Wholly Sick, Holy Well
[Click the image above to watch the full video]
Full Transcript, December 30, 2020:
—-
Before I begin, you will need to know three things: first, that I am disabled and, depending on how I’m feeling, I often walk with a cane. The second is that when I’m not working, I’m a super-shy introvert and who is terrified of ambient social situations. The third thing you need to know is that for this story to make sense, we have to transport ourselves back in time to 2018 when meeting in person was a matter of course for most of us. Are you there? Okay.
I am making my escape from coffee hour after a visiting a particularly emotional worship service, when halfway to the door I’m intercepted by a member of the congregation who has recognized me. She is a kind and well-meaning woman who I’ve seen a few times before, and her face is arranged in an expression of sad sympathy. She is gesturing at my cane and - here comes the comment:
“oh honey, I hope you feel better!”
and because I don’t have a whole lot of social grace left on this particular day, the knee-jerk sentence which falls out of my mouth is
“actually, this is forever”
she looks a little stunned, and then frowns sympathetically and offers an “I’m so sorry.” I nod the platitude away and insert some quick small talk, but in my head I WANT to say:
Don’t be sorry- I’m not. I like my cane, and I like my life.
But... would I be happy if I woke up tomorrow and all of my joints worked?
No
I’d be ecstatic.
I’d like to invite each of you to take a quiet moment to contemplate this question: what is hardest for you to celebrate about your body?
What is hardest, for You, to CELEBRATE, about your body?
Now how would it feel to entertain the idea that you are your body, and all that your body is, all of it, is you.
Your brain, your nervous system, and all the structures by which you perceive, respond to, and interact with the world, are… your body. Not are in your body. ARE your body.
How often when discussing matters of health have you heard the mental separation of the mind from the body from the spirit, unthinkingly tearing personhood into three isolated pieces? So often, we consider our physical form like some kind of vehicle that our true selves are driving around in, often with the unspoken wish attached that if we could just figure out how to unbuckle our seatbelts, we could clamber out the window and slide into a different, better, newer, shinier, less frustrating car and drive away into the sunset.
As cerebral as our progress movements tend to be, we could learn a lot from what Catholic ethics professor Margaret Farley refers to in her book Just Love as “embodied spirits/inspirited bodies”.
“Our bodies,” she says, “are not purely passive, not appendages, not merely instruments for our selves; they are intrinsic to our selves. … We ‘live’ our bodies even when we are using them.”
Sometimes, in fumbling efforts to be inclusive, gathering groups seem to send the message: “brains welcome! spirits encouraged! bodies… well, could you try to be a little more Standard?” As though we could leave the inconvenient and unruly ones at home with a babysitter.
I first read Dr. Farley’s case for embodied spirits/inspirited bodies under the most divine of all circumstances: reclining on a padded patio chair, wrapped in a fluffy white robe, poised between a hot tub and a eucalyptus sauna during a 48-hour emergency vacation to a Reno spa resort during the California wildfires. It was… really quite easy to accept the soulfulness of physical existence in this scrubbed-buffed-and-sinfully relaxed state of relief from the smoke-filled agony of the preceding weeks.
Perhaps it was the blissful environment that opened me up to the lightning bolt of revelation which hit me mere moments later, when I sat bolt upright in the spa bed and blurted out: “fully God and fully Man!”
For the unfamiliar, the Hypostatic Union is an explanation provided in Christian Theology to justify the paradox of Jesus’ existence as simultaneously human and divine - mutually exclusive conditions in non-Universalist denominations. Growing up I had recited these words weekly during the Creed in Catholic Mass, but in that spa for the first time the idea held meaning for me. Just as the early Christians struggled to explain and internalize the duality of Jesus’ nature, my eucalyptus-steamed brain was wrinkling in acceptance of the Fully Body, Fully Spirit nature of every living human.
To me, the unity of being an embodied spirit/inspirited body implies an inescapably sacred existence - and the sacred is to be revered and respected… right? A reasonable question: how does one revere a chronically ill self? Even in unrelenting pain, I truly do still feel whole. Furthermore, any choices I make to address my condition medically don’t imply a lack of acceptance or reverence for my entirety.
I probably don’t have to tell you that many people make (understandable, yet incorrect) assumptions about my relationship to my disabled body, but it might surprise you to learn that even MORE people make similar assumptions about my relationship with my transgender body.
The most common conversation about my gender that happens with confused acquaintances - beyond “but how do you KNOW you’re trans” - sounds something like this:
“you must be SO uncomfortable in your body.”
“actually, I’m not!”
“oh. then why are you taking hormones?”
“they make me feel more like myself.”
“but if you aren’t uncomfortable, why would you want to change yourself like that?”
Friends, there is no upper limit on wholeness.
How many of you have at some point in your life chosen to take on a meditation or other prayer practice? Why do you do it? Nod if any of these statements resonate for you:
-It makes me more patient
-It makes me calmer
-It gives me more energy
-It makes me feel closer to god
Did you hate yourself before you started meditating? Some of you might have, but certainly not all. Were you unbearably uncomfortable with your state of being?
I live by the belief that we were all born infinitely whole. We are each of us, enough. We are each of us complete, just exactly as we are - “flaws” and all. But there is no upper limit on wholeness!
And my progressive disease, it hurts. It stops me from doing a lot of the things I want to do - in this time where my ministry is carried out entirely over the internet, there are moments when I fall short because I can’t stand the pain of sitting in front of the computer for one more minute. In my life, I’ve given up hobbies, careers, and callings. This existence is neither easy nor perfect. But infinity minus one is still infinity - infinity minus a hundred billion is still infinity!
And every action I take to more fully express my gender is one step closer to God in a universe saturated and permeated with Godself.
I’ll let you in on a secret, (( as long as you promise not to let go of your understanding of how challenging living with a disability can be: without my disease, I would not be here speaking with you. The need to change from expressing myself through movement to expressing myself through words precipitated my call to ministry and forced me to adjust to public speaking. Moreover, I would not have met my spouse, or started my love affair with playing the piano. And without my gender transition, I would never have felt my heart take flight the first time I heard my true voice. I am LIVING the only life I have available to me, and the finality of that is synonymous with creation.
Do me one more favor: Recall whichever thing about your body it was that you identified ten minutes ago as being ‘ hard to celebrate. I want to say to each of you, personally, that I am grateful for that part of you. Because in your flaws and in your wholeness, through the depths of your struggles and the heights of your triumphs, you have created the person who came here today. You are each fully flesh and fully soul, wholly broken and wholly well, and I am in awe of you.
—-
Charge:
May each of your fully sacred selves find some new way of embodying the spirit that is in all things. May you know yourself to be whole and united, and remember how loved you are in your holy brokenness. May you be at peace in the midst of your struggle, and may you have the strength to hold whatever realities the new year will bring. You are whole, you are enough, you are blessed, and you belong in this world exactly as you are.
—--
[Copyright 2020 Miranda (Bran) Lennox]
