Our Fidgety Bodies and The World Inside Them

I’m up on a barstool touching shoulders with one of my friends. She asks me how I’m doing, and I inadvertently begin counting the times I’ve had to answer some sort of question in the last forty-eight hours. Yesterday was my birthday, which I had forgotten about. Not because I’m too old now to be bothered by birthdays. But in case you missed it, January was four months long this year, so about halfway through I just quit subscribing to calendar days and assumed the glitch in the space-time continuum sucked up my birthday, too. Don’t hear me say that I’m not grateful to have been remembered and thought of and celebrated – it’s always humbling that someone would take however long out of his or her day to wish me well. I hadn’t mentally pumped myself up for this one, though, so I was far less prepared and doubly frazzled. All the fuss seemed more unmanageable than usual, and I already feel victimized by enthusiasm on a normal day. I must not be the only one.

People that I know or don’t really know tugging on my shirt, wide-eyed, and wondering how it feels to have survived a quarter-life or, worse, about the full itinerary of my special day. The day was fine. But I came up short thinking of thirty-six new and exciting ways to say that. I must have at least offered something more than a stare, because every one of them would nod and smile back in contented agreement. I remember moving my mouth, but I don’t remember hearing things come out. Was I rude? Did my response even correspond to the question they asked? The same words are swirling around and it’s finally hard to discern which ones belong to me. I’d break eye contact and let my eyes dart around the room to settle on inanimate space, maybe a piece of art, which lets me know my feet are still planted in real time. To end each exchange, I say thanks for asking (which I don’t mean) and then I go sit because my knees are tired. I recognize this feeling from the theater – it happens after a suspenseful movie that doesn’t let up for over two hours, and when the credits roll, you stand up and walk to the car on stilts.

So, my friend asked pointedly how I was doing and I left it hanging there a while. She’s okay waiting. A pointed question requires a thoughtful answer rather than a flippant question, which isn’t let down by a more careless one. I’d like to be a pointed and patient question-asker this year. But anyways, before submitting some hurried half-truth, I start to separately scan my heart and mind and body. When someone asks how you’re doing, this is a good exercise in thoughtfulness. And if you’re not used to searching these areas independently of each other, it can be tough to discriminate at first. I feel good, bad, burdened. Tired, off, or nervous.

Maybe you do, but these are shorthands we’ve created, and they’re an insufficient attempt to explain a system much too convoluted to reduce down to a word. The more we use them, the harder it becomes to engage our hearts, our minds, and our bodies as individual and equal parts. If we don’t manage them as equal parts, then we’re naturally favoring one of the three. And this, of course, is unhelpful because we’ll never then know how we’re truly doing at any given moment.

Ideally, we’d put in a faithful work for the Holy Spirit to be our sole proprietor, controlling, governing the heart, mind, and body, but that’s a daily work, expiring every night. And the percentage of times we fail at this is regretfully larger than the times we get it right. In human terms, and according to anatomy, we should typically look for emotions that drive the heart, thoughts that drive the mind, and immediate physical manifestations that drive the body. The heart is the seat of our will. It communicates shame, feels conviction, and falsely exaggerates. It points us to gratitude, envy, gladness, or unease. Everything we do flowing from the current state of it (Proverbs 4:23). We shouldn’t trust our heart to tell us the truth (feelings most times feel like truth and often aren’t), but in regards to its current state, which evolves on a whim, we must tend to it frequently.

Our minds, on the other hand, are blown about by the thought attention (we think) necessary to keep our sails up. The graveyard of unchecked tasks that riddle the planner. The gossip you were actively or passively engaged in. The phone that begs you to connect. The marriage or child you can’t save. The finances you can’t hoard. The law you can’t change. All of these occupying mental real estate that cannot be sold elsewhere, and therefore disrupting the present with wasted meditation that must either be dealt with or entirely let go. To be made new in the attitude of our minds (Ephesians 4:23) requires much discipline – de-cluttering that which has been infested for so long and preserving politely a space for whatever is true, noble, right and pure.

Lastly, and most palpably available to us, is the body. A lady yesterday passed up a second cup of coffee because her neck felt stiff and she knew that the caffeine had done it. When I wake up to three new blemishes and can’t peel myself from the sheets, I know it often has more to do with the bread I consumed than the hormones. I might not feel overworked but my rash clues me in. And vice versa, I might wear all the visible signs of fatigue, but I’ve taken care to get good sleep. Ah ha! I remember my conversation with a man the day before – he’s frail and his face sags because his stage 4 diagnoses swept in quick. They invaded him but couldn’t remove all of it, and now he lays in bed and knows that his wife will be financially taken care of if he dies before he turns sixty-five. In that case, he says, I don’t think I’ll choose to treat. I’ve taken on his news. I am tired emotionally, but it manifests for me physically every single time. I have to recognize this and distinguish the difference or else all the world’s problems are my own, and I’ll neglect that the Spirit dwells amidst a tired temple and a dying one (1 Corinthians 3:16).

When my friend asked and I decided to let her wait, this was the first of the three that stood out to me. I searched my mind and it felt full but rightfully so. We have two big, stressful moves going on – at work and at home. I searched my heart, and I felt nothing. I’m just here, I said to her. And then I noticed my right leg bouncing up and down on the metal bar that holds the stool. I watched it and knew it had been restless for at least ten straight minutes. I would make it stop and go on talking, only to catch it bobbing again. My body tells me that I’m agitated, and I listen. For had I sloughed off its signal, I’d have gone days assuring people I’m fine by all other accounts. My body feels wholly submerged in a pool of something, I say. I’m aware of my senses but none of them clear. My hearing is impaired, my vision blurry, and I can hardly taste. My reactions are severely slow. It seems the restless leg syndrome is the only thing tying me back to a pace of the bustling people on land. She understands.

I was telling someone not too long ago how frustrated I felt with my heart, mind, and body combo. Behind tears, I confessed that mine never feels how it’s supposed to. Fully functioning, balanced, at equilibrium. There’s a bag of rocks and a noose that gags and drowns the most susceptible of the three and then they all take turns. I’m light, stable, happy, and the Lord feels near, but I can’t stay off these g-dd--- antiobiotics. I’m finally nursed to conceivable health and the Lord still feels near, but now I’m crying twice a day and not only is the fear irrational but it stays and stays and stays. Or, my favorite – I feel like a million bucks, emotions are in check, but the Lord feels far, and more honestly, I don’t think about him much.

I can assume that harmony doesn’t happen for any of us until the garden stuff is redeemed, but who could ever really be joyful until that day? The only win in this sad scenario may be that at least I’m enlightened. Some people, I take it, are willfully ignorant about which thing they lack, and what a pity that is. But then again, they’re happy! And they certainly aren’t victimized by other people’s happiness. So, maybe mine isn’t a win after all.

Like I said, my husband and I are in the middle of a move right now. It’s the first time I’ve moved since transitioning from my childhood home to marriage with him. It feels hard in that regard – I can’t just leave unwanted things behind. All of it must be sold, given, thrown or kept. And then wrapped, packed, loaded, lifted, unloaded, unpacked, unwrapped, and settled. Our current apartment is stripped and bare, but we’re still living in it. Broken down boxes stacked to our ceiling waiting to be built. A couch but no table. A table but no chairs. And a single lamp to light the whole place. Six-hundred and seventy-eight square feet is wildly smaller with one lamp. It hasn’t felt restful here for awhile, and our poor walls lately have known the fights of unrest. When you’re out of your body, it’s miraculous, impossible even, to cater to another person.

In the weeks that have gone by, keeping me company is this book by Henri Nouwen called The Way of the Heart. He speaks about silence, solitude, and prayer – the foundations of spirituality, reflections from our fourth century desert mothers and fathers, and the ways in which these three disciplines might transform our own ministries (“ministry” in terms of being, not doing or going or saying). The purpose of their time spent in the Egyptian desert was to be alone with God, and here, Nouwen says, solitude and silence are the context within which prayer is practiced. He tells us that the literal translation of the words “pray always” is “come to rest.” This rest having little to do with the absence of conflict or pain.

It is a rest in God in the midst of a very intense daily struggle. Abba Anthony even says to a fellow monk that it belongs “to the great work of a man…to expect temptations to his last breath.” Hesychia, the rest which flows from unceasing prayer, needs to be sought at all costs, even when the flesh is itchy, the world alluring, and the demons noisy. Mother Theodora, one of the Desert Mothers, makes this very clear: “…you should realize that as soon as you intend to live in peace, at once evil comes and weighs down your soul through accidie [sense of boredom], faintheartedness, and evil thoughts. It also attacks your body through sickness, debility, weakening of the knees, and all the members. It dissipates the strength of soul and body, so that one believes one is ill and no longer able to pray. But if we are vigilant, all these temptations fall away.”

I guess I just want to say that if you’re discouraged, as I have been, don’t be hasty to assume that you’ve failed or have little faith. Your body aches, your soul is tired, and every fruit the Spirit bears is lost on you. Spend some time in the Word – it will bring you insurmountable joy, they say. Joy comes in the morning. But why doesn’t it for me? There are impatient people, unfaithful, unkind, and ones that lack self-control. Joylessness would be mine. I’m emotionally honest about my need for a savior, which comes at the expense of my real, true joy most days. But the point is, we don’t resign to these things. We don’t read or wish them away, either.

In the book, Nouwen talks about our misperception and misuse of prayer. We use big words to convey a profound message (God already knows our words) and we carry our prayers on far too long. We minimize prayer to simply speaking with God or going about our days thinking about him and this boils him down to nothing more than a subject of our intellect. To pray always really means to come to rest with Him. He’s there in your heart when it tempts you to anger, he’s there in your mind when you wonder what it might be like to go away from the world, and he’s there in your body even if it slays you.

A friend of mine was experiencing another stint of anxiety a couple months back. Crippling worry, fear, and feelings of dread. It was impairing his ability to function in social settings, keeping him far from anywhere that might lead to shame or embarrassment. Coincidentally, also keeping him far from anywhere that might lead to healing or freedom. He could call out the lies but couldn’t make truth penetrate the heart. He’d read and study and pray all day but couldn’t get his mind right. Finally, I said, just stick to what you know. Tend to what’s already here in front of you. He said he knew how to eat whole foods, hydrate well, sleep for eight hours, and exercise (if only for a little). These small assignments wouldn’t fix him, but they were enough to pedal forward. And rather than suspecting he was all at once broken, he could isolate his body from the heavier two, recognize the Spirit’s dwelling there, and let that simple presence begin to buoy him back to a safe health.

Like peace for him, I have full access to joy, but it isn’t my natural bent. I’ve learned that I’ve got to put myself right in the way of it sometimes, and that doesn’t make me less prayerful or holy. I’ll watch funny movies and take notes from my excitable husband and lay off the emotional integrity for a day. As silly as it sounds, I’ve got to practice laughing and thank God for it when I do because it doesn’t come easy. All parts of me are at odds from sun up to sun down, but since the Spirit takes up unique residence in each of them, I can come to rest still. Don’t wait for the absence of a war to do this, just let it fall quiet.

As fruitful as it may be to abide in him, please don’t shy from the importance of his abiding in us – broken, incomplete bodies that are nurtured when engaged. If you’re alive, you bear his image which means you were created to bear his fruit. Not some of them, but all. Forge habits that might till the soil for whatever one you long for instead of claiming it’s not for you. Our flesh is itchy, the world alluring, and the demons noisy, but these temptations will grow strangely dim against our discipline in tending to the kingdom of God, which is already here.