Matter matters

August 24, 2008
The Rev. Susan J. Latimer

Romans 12:1-8

Matter matters.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God… Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God…’ (Paul)

For hundreds of years, the writer Paul was used to justify a split in the way the Church looked at our bodies. Many of Paul’s writings were used to tell people that what really mattered was our minds and our souls – and that our bodies were of little value. The Trinity of Body, Mind, and Spirit was divided by the traditions of the church into a duality: Mind/Spirit vs. Body.

It is an artificial separation – to separate Body (matter) from Spirit. That separation, which has pervaded much of Christian tradition throughout the ages, is not a part of the Hebrew tradition, or of Orthodox Christianity.

In fact, it was Greek philosophy that gave us this separation – and an early sect of Christianity, the Gnostics, picked it up and amplified it. Gnosticism was declared a heresy early on in the life of the church, but its influence remained. Gnosticism held that Spirit is the only part of us that really matters. The Gnostics taught that we are all prisoners of our bodies, and that we all need a special kind of knowledge to be saved.

Does this all sound familiar? For too long many Christians have denigrated the human body and much of God’s good creation, because they are operating out of that dualistic thinking – Spirit is more important than Body. Only recently have more and more Christians started realizing the importance of all of Creation, and our responsibility to care for it wisely.

It matters that in the post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus, Jesus appears in bodily form. It matters that Jesus really suffered and died. And so Jesus has the mark of the nails in his hands and his feet, and Thomas puts his hands in the spear-wounds. The Gospel writers tell us that we do not lose the Incarnation in the Resurrection. Jesus appears in the flesh – changed, yes, but still in bodily form. He eats a piece of broiled fish.

And so God makes of ordinary things the stuff of our faith.
Water and oil mark our baptisms.
Bread and wine become our connection to the Body of Christ.

Matter matters.

The inter-connection of Body, Mind, and Spirit has fascinated me for several years. Exploring this interconnection has been an important part of my own spiritual journey. It began for me with some chronic back pain, and my re-discovery of the joy of connecting with horses. I had lived for many years without horses, and without much attention to my own physical body. For many years, beginning with college at Yale, I had concentrated predominantly on my Mind. During my journey to the priesthood I had to learn also to pay attention to Spirit – including emotions, and intuition. But I had really basically ignored my Body, until some chronic back pain forced me to pay attention. I began my sabbatical in 2006 determined to learn from the wisdom of my own “matter”.

As The Rev. Alan Jones puts it “Spirituality is the art of making connections”.

The theme of my sabbatical was connections – and my goal was to nourish and deepen connections – connection with God, connection with my deepest self, connection with all of Creation, and connection with family and friends. I had many wonderful and powerful experiences during those four months, but the most powerful experiences of Body-Mind-Spirit connection came in my work with horses at the Epona center in Sonoita, Arizona.

There at the center, ground-breaking work in the area of leadership development and spiritual direction is happening with small groups of people, horses, and trained facilitators. I came back from sabbatical with a powerful felt sense of the way that all of humanity is powerfully connected to all of Creation. How this is so, we are just now beginning to be able to understand.

Horses are “wired” to detect subtle shifts in mood and energy around them. Because of this, they are wonderful teachers of emotional intelligence – or the use of that 90% of human communication skills that goes beyond our words alone. Horses know what your emotions are, moment to moment, even if you are unaware of them – they know where the energy is in your body, and where the tension is. They also know what kind of a leader you are and will respond accordingly – sometimes testing you, sometimes encouraging you to grow in your leadership capacity.

They can be wonderful teachers in accessing creativity and intuition, our God-given gifts that sometimes are pushed to the background in our daily lives.

One of my most powerful experiences at Epona was a felt sense of a very strong heart connection with horses and people. I have since learned that there is scientific research being done that at least partially explains some of these experiences.

Whereas most people have thought that consciousness originates in the brain alone, recent scientific research suggests that consciousness emerges from the brain and body acting together – and that the heart plays a particularly significant role. Studies have shown that the heart has an electromagnetic field that is more than 5,000 times stronger than the field generated by the brain. This “heart field” can be detected several feet away from the body. (Rollin McCraty, Ph.D. Director of research at the Institute of Heart Math) When we are near to one another, our heart fields interact and can influence each other. The implications of this for us are staggering.

I am convinced that the division of Body/Mind/Spirit is an artificial one. I believe that our health involves attention to all three areas, but that they are, finally, not able to be separated from one another. What we do with our body has implications for our mind and spirit – what we think with our mind affects our bodies, and our spirits and The Holy Spirit are wonderfully woven throughout our entire being. Because I had neglected to listen to my body for so long, healing and wholeness for me has come through recognizing the importance of paying attention to my own body, and it’s wisdom.

As Christians who believe in the Incarnation, we must not draw a line between Spirit and Matter. We must not divorce our faith from our bodies.

We must not abuse our bodies or God’s good Creation. As a favorite bumper sticker of the Bishop of Maine read, “There is no secular world”. God’s Creation is all around us, and it is our sacred trust.

We must be concerned with this earthly life, with our daily needs, and the needs of those around us.

It matters what happens to our bodies – whether we abuse them, or take care of them. It matters whether people have enough to eat, and a safe, clean place to live. We are all connected, in an intricate web of life, in ways that science is just now beginning to understand.

Matter matters.

The Celtic Christian tradition has kept this understanding of the sacredness of all life and all Creation. I end with a modern prayer in the Celtic tradition:

Christ in my mind
That I may see what is true;
Christ in my mouth
That I may speak with power.
Christ in my heart,
That I may learn to be touched;
Christ in my hands
That I may work with tenderness
Christ in my soul
That I may know my desire;
Christ in my arms
That I may embrace without fear;
Christ in my face
That I may shine with God.

Amen.

by Janet Morley – “All Desires Known”

Holy God,
whose name is not honored
where the needy are not served,
and the powerless are treated with contempt
may we embrace our neighbour
with the same tenderness
that we ourselves require;
so your justice may be fulfilled in love,
through Jesus Christ, Amen.