learning to listen to the wisdom of our flesh...

A recent post from the Henri Nouwen Society addressed the pressure of competition.

One of the saddest aspects of the lives of many students is that they always feel pressured... The word school, which comes from schola (meaning “free time”), reminds us that schools were originally meant to interrupt a busy existence and create some space to contemplate the mysteries of life. Today they have become the arena for a hectic race to accomplish as much as possible, and to acquire in a short period the necessary things to survive the great battle of human life. Books written to be savored slowly are read hastily to fulfill a requirement, paintings made to be seen with a contemplative eye are taken in as part of a necessary art appreciation course, and music composed to be enjoyed at leisure is listened to in order to identify a period or style. Thus, colleges and universities meant to be places for quiet learning have become places of fierce competition, in which the rewards go to those who produce the most and the best.

Nouwen's insight from the 90's is even more true today: competition and our addiction to bottom-line thinking is killing us. It shrivels our capacity for wonder while feeding both shame and anxiety. And not just in our schools, but in our places of employment, our families, and all too often in our houses of worship. Over time we lose our capacity to hear and trust what our own flesh is telling us about our existence. The North American opioid epidemic is not an aberration, but one tragic sign that many of us no longer know how to listen for God's grace and presence in our bodies. Not only have we forgotten how to consciously let the Word become flesh within and among us, we have banished it from both our memories and culture. I sense that Fr. Richard Rohr got it right when he posted:

In the United States today, white dominant culture prizes competition, urgency, individualism, niceness (or avoidance of conflict), and logic. Other values and ways of being, such as cooperation, appropriate self-care, community, and vulnerability, are often seen as inferior. We cause so much harm and lose so much possibility by fearing our differences. 

I recall being in therapy some 30 years ago trying to understand what my body was telling my heart and soul. To say that I was disembodied would not be overstating the case. I lived, moved and breathed in the realm of ideas. This is true for many of us who experience life first through our minds - the 7, 8 and 9s of the Enneagram - but doubly so for those who have known physical abuse. In acts of self-preservation, we learn to radically move out of our feelings and flesh so that the consequences of our wounds can be managed. Separated from our daily lives. It is a winning strategy for a spell, but like all acts of compensation, there comes a time when what worked once has now outlived its usefulness. To everything there is a season. 

In this particular session, I was describing how powerless I felt in the face of another's anger. Not only did I feel like I was a vulnerable five year old, but my fears fed my shame. At which point my counselor said, "Wait. Stop. Look what you are doing with your arms." Apparently, I had raised them both in front of my face and was shaking them powerfully. "How do you feel right now," he asked, "with your arms up?" Eventually I realized that I felt empowered, still vulnerable, but able to defend myself and even push my aggressors back. And that became my embodied prayer for over a year: every time I felt shame and fear in the face of another's anger - or felt myself slipping into old traps - I would find a quiet and private place to raise my arms with my hands in a fist and shake them vigorously. In this I shook away the shame. I shook away my powerlessness. I became grounded in my true strength. And I began to learn the wisdom of my body so that the Words of God's grace could became flesh within me again. As one old Celtic aphorism teaches: A warrior must first learn to dance before using the sword. Tenderness and compassion in community guides the warrior archetype - he or she acts on behalf of others - never out of selfishness, greed or physical advantage. The warrior archetype is a protector not an aggressor.

Reclaiming the wisdom of our flesh is vital: our bodies were created by God with wisdom that can help us advance peace, faith, hope, trust, tenderness and love. But we must know how to listen and respond. It takes practice to listen and trust the holy within our humanity that will help us disconnect our hearts, minds and flesh from the unhealthy habits of competition. The dominate story of our culture is all about competition, winning and individual gratification. There are other stories all around us - from the wisdom of singing in a choir, being a tender-hearted parent or a wisdom keeper and teacher for young people who ache for alternatives - but we must nourish and practice them so that we know they are true from the inside out. I smiled in affirmation this morning upon seeing Joyce Stuphen's poem: "Things You Didn’t Put on Your Résumé."

How often you got up in the middle of the night
when one of your children had a bad dream,

and sometimes you woke because you thought
you heard a cry but they were all sleeping,

so you stood in the moonlight just listening
to their breathing, and you didn't mention

that you were an expert at putting toothpaste
on tiny toothbrushes and bending down to wiggle

the toothbrush ten times on each tooth while
you sang the words to songs from Annie, and

who would suspect that you know the fingerings
to the songs in the first four books of the Suzuki

Violin Method and that you can do the voices
of Pooh and Piglet especially well, though

your absolute favorite thing to read out loud is
Bedtime for Frances and that you picked

up your way of reading it from Glynnis Johns,
and it is, now that you think of it, rather impressive

that you read all of Narnia and all of the Ring Trilogy
(and others too many to mention here) to them

before they went to bed and on the way out to
Yellowstone, which is another thing you don't put

on the résumé: how you took them to the ocean
and the mountains and brought them safely home.