other again. There will be dancing and not a chance of rain.
Peace.
Getting it Straight from the Source
0We live in a world where new and improved is always better than old and decrepit. Of course. New has the benefit of advanced methods, complete research, and dedicated study applied liberally over all that has come before it. Old, well that was just a starting point. Those were the blocks we stood in to give us leverage when the race began.
One of the things that new has ushered in is statistical…accuracy. We can fact check, provide proof, cite our sources, justify our positions. We can qualify, and oh boy, can we quantify! We know exactly how many people would vote thus and so, believe this and that, trust him or her. We know. We are new and improved people. We are reasonable.
So, it’s a bit alarming to read in the morning paper that “Recent polls show that 29 percent of Americans and nearly 45 percent of Republicans say he (President Obama) is a Muslim.”
How do we say this? We tell a pollster who reports it, I guess. Do we know this when we say it? Have we asked Mr. Obama about his faith? Have we read deeply concerning his opinions, positions, actions and responses? This would seem reasonable before we say anything.
What we report in the media is, perhaps, what we believe to be true. Given what we think we know, this is what we conclude. Perhaps those numbers reflect what people believe about President Obama, but that doesn’t make it so. (The article actually goes on to debunk this belief.) Just because we think it, doesn’t make it so. Any more than thinking I am President makes that so.
If we think we can do make something true, right, happen, reasonable, or real, just because we think it, we are mistaken. That isn’t ours; that’s God’s. God thinking something actually does make it so. When we think something, we move in its direction, but we’d do well not to presume that our thinking it actuates it. That would presume we are God, which has very grave consequences, indeed.
Fleming Rutledge, an Episcopal preacher that a friend has me reading, writes concerning what she calls the battle of the billboards. “Upon entering the Lincoln Tunnel you stare at a billboard showing a Nativity scene and the words ‘You know it’s a myth.’ When you come out of the tunnel you see a billboard with a Nativity scene and the words ‘You know it’s real.'”
She goes on, “The atheist billboard says, “This season, celebrate reason.” I revere reason as much as the atheists do—up to a point. But what faith knows is that although reason is a gift, it is not a god. Reason cannot explain everything. Certainly it cannot explain the purposes and promises of God.”
Our believing, remembering, repeating or tallying does not make something so. But setting our minds on the things of God may bring them nearer.
“Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Phil 4:8)
When God remembers His mercy, He is not calling it again to mind. He is taking action on our behalf. As Rutledge puts it, “God’s mercy is not static. It goes forth from God as a promise already becoming a reality.”
We can pray to be like-minded. That’s as old and original as it gets.
A Monkey Bar Faith
0
We let go of Mommy’s hand to enter pre-school.
We let go of Daddy’s hug to board the bus.
We let go of our beloved teacher’s smile
only to do it again next year because we must.
We let go of the hand of the principal
as she wishes us well on our way.
We let go of our first boss’s hand
who understands why we can’t stay.
We let go of the friend who moves away
or the paw of our beloved pet.
We let go of our great, great grandmother
who it seems we had hardly met.
We let go of the neighboring couple
who were never home anyway,
We let go of our causes, however just.
And, so reluctantly, the years that were promised us.
We let go, bit by little bit,
of our children, so full of fun.
We may let go way, way too soon
of a mother, father, brother, son.
Letting go is a way of life it seems,
that none can hope to avoid.
It’s a holding and releasing –
not to re-fill the vacant void.
But to pivot on our out-stretched hand
which holds fast, so high and strong,
To the bar which secures it surely
until we deftly swing along.
Strange to say, we were preparing
for a life of loss and sad goodbye,
As tiny children, on the monkey bars
of playgrounds far and wide.
Where Mommy took us,
and Daddy held us,
where teacher wrapped our blistered hands.
Where principal scolded us,
and boss emboldened us,
when the time came for grown up lands.
I’m so grateful for the happy hours
I spent swinging from bar to bar.
A blessed assurance that every hand-hold,
has its limit
and every pivot
invites my reaching
for exactly where You are.