Experience + Reflection = Learning

Years ago I completed an excellent leadership training that was offered by the diocese of Olympia. It was a full residential week with a small group (under 30 people). It was intensive, interesting, and exhausting. I learned a lot about myself, my learning styles, and my leadership leanings in a supportive environment.

This training was my second brush with the Experience + Reflection = Learning (E+R=L) model and we used it through out the 40 hours of official training and frequently as part of informal, after hours discussions.

My first encounter with the E+R=L model was during Year 1 of Education for Ministry (EFM). My husband and I participated in a local group in Texas, in part, as a way to meet new people and socialize, as we had moved to Texas the year we graduated from college. We were struggling a lot with making friends, and with culture shock and our EFM group was mostly very nice, very thoughtful, very kind people.

I don't know that we went into great detail about the E+R=L model during our meetings. It was a little bit like an equation one learns to use by rote in math class. Helpful in very specific applications but not explored outside of those limited areas.

After a little over a year in Texas my husband's division was sold to a company in Chicago and we faced the choice of trying to stay on in Texas with very little support system, applying for jobs in Chicago and trying to move there, or returning to Washington State and moving in with my husband's parent's while we got back on our feet.

We chose Washington where many of our close friends lived and where we would have support from family. With the help of my in-law's we drove ourselves, our pets and our belongings back to Washington and moved in with them.

Six months later we were moving into our own place with two college friends. My husband found a church for us to join and we settled into our new lives. We were quickly recruited to serve on committees at our new church and progressed over the next few years to running a Sunday School and serving on the vestry. It was during this time that I found out about the leadership training and signed up for it.

During this second exposure to the E+R=L model I really started to understand what it could be used for. It tied into seminar work I had done in college. I had learned how to read, think, and talk about texts; but, I had never really thought about the process of doing so in a structured way. Having a 'formula' to use helped me frame and clarify my thoughts.
I returned from the training full of inspiration. Like any convert to a new idea, I was applying the E+R=L model to everything around me (whether it needed it or not). Over time, this evangelistic fire faded until it all but disappeared from conscious use.

After years of writing for myself and publishing on my, somewhat clunky, personal website, I was recruited to write occasional essays for the Episcopal Café. When writing for myself I only wrote when inspiration struck and my essays could be few and far between even though I enjoyed writing.

Last fall, I was asked to help fill in for a regular who wrote for Speaking to the Soul. The first few weekly essays were fairly easy to write as I had a fair amount of pent up ideas that were percolating in the back of my mind. Regular deadlines also helped prime the pump for a time.

Then my well of ideas ran dry and I still had deadlines to meet. After wresting with several false starts and ideas that went nowhere, "E+R=L" came to the rescue. I remembered the process we had used in EFM to read bible passages, identify what 'spoke' to us, and use the E+R=L model to develop our ideas by applying our experience to the passage we wished to reflect on. Suddenly I had something to write about.

Last week, those modes of thinking came to my aid once more when I wrote Listen to Live. As I read through that essay after it was posted, I realized that it opened me up to a whole different view of the Old Testament.

I used to think that the Old Testament was a collection of stories that showed the way the world used to be; and further, that it was a model world, a world that reflected the aspirations and desires of its authors and storytellers.

Thinking that way made it very difficult to read, let alone, think about, large portions of the Old Testament. There is a lot that is awful in those stories. However, when I applied the E+R=L model to my own essay and the comments of people who responded to it on the Episcopal Café, I saw a new way of understanding the Old Testament stories, starting with Judges.

The story comes to a head in Judges 17:6: In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.

That phrase is repeated again as the last line of the book of Judges and gives weight to the idea that the authors of this book are writing from the future and casting back to to time to show the turmoil and chaos that existed before the coming of the Kings of Israel.

Judges and Ruth are the prequel to the foundational story of a major change in the relationship between the people of Israel, their prophets, and their God. Rather than looking at them as contemporary stories of the life and times of the Judges that represent how life should be lived, it occurred to me to look at them as backstory for how the events in the books of Samuel and Kings came to pass.

Restructuring these stories in my head as a modern novel with Judges as the backstory, Ruth as the prologue, and the books of Samuel and Kings as the main novel opened my mind to see these stories in a different light.

I no longer had to look at them through the lens of 'this is how it was and should be'. I could see these stores as the set up for the main event. They are showing the reader how very bad the situation is and why the people demand a major change from the way leadership has been called into being for generations to the rise of the Kings of Israel.

I owe that insight to the E+R=L way of looking at a text.

I didn't really understand all the ways I was already using that tool when I was first introduced to it in EFM over 24 years ago. It took additional exposure to the concepts behind it and practice with it, to teach me to use it intentionally to disassemble my preconceived ideas about a text and rebuilt my thoughts around a new revelation.

I understand that this revelation might not break new ground for anyone but me. But the process of the intentional examination of my thoughts, reading the actual text, and stripping away the accumulated notions of years opened me up to a new way of thinking about a particular text and shook me into a whole new experience.

It's a amazing feeling.

-=-=-=-=-


All bible quotes are from either the NRSV or RSV text at Bible Gateway

Listen to Live

I find it interesting that in the Old Testament reading for today we have a somewhat exasperated angel having to repeat himself when a husband doesn't seem to fully listen to what his wife says.

In the story, the angel appears to Manoah's wife (she has no name of her own) and tells her that though she is barren she will bear a son and she is to follow certain rules so that he shall be a nazirite to God from birth. This is the beginning of the Sampson story in Judges.

The woman tells her husband what happened and he prays to God: O, LORD, I pray, let the man of God whom you sent come to us again and teach us what we are to do concerning the boy who will be born. God does so, but the angel in the form of a man appears only to the wife and not to the husband or to the husband and wife together. The wife runs to get her husband so he can hear the explanation of what is to come directly from the angel.

The angel doesn't just repeat what he told the wife. The angel prefaces his words to the husband with Let the woman give heed to all that I said to her. Making it clear that the angel already covered this ground with the wife. (And in my own imagining, rolls his eyes a bit with having to come back and explain everything a second time.)

The husband then offers to prepare a kid for the angel. And on my forth or fifth reading, I now wonder if that offer was in part a test to see what the being who looked like a man would do with the offer.

The story says that the husband did not know that this 'man' was an angel of God and it shows again that he does not fully trust what his wife says to him. She told him, after the first visit that: "A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like that of an angel of God, most awe-inspiring; I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name;".

In this particular story the focus is on the successful birth of Sampson, so the fact that the husband did not accept the truth of his wife's testimony does not appear to have any negative impact on the husband. Of course, unlike the story of the birth of John the Baptist the husband in this story does not directly challenge the angel.

Instead he first asks for clarification of the information given to his wife and then embeds a test in an offer of hospitality. (Which makes me further wonder if this is supposed to be a form of foreshadowing for some of the later acts of his son.) 

We see this pattern of men refusing to believe the testimony of women again in the resurrection of Jesus narrative. The two Marys and Salome go to the tomb and find Jesus risen. When they try to tell the disciples they are not believed. 

What does it say, in a modern context, that women may be a the forefront of an event, but still not be believed until a man comes along to confirm the legitimacy of their experience? We see it still today. When it takes 60 women to get rape allegations against a powerful man to be taken seriously. When a skilled female athlete is identified as the wife of a male football player rather than as a competitor in her own right. When women regularly earns less across the board then men. And finally when, in the United State Congress, fewer than 20% of our senators and representatives are women.

Was the bible speaking to the lived experience of women by giving example after example of men ignoring them (and this story is actually one of the better outcomes for women in Old Testament, later Judges it gets much, much worse for women and children)?

I can point to all of the stories in the Old Testament that do everything from murder to ignore women as a symptom of the brokenness of humans with the idea that these stories show us how evil we can be; and, what a terrible idea it is to treat more than half the population as property.

Over and over again we see that when society, any society, treats some lives as valuable and some as disposable we all run the risk of having someone put us in the disposable category.

 Whether the original compilers of the Old Testament stories mean to or not, they have left us a stark legacy of what can happen when people are treated like things. In that way, Terry Pratchett said it best through one of his Discworld characters. Granny Weatherwax, as she speaks to an earnest young priest, says:

There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."

"It's a lot more complicated than that--"

"No it ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts."

"Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes-"

"But they starts with thinking about people as things…"
~"Carpe Jugulum" by Terry Pratchett

Women are often nameless things in the bible: mothers, wives, concubines, rape victims, murder victims, women and children put the sword as part of a battle, women handed off to other men in the name of hospitality, women whose husbands are murdered, women stoned, women whose stories are only adjuncts to the men in their lives, women who are ignored, talked over, and rebuked.

Women who stand in for ideas but who are not flesh and blood (or who are way too much blood, but not much life). Only when we truly see that treating people as things always ends badly will we learn to listen to all people and honor their
lived experience.

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All bible quotes are from either the NRSV or RSV text at Bible Gateway

This essay was originally published at The Episcopal Cafe: Speaking to the Soul
on 9 Aug 2016.

A Better World

Although she is but one, she can do all things
, and while remaining in herself, she renews all things;in every generation she passes into holy soulsand makes them friends of God, and prophets;~Wisdom 7:27

Today we celebrate the lives of four amazing women who took the bible as a document calling for liberation.

Sojourner Truth, Harriet Ross Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Amelia Bloomer all stood up to the forces arrayed against them in their times and used their grounding in the bible as an inspiration to both speak and act on their convictions.

They were incarnations of Wisdom and modern-day prophets who not only spread the Good News but used powerful stories in both the Old and New Testament to power their own lives and the actions they took on behalf of the people living under slavery and patriarchal oppression.

They took up the biblical narrative and carried it into their own modern day. By their example, showing us that it is truly a living testament that can speak to the oppressed and give them both the hope that things as they are will not remain and that they could be agents of change.

They also all fought for freedom in their own individual ways. Ms Tubman rescued slaves and was an active spy, cook, and nurse for the northern forces in the Civil War. Ms Truth was a street preacher and founder of homeless shelters. Ms Stanton stood up against chruch teachings she felt were wrong and fought for rights for women. Ms Bloomer was active in everything from reform dress for women to advocating for progressive and reform movements.

Each woman saw a need that grew out of her own experience and then took up that cause, spread it to others and used stories from the bible and their own testimony to spread their Good News, their vision of what the world could look like.

They all worked through years of frustration and anger to find hope for a better world.

Once they found that hope they spread it as far and wide as they could, working for years through everything from physical disabilities, social disapproval, and danger to life and limb.

Through their ground-breaking work we have inherited a better world and been shown an example of how finding the good news in our own faith can give us the strength to go out and share the Good News of love and grace and change the world in the process.

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All bible quotes are from either the NRSV or RSV text at Bible Gateway

Here is the thing

Here is the thing
about galaxies, suns, and planets in their courses
about civilizations and communities,
about people.

They all end.We all end.

The dinosaurs
vanished in a blink of the eye of the universe
but the galaxies, suns, and moons spun on alone.
Not forever.

They too will stop,
winding down in the red heat death of the universe.
The incrdible life creating energy
ending in death.

If they end,
So we end.

Until that time,
Humans can wail about the coming of the end.
That is an option our self-knowelge gives to us,
fear of future.

Birthright wasted.
Using our fear of the end as a sheild against joy,
Instead of as a catalyst into delight.
Birthright redeemed.

Time rolls on,
Ends foreseen.

But not our lives.
The time given us by the great explosion of Joy
by the energy of creation, surging life,
choices to come.



-=-=-=-=-=-

Originally published at the Episcopal Cafe: Speaking to the Soul on 18 July 2016.

Here is the thing

Here is the thing
about galaxies, suns, and planets in their courses
about civilizations and communities,
about people.

They all end.We all end.

The dinosaurs
vanished in a blink of the eye of the universe
but the galaxies, suns, and moons spun on alone.
Not forever.

They too will stop,
winding down in the red heat death of the universe.
The incrdible life creating energy
ending in death.

If they end,
So we end.

Until that time,
Humans can wail about the coming of the end.
That is an option our self-knowelge gives to us,
fear of future.

Birthright wasted.
Using our fear of the end as a sheild against joy,
Instead of as a catalyst into delight.
Birthright redeemed.

Time rolls on,
Ends foreseen.

But not our lives.
The time given us by the great explosion of Joy
by the energy of creation, surging life,
choices to come.



-=-=-=-=-=-

Originally published at the Episcopal Cafe: Speaking to the Soul on 18 July 2016.

Creative Love

Perhaps the most powerful underlying theme in both the Old Testment and New Testament of the Christian Bible is that God pays attention to humans.

Something that never seems to be questioned is the idea that we are 'in God's eye'. In story after story, God calls us back into relationship. In the Christian mythos that narrative culminates in the sacrifice of Jesus and his inclusive story of resurrection.

God is many things in both the Old and New Testaments. From punishing avenger, to angry father-figure, through beautiful wisdom, to caring leader, to bestower of grace, and back to a distant and puzzling diety.

What God never is, is absent. People may leave God, but God never does more than distance godself (Job) or withdraw favor (David). Even when God punishes (poisonous serpents), that negative attention still shows that God is paying attention to what humans are up to.
All four of the psalms appointed for Tuesday of Proper 8 speak directly to this:

When I was in trouble, I called to the LORD;
I called to the LORD, and he answered me.
~Psalm 120:1

I lift up my eyes to the hills;
from where is my help to come?
My help comes from the LORD,
the maker of heaven and earth.
~Psalm 121:1-2

I was glad when they said to me,
"Let us go to the house of the LORD."
~Psalm 122:1

To you I lift up my eyes,
to you enthroned in the heavens.
~Psalm 123:1-2

In the new testament we only 'see' God act once. When John baptizes Jesus in Mark 1:11. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
In the rest of the new testament (to the best of my memory) the actions of God are shown either through angels or though what Jesus tells us of 'his father'.

From a narrative point of view, it makes me wonder if a way of looking at the new testament as a realization from God's point-of-view that alternating between punishing and praising was not working as a way to get humans to consistently follow and learn in the way God wanted. That since humans both have a need to see to believe and very short attention spans (especially relative to God) that God needed to try a different tack to get and hold our attention.

Like Jesus, we are both part of creation and apart from it. We are affected by our environment like our animal kin but we can also make deliberate and sometimes devastating changes to it. Like God at God's most punishing, we can destroy the lives of those who are weaker (human, animal, and plant alike) but we can also (much more slowly) repair that damage and build things back up.

Jesus reminds us that being apart from creation does not absolve him (and by extension us) from a responsibility to it. He demonstrates that responsibility by following through with taking up the cross, dying, and rising again. We can honor that sacrifice by trying to be the best that God hopes for us and by remembering that while God's eye may be on the sparrow, sparrows give God nearly as much trouble as humans.


God gave up god's Old Testament anger and gave us his son in love instead. May we strive to be worthy and live up to the best of our potential and be a force for love in creation.

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All psalms quoted are from: The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, According to the Use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. New York: Church Pension Fund, 2007. PDF.

All bible quotes are from either the NRSV or RSV text at Bible Gateway

This essay was originally published at The Episcopal Cafe: Speaking to the Soul on June 28, 2016.

Facing Mortality: two years on

This is the month of the 2nd anniversary of the death of my housemate's mother.

We miss her.

The responsiblities of dealing with her estate have diminished over the past year. All the outstanding bills have been paid and accounts either closed or transferred. Our housemates goal is to close probate this year and decide if keeping her mother's house is feasible or if the on-going expense of maintaining it will be too much of a drain on both her finances and her time.

It has been very helpful for her to have had the extra time that the house being fully paid for allowed, because, while the house is small, it was very full. There is still a fair amount of things to deal with, but is basically livable now and with a big push could be cleared and staged if our housemate found she really needed to sell the property.  Our housemate celebrated this milestone by going over for a visit and using the house as a base for taking a mini-vacation for the first time since it passed into her responsiblity.

At our own house, we are down to just a few boxes of mementos that our housemate is collecting to give to her family. The junk mail diminished for a time but has seen an alarming uptick in a new variation on our housemate's mother's name through the political mailings. If we had things to do over again, I don't think we would have changed her address to ours. It would have been helpful and worth the cost to set up a post office or private mail box that could be closed when probate ended.

In my own estate planning life, I have taken the opportunity that seeing probate in action has given me and I have done the following:

• Filled out nearly all of Eric Dewey's The Big Book of Everything
• Installed a password vault application on my computers for a year and used it to collect information on all of the account logins that I have (a lot more than I thought). Giving myself a year to do this meant that even accounts I only use rarely got documented. I then printed out that list and put it in my estate binder
• Updated our household address database and printed a copy for the book
• Made a plan for updating my will. At this point I am going to wait to actually update the will until after my son turns 18. That will happen this year and will remove the need for our wills to included a guardian for him.

My next steps are:

• Follow up on making a new will after my son becomes a legal adult
• Review the Big Book on an annual basis and keep it up to date
• Once I have a new will and a list of personal representatives and/or trustees give them the information on where to find our estate documents.

I would strongly encourage everyone to take time to create and update an estate plan-- and most importantly communicate that plan to the people who, either by your will or the laws of your state will be tasked with dealing with your estate.

The great thing is that once you have everything set up and organized, maintaining your documents and updating them as needed is much easier than the original work to get it all set up.

We think of our housemate's mom constantly and we miss her vibrant presence, but she really does live on in her daughter and in all of the lives that she touched.

The Flesh the Word Requires

I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish
~Romans 1:14

And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him." Jesus answered, "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.
~Matthew 17:16-17

Teach me to live, that I may dread
the grave as little as my bed;
teach me to die, that so I may
rise glorious at the awful day.
~Hymn: Glory to thee, my God, this night
Words: Thomas Ken, 1692 Music: Tallis' Canon

Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.
~Luke 8:3

These are the readings (and a section from a hymn) that I pulled out of the morning and evening prayer for Monday, Proper 6. I didn't so much draw inspiration from them as they raised questions in my mind.

Why does Paul say that he is a debtor to both Greeks and barbarians?

How much does it change the meaning of that paragraph when I change between the New Revised Standard (debtor) and the Revised Standard Edition (obligation) of that passage? To me, being in debt to something or someone carries more variation in meaning than having an obligation to something or someone. I can have an obligation to make dinner or do something that ties me to a particular time or place. With a debt I can owe for learning from different traditions, for being inspired, for gratitude, for money. To be a debtor to me implies not only being tied to something like obligation but also to carry something forward into the world. If I am in debt to someone who shared an idea with me, I can't repay that debt by giving the idea back to the person I got it from. I can only pay it forward into the world.

Why does Jesus call his disciples 'faithless and perverse'? They are not the Son of God, he is.

The more I think about this passage, the more I think it represents the frustration Jesus felt with his disciples just not getting it. He has been living and traveling with them, trying to get them to understand his message of love, and they keep coming back to him for more. They are never content to trust what he has just told them (and told them and told them). Jesus has explained in every way he can that he is gods love come among us. He used metaphor, parables, and straight talk. He preached sermons, healed the sick, raised the dead, and overturned th money changers table. He has whispered and shouted. He has told and he has shown. He knows how little time he has and he's fed up with how his message keeps bouncing off of his disciples. If they don't get it, if the people he spends the most time with don't understand him and what he is trying to say, how can he expect the message to get out to the world? His despair at their obtuseness boils out as rage when, yet again, they point to him as the sole center and locus of the power and love of God.

I know why the quote from the hymn spoke to me. It is how I try to live my life-- particularly the first part of the quote: Teach me to live, that I may dread the grave as little as my bed;. I desire to live life as fully as possible. For me that includes accepting the reality of death without living in fear every day. My faith helps me do that by showing me that death is the finally community. We all belong to the group of things that die and Jesus has joined us on the journey. He not only died for us, he dies with us. He gives us the greatest gift of his presence and he does not hold himself aloof from us or our mortality.

I know also why I pulled the final quote: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources. It is a passage that speaks to me not only of the hope and belief that these women had for the message of Jesus but of the recognition that a message of God's love on earth doesn't spread by itself. It requires resources and organization, it requires planning, saving, and thinking ahead. And it requires trust that he people you are giving your money, time, goods to will take your offerings and use them to reach people who need to hear that God loves them and that they are can be love made manifest.

Here is the message that and exasperated Jesus was trying to get through to his disciples. He is not always going to be there to show the way and demonstrate what needs to be done.
Mary, Joanna, and Susanna understood that they were going to need to roll up their sleeves and do the daily grind needed to provide resources to get the word out.

That word is LOVE and it takes a lot of work to get the message out in a world of fear, anxiety, and hateful anger.

The world needs more Marys, Joannas, and Susannas. Will you take up their challenge and do the work to get out the Word?

-=-=-=-=-

All bible quotes are from either the NRSV or RSV text at "
Bible Gateway.
This essay was originally published at The Episcopal Cafe: Speaking to the Soul on June 13, 2016.

Joyful Choice

I was reading an article that came across my twitter feed. It was Ramadan Etiquette Guide: How to be a Non-Muslim During the Holy Month by Asma Uddin.

As I was reading it what struck me most was the author's continual return to the idea that while the process of fasting for Ramadan was not fun, it was something she accepted with joy as a celebration of her faith.

Throughout it all, we maintain an ambiance of joy and gratitude for all that God has blessed us with, and reflect on those in this world who have been given much less.

This resonated with me because I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be a person of faith and to take on disciplines, vows, and rules as a part of ones religion.
So much of what I see in the news about religion is a conflict that comes out of the idea that people of faith can somehow expect others, not of their faith, to adapt society's norms to them. Nearly every conservative branch of every faith I have been exposed to seems to want to prescribe 'one right way' of living on issues, and in particular issues that control how women act and dress and live.

It has gotten to the point that when I see a woman of any faith dressing in a way that reflects that faith I wonder at who's behest she is doing it. Is it her own personal choice, a way to demonstrate her faith to herself and to the world? Or is it forced on her by her family, her culture, or her society? (and am I falling into the trap of policing what other women wear in the process of thinking about this?)

Is she embracing it joyfully or is it a job given to her by others?

What happens to a religion when it becomes a job we are loaded down with rather than a joyful choice to be embraced? How can I tell the difference?

I think that Ms Uddin's essay shows me a way and that way is through joy.

While I was hunting up the readings for this week, I got a little lost in the daily office and ended up reading the propers for year one instead of year two, but that wrong turn led me to this:

I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me!
And why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!
I repeat, let no one think me foolish; but even if you do, accept me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little. (What I am saying I say not with the Lord's authority but as a fool, in this boastful confidence; since many boast of worldly things, I too will boast.) ~2 Cor. 11:1, 11, 16-18

and this

And there was a man named Zacchae′us; he was a chief tax collector, and rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not, on account of the crowd, because he was small of stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchae′us, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he made haste and came down, and received him joyfully.
~Luke 19:2-6

I don't know how it was in Zacchae′us's time but in mine, a grown man climbing a tree is not a usual sight-- in fact a golfer made the news because he climbed a tree to take a shot in a tournament.

As with Zacchae′us was willing to look foolish in front of his peers (and the golf-watching world) in order get what he needed and it was his choice to do so. No one told either of them to climb the tree in order to reach salvation. Looking potentially foolish was not an assignment they were give or a rule society told them they must follow.

People of many different faiths hold to different dietary rules, wear clothes that stand out in modern society, or take vows that set them apart in some way and frankly can make one look foolish in the eyes of the world. And they are sometimes then tempted to push those rules onto others for many reasons. But this is where religions can go wrong.

Holy foolishness should never be a job you are given. It is too heavy a burden to bear when it a received job.

But when it is a choice?

Maybe that is what Jesus meant when he said:

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
~Matthew 11: 28-30

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All bible quotes are from either the NRSV or RSV text at Bible Gateway

This essay was originally published at The Episcopal Cafe: Speaking to the Soul on June 7, 2016

The Path of Your Feet

Take heed to the path of your feet,
then all your ways will be sure.
~Proverbs 4:26

There is a lot of good advice in the reading from Proverbs from the Daily Office, and while I am not certain that I followed the instructions in the Book of Common Prayer for finding Tuesday's readings (these are from Year 2: Proper 2 Week of the Sunday closest to May 18) I am glad to have stumbled upon this passage.

I am definitely guilty of having not 'taken heed to the path of my feet.' When I was six years old, I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and broke my left arm. I'm certain that nearly every person has a story from their life where their attention was distracted and they ran into, fell over, or fell off of something. Being rather clumsier than average, I have a long litany of inattention injuries.

As I have gotten older, and it has taken me longer and longer to recover from accidents I have become much more interested in prevention.

How do I keep from getting hurt in the first place?

My reflexive response to injury is to become passive. To stop doing anything for fear of re-injury. However, I have discovered, again through aging, that staying still for fear of injury can cause damage in and of itself. Muscle mass fades, joints freeze up and range of motion vanishes, leaving me in worse shape than before the accident.

Last year I went to a physical therapist for recurring back injuries. She checked various things and walked me through some basic exercises. My back was hurting the day I went in and I was very hesitant to try anything. She was patient and supportive and I was shocked to discover how well I could move after working (carefully) through the motions with her. Even better she gave me advice on how to prevent further injury which has been incredibly effective. Now I only wish I had talked to my doctor and gotten a physical therapy consultation years ago instead of just suffering through.

Keep hold of instruction, do not let go;
guard her, for she is your life.
~Proverbs 4:13

I have received instruction and I guard it. I have learned that a little of the right movement is better than too much stillness. I have learned not to wait out my pain and suffer in silence. I have learned that too little action is as damaging as too much. Most of all I have learned to take heed and listen to my pain but not to wallow in it or let it become the center of my life.

All that is true of my physical body is true of my spiritual self. Stewing in injury and outrage or becoming passive in the face of pain do not lead to healing or revelation. Daily exercise of mind and spirit are just as important as that of the body and we are seeing more and more research that shows that physical exercise helps the mind and spirit and mental exercise helps the body. As my housemate recently said: 'I don't know if I am dancing more because I feel better, or if I feel better because I am dancing more.'

Find your sure path, take heed of your feet and see where they take you.