Bringing Faith to Life
Posts tagged religion
Can God speak to us through our bodies?
01 year
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.)
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.
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.
Maybe we should judge a book by its cover
29 years
You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but you can start there. In fact, I must.
I received a mailed copy of Dr. Rilling’s book, “Have a Good Day,” that appeared to be in quite poor shape. Mildew had stained the inside cover and, while the dust jacket was mostly intact, it was fragile and dusty. Clearly this was a volume that had sat alone for a very long time. My meager attempts to wipe and clean it were of small value and succeeded only in ripping the remnants of the dust cover right in two. Gratefully, the cover had done its work. The book’s innards were quite well kept. Hardly touched. No markings in the margins. No coffee stains. Apart from the wrinkles left by dampness and exposure, all that was left behind was the “Percy R. Morrison, 1958” signed inside the book’s cover.
If anyone thought to judge this book by its cover, they certainly never would have picked it up. But I do, looking to find the man underneath, the one who’s face smiles pleasantly from the back of the book jacket. I want to ask him…Why did you publish this volume? How did you choose just these sermons? For whom? To whom? What for?
I, now the Granddaughter-sleuth, scan inside the front flap. The words there surely were not written by Dr. Rilling. It begins, “Here is an anthology of twenty-three inspirational sermons written by a skilled preacher. They are warm, understandable, down-to-earth. They supply the answers to many of the everyday questions with which the average layman is faced.”
While I didn’t know John W Rilling well, I know he was not a man who would have called himself inspirational or referred to himself as “skilled preacher.” Those accolades would have belonged to the Holy Spirit. So, someone else thought highly of him and penned them for this occasion. A friend in the publishing house, perhaps, or a fellow preacher who had encouraged him to share these in a collection.
Dr. Rilling’s eldest daughter Beth tells me her dad was known in his day as a “preacher’s preacher.” I wonder how you become so elevated when you don’t speak it yourself.
Because that is today’s way in the publishing business. (Or, at least, that has been my experience, thus far.) I was asked to write my own cover copy, in third person. ‘Go ahead, tell us how great you are and what a remarkable contribution this book is to the sea of knowledge you set it adrift on. Be glowing!’
This surely was not JWR’s way. Thank goodness. But he did know the cover text was being written, and he must have approved it for print. He was interviewed by its scribe who, on the back of the jacket writes, “Asked why he had the sermons in HAVE A GOOD DAY published in book form, Dr. Rilling replied: “Many years ago Thackeray expressed his decided preference of the gentle, pagan Hagar to “bitter old virtuous Sarah.”
“Thackeray! Who reads Thackeray?!” my sister in law cried, upon reading this. “Wow, he was well read!”
Yes, he was. But not only of the Bible and Biblical commentaries and Biblical experts of his day. He even read detractors like Thackeray, who expressed their preference for a different way, a seemingly kinder and more logical lineage through Abraham’s (actual) firstborn son, Ishmael, born to Sarah’s servant Hagar. The Muslim tradition traces its ancestry to Abraham through Ishmael.
Dr. Rilling read widely, both for and against what he knew and believed, so that he could address the objections of his day in their best representations and speak into them, with gentleness and respect. How we do need such an approach today. A humble, learned, clear-mindedness to speak confidently and boldly for what we believe which is first borne out of a willingness to know and understand those who disagree and a desire to address them in love.
The book jacket’s text continues, “Perhaps his (Thackeray’s) experience with Christians was a bit grim but such an idea which many moderns share is really a libelous caricature. The beauty of “holiness” is real, winsome and altogether attractive. To show its source, its secret and its manifestation is the purpose of this book.”
Many moderns still have a grim view of Christians, for sure. We don’t want a sermon! they say. Give us answers, explanations, proof!
John W Rilling doesn’t set out to prove. He means to share, and even to put into print, so that not only his congregation but those beyond it can receive the benefit of his steady, dedicated, studied approach, collected in 23 stories meant for 23 Sundays. He sets out not to win us over but to engage us in the almighty struggle and set us on the road to discovering the truth for ourselves.
A very modern man, indeed.
Religion or Spirituality, which is it?
3
Religion is the menu. Spirituality is the meal.
Religion is the score. Spirituality is the music.
Religion is what they hand down to you…the codified beliefs. Spirituality is how you live out your ultimate commitments.
It’s what drives you to embody your values.
Religion, you inherit. Spirituality, you create.
– Jan Phillips, October 2014 “Museletter” http://tinyurl.com/l6gmfrf
Following the rules is so high school, grow up already
3My name is Wendy and I am not a rule-follower. I just discovered this about myself. Call it an epiphany. All these years I thought I was a person that lived according to the rules. But no.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t go around looking for rules to break and havoc to wreak. I’m not a rule-breaker, per se. Just a rule-expander. I don’t like to be hemmed in by the rules.
I should have realized this in high school, when I got busted by the shop teacher for not having a pass in the hallway. Why did I need a pass? I was a student government representative, an officer in my class and a straight-A student. How could he question by right to be in the hall without a pass? Didn’t he know that people like me don’t break the rules? We expand them.
A hall pass, that’s for the other kids. The untrustworthy kids.
Mr. shop teacher, wherever you are, I apologize. You were right. I was in the wrong. I’m sorry.
Of course, that incident didn’t change the high school me. Just made me mad. I wrote some letters. Really showed them. But today it still speaks to me. Shows me the truth about me: I have always liked to use the rules for my own ends. Show me the boundaries – fine – but wouldn’t it make more sense to modify here and here?
Face to face with Christ himself I would probably offer a bit of advice about some updates needed to the scripture text.
Go ahead. Call me out on this if you want to. But I’m pretty sure that Christ would engage this conversation. No judgment. Because He knows that negotiation is what I need to find the line between fair and foul. And His ultimate patience allows me to keep searching for it. His great love for me knows the comfort I will feel when I find it.
But step one is admitting I have a problem. I’m not a rule-follower.
The Final Common Pathway
0“The final common pathway” – those words literally popped into my head yesterday. Christ is the “final common pathway.” I drew myself some pictures – visual artist I’m not but lines I can do – of one common path into which are poured all the other paths. The common path was thick and straight and true. And it ended in God, the Father.
Now I struggle daily with all the fisticuffs and wrangling that goes on among the various faiths. The quarreling and the posturing and the comparisons and the proof texts. I know what I believe but I am aware that saying, “Christ as the only way” may step on some toes. And, above all else, I don’t want to make another person stumble in their journey of faith.
That’s when the “final common pathway” hit me. It’s funny because these words are not faith words, but science words. I recognized them from the years I taught anatomy and physiology. The final common pathway referred to the alpha motor neuron, the final neuron that received all the input from the brain and the lower nervous system. It was the collecting point and summation point of all the electrical input. If the incoming signal was strong enough (above threshold), the motor neuron would fire and the muscle unit would be activated. If it was “below threshold,” the motor neuron would not fire and the muscle would stay at rest. It was a collecting point that became an all or none phenomenon.
The motor neuron was the final common pathway for the body’s discernment.
What strikes me today is not the “neatness” of this message but the language. That God, knowing my mental meanderings, would pluck from days past a concept He could use to address a difficult issue for me. Imagine, He knows all that I know and all that I think and all I understand and he plucks from this the illustration He wishes to use to speak to me today.
What if I trusted that any question I have He will answer using insight He already has placed within me? That he anticipated even my doubt and fear and reluctance.
A God like that is the kind of God who paves a final common pathway, even Christ, knowing we will choose many paths in our journeying.
Oh, just imagine. On that day, we will walk in a broad and flat place. It will be smooth and unhurried. No one will jostle for position. No one will run ahead. Once we step over the threshold, our activation is secured, our destination assured.
Will it be silent? Will there be chattering? Will we hear music? Singing? What will we see? smell? Perhaps there will be nourishment? Springs? What will we feel? Will there be hugging and holding of hands? Or a sensation of being held or drawn forward?
I am imagining it will be a whole body experience and a whole out-of-body experience. I can’t even imagine what my heart will do with it all. But I know where it will rest.
Today, that seems a good path, a right path. A path toward which I can invite everyone, not offending anyone. I’ve been looking for a path like that.
Out of the GOODness of my Heart…oh wait
3I just dropped my daughter off at an early morning activity. She got out with her gear, shut the door and headed on her way. I almost opened my car door to call after her, “You’re welcome!” Because she should have thanked me for the ride. She usually does. Today she didn’t. But this isn’t about her, it’s about me.
I don’t give her rides for the thanks. At least I did’t think I did. Until I heard myself thinking, “Here I am, doing this out of the goodness of my heart, and look how you respond. You are so ungrateful!”
And right there I blew it. If I truly offered the ride out of the good place in my heart, I would not be hurt by any response. My reaction showed me the un-good that was seeping in. Back to the drawing board.
Funny, when I arrived at this dedication for Lent, ‘to do one Goodness each day,’ I thought it would be easy. I mean, how hard can it be, each day to do one thing out of the goodness of my heart? And how nice to go through my day looking for some good to do, some mitzvah, some secret mission or service project. It gave me a good feeling inside.
Until I realized how few things I really did out of that good place, the place absent of expectations from the other. Especially when I did them “for” people close to me.
Oh, but it gets worse. Some of this “good doing” was actually the opposite of good. In some cases the real good to be done was withholding the doing. The good was letting the other experience the consequences or learn the lesson. That didn’t feel good at all, it felt hard. Nearly impossible. But wouldn’t it be just like God to show me the hard thing in the midst of the easy thing I set out to do?
All I could think about was Paul’s dooby-dooby-do (my adjective) verse from Romans 7″18-19.
“For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”
Left to my own devices, counting on my own nature, even the good I thought I was doing wasn’t good. Because there were strings attached. Expectations laid. Sin was at hand.
So I plow on deeper into Lent. I am starting to get it. The goodness in my heart is not mine but His. It’s in there, I know it. But letting His Good initiate, carry out and follow up on the things that I do is quite a difficult thing.
But I’m an endurance athlete. In this for the long haul. Perhaps that’s the only thing God and I have in common. He promises not to give up on me. And that, above all else, keeps me holding onto Him. Because He has no good reason for that. Except the goodness in His heart.
It’s really hard to believe, but my heart tells me it is so.
The Tipping Point of Resolve
3What is the magic of January first?
People invest it with such power. The attraction of the clean slate. The leaving everything behind and starting fresh. My resolution is…I firmly resolve…this time I will get it right…starting tomorrow. Why wait? Why not start right now?
I’ve worked with people who have made all the usual resolutions. I’ve seen and experienced the most success with those who have reached a tipping point. They have come to the verge, gotten the edge, have looked over it and said with a resolute voice, “I’ve had enough; I’m jumping.”
But these jumpers are few. The sustained jumpers even fewer. And for some reason these bring to mind Abraham Lincoln’s prophetic words from Gettysburg. “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.” He was speaking at a battlefield where thousands of young men lay. Lincoln’s resolution, “that this nation, under God, will have a new birth of freedom.”
I am overwhelmed by the thought, how sincerely Lincoln meant it and felt it, “these dead shall not have died in vain.” And yet they do. Yes, when people die, we take up their cause. We are resolved not to let this happen again. But “we the people” can only do so much. And we repeat ourselves.
What if I, on January 1st, renew my pledge to accept Lincoln’s challenge in a new light. To resolve to live so that Christ did not die in vain for me. That He died to bring a new birth of freedom in me. Freedom from all that separates us. And to do that with each new dawn.
Because each day has its chasms, each moment its temptations. And my life really is just the collection of these moments lived among others who like me are resolved to get it right. Girding up our loins to do better, be better, try harder.
I here, highly resolve that Christ did not die in vain. He came so that I might have a new birth of freedom in an abundant life. Delivered from what tethers from the past, guided toward what is health and wholeness in the future.
May the weight of God’s hand, Christ’s very life, be the tipping point for each of us. Happy New Year.