breathing into it

Last weekend my friend Elyse drove up for a visit. On Saturday we worked out at the gym, went to coffee, and went to church. On Sunday, we were very intentional about observing the injunction to rest on the Sabbath: we got 90-minute Swedish massages at my favorite local spa.

And yes, it was as every bit as blissful as it sounds.

After allowing our pores to drink in the gauzy warmth of the eucalyptus steam room, we went out to the waiting area where our massage therapists would meet us. Wrapped in thick and heavy white spa robes, we each sat in the waiting area with windows overlooking the cold and quiet bay, fingers wrapped tightly around our steaming mugs of herbal tea, a fire crackling at our backs.

My massage began with me face down on the heated table in a barely lit room, my arms relaxed and resting on the table against my body. A pan flute’s hollow notes were playing softly through speakers I could not see. It wasn’t long before I felt myself melt into the table.

The therapist began working at my legs and feet, rotating my ankles and using her hands to encourage looseness in my tight calves. She rubbed out each toe, pulling gently on each one. My stiff neck gave way under her persistent manipulations and finally consented to unclenching. Arms and hands received special attention as she rotated each of my arms from the shoulder and my hands from the wrists. I felt myself teeter on the edge of oblivion when my scalp and face were the focus of her attention.

Every cell in my body tingled with delight. I pulled in breaths through my nostrils that reached down to the ends of my toes and finger tips. I was limp like a well-cooked noodle, feeling heady and light, suspended and floating in thick fluid.

I first started receiving massages as part of my therapy following a car accident in 1996. My soft tissue injuries were extensive enough that multiple doctors told me I would have had an easier recovery had I broken my back. Those sessions with Julie were helpful, but hardly enjoyable in the way most people think massages should be. My muscles were constantly clenched and pulsating, throbbing, clinging to pockets of lactic acid. This went on for several months.

Julie went away to Chicago for a few weeks to get married, but referred me to another LMP to provide my treatment in her absence. As I lay on the table on my back eyes wide open and staring intently at the ceiling, the new therapist observed, “Yeah, Julie said you had a hard time letting go.”

It was the first time I had heard that. It was the first time I began to understand that I was hanging onto my injury every bit as much as it was hanging onto me. I would stare at that ceiling above me and disconnect; I would count its dots, study its texture, get lost in a deep white sea of blankness. I would do anything but focus on my clenching muscles, those pained and injured soft tissues. This new therapist encouraged me to close my eyes, to breathe deeply, to feel everything in my body, and to let it go.

It was in yoga that I first learned about how to bring the mind and the body together. This, my instructor often repeated, was primarily about focusing on your breath: being deliberate about drawing each breath in, pulling it down to your heels and up through your scalp; drawing the breath in deeply so every cell is infused with its life. It was about letting it go slowly, being intentional in its release, pushing out waste from every cell.

I always think of this when I get a massage: about the injunction to breathe deeply, to be intentional and aware, mindfully engaged. I can choose to stare at the ceiling and make an expert study of its texture, or I can surrender to the touch of the professional: let her rub out the knots and coax the sore spots to release. I can feel those points that wince when touched, trusting that the future benefits of letting go and breathing into those places exceed the present pain as she pokes, pushes, pulls. I can resist the movement she imposes on my arms, legs, and joints, or I can surrender: allow her to be the one dictating the motion of my limbs. I can clench, hang on, resist. This is what comes naturally. Or I can release and surrender, participate in the work she is doing: feel each manipulation and invite it in with each inhale. Giving over this control is not natural to me and requires consistent and conscious effort.

I am thinking of this these often days as memory reaches into my present, as God simultaneously puts his finger on sore and tender places, pressing and digging deeply with His fingers. I wince at His touch and my first inclination is to resist, to stare at the ceiling and disconnect, to bide my time until it is over. To be intentional only in forgetting. But I am especially mindful now that I must feel where He presses, trusting the work He does is good, knowing that He is working on rubbing out those toxic and tender things to which I unconsciously cling.

So I am doing my best to breathe into it, taking capacious and deliberate gulps of clear air and holding them in. And then slowly, slowly, I let them go, feeling each sinew and fiber relax its grip a little more with each cycle of breath. He continues to press and rub and pull, coaxing release from tissues accustomed to holding tight. He is doing most of the work, but it is I who am sore and light-headed and tired. I might stay here for awhile yet, resting and breathing and surrendering until I no longer feel that I might topple should I rise and walk.

compassion. laughter. holiness.

Recently, both His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa Desmond Tutu were in Seattle for Seeds of Compassion, a 5-day event centering on working toward cross-cultural communication and addressing differences through collaborative problem-solving.

"All of us have this gift," said Tutu, facing the Dalai Lama. "We see here an incarnation of goodness. How can you be 50 years into exile and still maintain this bubbly joyousness?"

The message they brought with them to Seattle runs deep. Words like compassion and communication and understanding and collaboration are not just words with them. I think their lives and their friendship prove that.

There's something inspiring in their message and in their playful friendship. One man has been in exile for over fifty years. The other dealt first hand with the reality and the aftermath of apartheid. Neither has been dealt an easy hand.

And I guess what has me thinking on this and posting this here is that I think there's plenty I can learn from that. Though from very divergent spiritual beliefs, there is something potent and powerful about witnessing true respect for the dignity and humanity of another, about enduring hardship with joy, and about loving across political, cultural, and religious divides.

It's humbling. And it sounds like Jesus.

For a short (and funny) video clip of the two in action, click here. For a good article, click here.

Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu: AP Photo

holy defiance

I am now officially obsessed with the virgin martyrs.

I have been making a meandering sort of progress through Kathleen Norris’s The Cloister Walk. It is my habit to pick up a chapter here and there, waiting sometimes days or even a week or two between readings.

Yesterday morning I picked up the text and found myself at a chapter about the virgin martyrs. I was madly underlining, bracketing, and starring the text, making copious notes in the margins with blue ink. I was so inspired and while I wasn't quite sure why at the time, I wanted to stand up and cheer in response to what I was reading. Norris’s narrative of the virgin martyrs and her own observations and conclusions about their choices and behavior gave shape to thoughts and feelings to which I have been utterly unable to encapsulate with my own words: thoughts about beauty and womanhood, thoughts about identity and purpose, thoughts about the world and God’s place for me in it, thoughts about death to self and surrender to Christ, not to mention all the feelings I have about this crazy and unexpected path I find myself walking.

Over the last several weeks, there has been a lot of internal juggling going on (hence the silence): this whole amazing business of claiming my identity as a writer and attending a writer’s conference, of writing a thorough confession to my body: it all happened after I came to God with an attitude of complete surrender. His work in me is not primarily about the writing and yet, that's how a lot of this is being made manifest right now. I wrote on one blog about how frustrated I was with my single status, and came to God in prayer. Instead of asking Him to satisfy me with someone else, I told Him, Okay. For now, your answer to my request for a partner is either ‘no’ or ‘not yet’. If you’re not going to fill this empty space with someone, what do you want to fill it with instead?

He wasted no time in responding.

That is when the most amazing things started happening. I prayed that prayer on February 15. Just eight days later, I woke up earlier than normal on a Saturday morning with the compelling directive in my heart and soul: I need to confess my sins toward my body. I couldn’t say for sure at the time that I knew it was God prompting me; I didn't know where the injunction was coming from. All I knew at the time was that piece of writing was not one I ever intended to write. It was not coming from me. But write it I did, and posted it with the smallest measure of faith that doing so was an act of obedience.

And now I'm watching all sorts of unimaginable blessings spring forth. One of those blessings is that I've found a substantive piece of God’s design for me, which is in short to bring forth this confession, to invite and give permission to others to do the same, to be witness to what God does in the wake of affirming these truths, taking them out of darkness and bringing them into the light, and to surrender this wholly unexpected place in my heart through which God desires to minister to others in a very particular way. Whew! I receive confirmation from Him almost daily (sometimes multiple times daily) that I’m on the right path, that he intends me for this particular and not wholly formed ministry. I don't have the opportunity to lose momentum, so often is He putting wind in my sails.

One of the many unexpected byproducts of this is that the space in my heart that felt so empty and dried out is no longer vacant, but bursting with fullness, lush and verdant and teeming with new life. God has filled it to overflowing; the heart He's given me in exchange for the one I surrendered to Him is one that has eyes only for Him. His design for my life in the context of His grander scheme is unfolding before me and I find myself utterly caught up in it, unwilling to allow that anything or anyone should take me away from it.

I am open to new friendships, but where relationships of the dating/courtship variety (or whatever you want to call it) are concerned, I feel a clear and resounding “no” rising up within me whenever it is offered. It feels incredibly empowering to declare truly and with utmost conviction that I’m just not all that interested in that right now, period. I cannot knowingly declare that this is the way it's always going to be; but I can affirm that this is the way it is now.

I make no apologies for this.

While I understand some women are in the habit of saying things they don’t really mean, it is irritating when I’m not taken at my word. Remember when Elizabeth in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice refuses Mr. Collins’s offer of marriage? He repeatedly attempts to counter her refusals of his proposal by accusing her of playing coy and of trying to incite greater passion from him. She keeps reaffirming her refusal with noticeable and increasing annoyance. While my circumstances are different than Elizabeth's, I can appreciate her frustration in that moment: her "no" is not being heard, but is being taken for something else entirely.

A couple months ago, I told a certain would-be pursuer three times over the course of two days quite explicitly that I wasn’t interested in dating him (I actually said three times: I don’t want to date you). Just seconds after I said this a fourth time, he accused me of being "unclear". I wish I was kidding.

I realize that this is one of those rare instances where my feelings and decisions are counter-cultural both in a popular sense and where the culture of the church is concerned as well. Most everyone desires companionship and to pair off with another. It is expected that single Christian adults are in pursuit of a marriage partner. It would not surprise me in the least to find that there might again be a time in my life where finding a spouse will be more important to me than it is at present. But it’s not now. I am satisfied and filled with contentment in the relationships with those I consider to be my community. I do not lack for human connection.

So what does any of this have to do with virgin martyrs? I'm so glad you asked!

Depending on the historical context from which they are being evaluated, virgin martyrs have been accused of being “unchristian” in their refusal to marry, and as an impossible ideal of Christian womanhood. It would seem then, that married Christian women and “those who do not suffer enough, would seem doomed to be imperfect models of Christian faith” (Norris, p. 187).

What makes the virgin martyrs such powerful examples is that they refused to marry pagan men or to worship idols and false gods as required by Roman law. It wasn’t merely popular culture they were defying: aligning themselves with Christ as they did was to openly resist the authorities and invite a vicious and brutal death. It was to blatantly defy every accepted standard of female behavior. They weren't going to marry pagan husbands in order to produce children who would also be required to worship false gods.

It wasn’t only in their behavior that they defied the laws of the time. Many virgin martyrs lucidly vocalized their dissent, which only incited more vehement responses from the prevailing male authorities. One such martyr, Mahya, after being publicly stripped naked at the command of the king declared, “‘It is to your shame … that you have done this; I am not ashamed of myself … for I am a woman – such as created by God.’ Had she finished her scriptural allusion,’ the authors note, ‘Mahya would have added, ‘created by God in his own image, male and female.’ Typically, such speech angers male rulers … the more the martyrs talk back, the more they mock those in power by their allegiance to Christ and his invincible power” (Norris, p. 194).

And what about their virginity? Typically, virginity is thought of as referring to someone who has not experienced sexual intercourse; in this sense, it is seen as a passive state of being, one that precedes knowing and experience. But the virginity that the martyrs embodied had more to do with embracing and affirming their identities in and alignment with Christ. One Benedictine sister described virginity as having its center in the heart, such that it could be named “singleness of heart”. The same sister continues, “Virginity is a state that returns to God in wholeness. This wholeness is not that of having experienced all experiences, but of something reserved, preserved, or reclaimed for what it was made for. Virginity is the ability to stay centered, with oneness of purpose” (qtd. in Norris, pp. 200-201).

Norris makes the point that physical virginity of the martyrs is not the issue, “and it never was. Reading between the lines of the tortures the virgin martyrs endured, it seems obvious that they were raped. Scholars of the early church now confirm this. The real issue is that these unprotected women dare to make an outrageous claim – that as Christians, they have been made in the image of God – and are thus greatly feared by governing authorities and punished to the full extent of the law.”

She continues, “In reclaiming our virginity, women can reclaim our first selves. We can allow the fierce, holy little girls we were to cast judgment on the ways our adult lives do and do not reflect what we were made for” (Norris, p. 203). In this sense, virginity is for the married woman or the single woman; it is available to all women. At these words I want to stand up, raise my arms, and cheer!!

For the first time in my life, I can affirm I am as single-hearted in my devotion to God as I’ve ever been. I don't know how else to say it: I am enamored of Him and desire in my depths to honor Him with my obedience by being true to that for which He has called me. Right now, in this moment, I’m doing what I was made for. At last, I can affirm without a doubt and know deeply without tangible proof that I am exactly where He wants me to be, that I am conforming exactly to that “fierce, holy little girl” He always intended me to be. Finally, after years of donning masks and acting a part, I am learning what it means to be me.

Though I really do understand when incredulity is the primary response to this declaration, that like Mr. Collins, some might think I’m just trying to put would-be pursuers in suspense, it is frustrating not to be taken at my word. I understand that it might seem ridiculous for me to be complaining that someone wants to pursue a relationship with me. What a terrible problem to have, some might say (and have said). I’m aware of how this sounds, which is why it’s difficult for me to articulate and why even now, I’m hesitating at posting this at all.

But I here affirm that I am a whole being, created in God’s image. Jesus Christ has filled me with Himself and I want only to be filled with Him. I am wholly at His disposal; I am caught up in Him. He is the only one on whom I set my sights. While declaring this publicly won't put me in any danger of suffering sadistic tortures or dying a brutal death, I understand that what I'm saying puts me in an overwhelming minority. But the testimony of the unswerving and undivided devotion of these virgin martyrs speaks volumes to me these thousands of years later; their stories aid me in understanding my own heart better: that theirs was a defiance not for the sake of defiance. Their defiance of the laws and accepted standards of the times in which they lived was a natural byproduct of the single-hearted love and devotion they bore toward their Creator.

It’s outrageous to claim this, I know. I can't claim that I understand it fully. But I’m not going to stop surrendering to Him now, not when I've opened my hands to Him and have begun to receive my true self from Him. This is not defiance for its own sake: it is just too wonderful finally to begin to understand and embody His design and purpose for me. I'm willing to fight for and defend this, even if it means turning aside from every accepted convention of faith and femininity.

Martyrdom of Saint Agatha

Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1547)