Pastoral Prophetic Care Corner

By Rev. Michelle Walsh, April 29, 2024

How closely do we pay attention to our bodies as energetic systems? I used to take my body very much for granted when I was younger – it seemed like my body was a perpetual reservoir of energy! I also lacked understanding of and/or sensitivity to others who didn’t seem to have the same reservoir when I was younger – and our larger culture didn’t support developing that understanding or sensitivity in its core messaging. Here in the United States (and generally in many Western cultures), we live in a cultural worldview and institutional structures that privilege bodies that are fit, slim, youthful, energetic, yet focused and seemingly full of endless vitality in all of our embodied senses, including the sense of being happy and joy-filled all the time. Bodies that don’t fit these stereotypes often are deemed less valuable, if not by overt messages then by the lack of institutional supports for such bodies and the covert messages experienced in these encounters of a lack of institutional support.

Honestly, it has been my own aging process, as well as watching my parents and my spouse in their own aging processes, that eventually has brought an understanding of and sensitivity to the huge limitations of these cultural messages and an awareness of the lack of institutional supports as well. With this awareness comes the possibility of a greater depth in my own being through companionship with the vast majority of human beings whose bodies don’t fit nicely into the boxes created by these dominant cultural messages and institutional structures. This greater depth calls to me through spiritual practices that cultivate patience and compassion, humbleness and openness to slowing down, so that I can witness and listen not only to my own body but also to the bodies of others to advocate for a world that supports each of our bodies, the worth and dignity of each individual and their right to flourish in their respective gifts to the world.

We have a song in our teal hymnal, #1051 We Are, and its first line begins with “For each child that’s born, a morning star rises and sings to the universe who we are…”. The nature of our bodies to be born and to live and to get sick and to age and to die is a core contemplative practice within Buddhism, one that I’m learning to appreciate and engage more as I age myself. I bow to the deep wisdom in this practice, while I also honor and recognize, from an engaged (social justice) Buddhist perspective that some bodies live with more privilege and protection than many others do, particularly in a world that is plagued by war, violence, and economic and racial injustice in so very many ways. Opening to our own bodily suffering and the bodily suffering of others can help to ground us in ways that enable us to hold the complexity of life itself, including the simultaneous possibilities for both deep joy and deep suffering.

Over the course of May, we will have opportunities to touch both the places of deep suffering and places of deep compassion and joy in these times through witnessing the play Sandra Laub will be performing on May 4th, and participating in or supporting the Mother’s Day Walk for Peace on May 12th, as well as participating in the forum being sponsored by the Peace Walkers from Maine to Washington, DC on May 15th. I encourage you not to try to do everything, of course, because our bodies DO have limited energy! But touch in to something in these particular opportunities as you have time and availability. And in the meantime, remember that not only is deep joy always possible, humor is as well.