A couple of months ago, I was listening to the reading of the Gospel at church, when my brain stopped. It could no longer proceed without reflecting on these two verses, and I couldn’t hear anything else afterwards:
Mark 5:29-30
“Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body
that she was healed of her disease.”
“Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him,
Jesus turned about in the crowd and said,
“Who touched my cloak?””
This passage comes in the middle of two stories about Jesus’ healing ministry, a ‘healing within a healing’ for a young girl and for an adult woman. These verses provide a clear example of healing that was felt within the human body, and at the same time, was felt within Jesus’ own body! I wonder why messages/sermons today skip over the presence of a felt sense of healing occurring. Perhaps it’s because our culture doesn’t know what to do about stories that involve ‘the body’, including Christians. I believe that is beginning to change, and I hope my writing helps it along.
These two verses touch me greatly, as I have also felt healing happen within my own body. Not just one time, but over and over and over. Each time, I’m surprised, sometimes ecstatic, and always a little skeptical that it will ‘last’. But what does last, if I pay attention, is my ability to notice patterns within my body and my behavior and learning how to respond in gentle and loving support of my body. Observant noticing is how one learns to Attune to the presence of the Divine Beloved within. It takes practice and learning. I have an understanding that within my body resides the Redeemer that Loves Me that was developed over time and with lots of patience, but I truly believe it with my whole self.
Please see my post on BioSpiritual Focusing:
https://chococd68.substack.com/p/biospiritual-focusing
For decades I felt a knot on the right side of my neck, just above my shoulder. The Physical Therapist in me would try to review each movement I made that day or even the past few days, wondering what the cause might have been (ie, what did I do to make this knot happen?). My clinical mind, trained in the Western mode of viewing the body as a machine and easily fixed if one just finds the culprit, would not only review what I had done during my recent days, enter judgement on it, but it would add a much longer list of what I hadn’t done: stretched, strengthened, move in this way but not in that way, what about am I drinking enough water or did I sleep on my side the ‘wrong way’, or is my posture just really that bad?? I tried to ‘work out’ the knot through submission with deep tissue massages in order to make it stop. There may have been a brief respite in intensity, but the knot persisted, and after the deep massages I just felt beat up and sore. Surely there was a mechanical reason for this knot that would ebb and flow depending on my stress level. This line of questioning often turned into self-interrogation and suspicion. If you have been trained in healthcare in the USA, you may recognize this thought process, which is very hard to stop! It took a terrible amount of energy and left me feeling inadequate, undeserving of any relief.
As this painful knot persisted, I began to receive mental and spiritual support from professionals, as well as finding new ways to move and attend to my body through yoga, Centering Prayer, and more importantly, BioSpiritual Focusing. I found the encouragement within those practices to help me learn a new way of responding to daily life and all of its joys and challenges. At first it felt clumsy using these new strategies.
However, as I began this journey of listening to my body and how to care for it with gentleness and support, I began to see a pattern. The knot in my shoulder would grow when I was stressed, yes, but more specifically when a situation called for me to speak out and share my perspective with others or ask for help. This was new for me, as my tendency was to be under-confident and shy. I needed to garner my courage, reflect on what I needed to say, and even write it out and practice saying the words out loud. The knot grew over a long period of time, and I began to realize that I needed to share with my immediate support network my experience of a particularly painful part of my life. I had kept this to myself for decades and had eventually shared it with professionals that didn’t know me personally. Finally, I found the right time and environment to share this truth about me with a very dear friend.
Nearly within the hour of sharing the truth out loud, THE KNOT WENT AWAY! Gone, without a trace of tension!
I had “felt in my body that I was healed”. I couldn’t believe it.
This. Is. Flourishing!
This knot, that was so much part of who I thought I was, was now dissolved and dissipated. There was an immense release of judgment, and a freedom to be who I truly am after sharing my burden with a trusted friend. My circle of support has since further been expanded, and I know I can count on others’ support if I’m having a particularly challenging time.
I also find comfort in the concept that the Beloved Divine also feels this healing within their being at the same time I do. I’m still learning and reflecting on this notion, but it fills me with a sense of great hope, and being held within something much larger than myself that also wants me to flourish. It is opening up my formerly very limited awareness of who/what God is for me. It is not some dude hovering above me in the sky, but “within” me (Luke 17:21)
These days, when I notice a particular muscle tension that is persisting, I know that it is time for me to speak out. Perhaps I know clearly what that is, or perhaps I need to reflect more on my current life and where I need to either ask for help or speak up. Slowly, over time, my body has become my friend, and I often find myself telling my mind to go play with someone else. My Western-trained mindset is not always welcome these days. I truly need my whole self, learning to step back, see the wider view, and notice what lives inside of my body and not just my mind. I’m learning to listen to all of the voices that reside within my Self, and to honor and care for them.
A poem that really struck me early on in my journey is from Symeon the New Theologian. It’s a very old poem, and one that perhaps shines a new light on how Christians then viewed the body.
We Awaken in Christ’s Body
Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022)
We awaken in Christ’s body
As Christ awakens our bodies,
And my poor hand is Christ, He enters
My foot, and is infinitely me.
I move my hand, and wonderfully
My hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
(for God is indivisibly
Whole, seamless in His Godhood).
I move my foot, and at once
He appears like a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous? Then
Open your heart to him.
And let yourself receive the one
Who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him,
We wake up inside Christ’s body
Where all our body, all over,
Every most hidden part of it,
Is realized in joy as Him,
And He makes us, utterly, real,
And everything that is hurt, everything
That seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
Maimed, ugly, irreparably
Damaged, is in Him transformed
And recognized as whole, as lovely, and radiant in His light
He awakens as the Beloved
In every last part of our body.
Image: author’s feet in a very cold alpine lake (Lewis Lake, Snowy Range Mountains, WY). Note the tiny fish swimming on top of the left foot!
Another writer that has helped me is a medieval mystic woman who gave me even more hope of a loving God that is present within our bodies, and one that clearly reaches out to me. A two-way street!
Mechhtild of Magdeburg (1210-1285)
As love grows and expands in the soul,
it rises eagerly to God
and overflows
towards the Glory
which bends towards it.
Then love melts through the soul
Into the senses,
So that the body to might share in it,
For Love
Is drawn
Into all things.
The Flowing Light of the Godhead 6.29
Image: a group of yellow flowers with green leaves at the base. Some flowers are pointing upwards, some are pointing down. Wavy lines and shadows from a gray rotting log are in the background.
Image: multiple small flowers of blue and pink droop down, with a green stem attached and several large leaves throughout the stem. The background is a large rock of earthy colors. The name of the wildflower is Tall Chiming Bells.
My hope for you is that if you are searching for the Divine, you will find evidence within your own body. Keep looking within; for the kin-dom of Heaven is there!
Thanks, as always, for reading. I find it healing to share my experiences and it helps me to find the words to articulate them. I appreciate you!