Availability

Mindfulness in Buddhist terms consists of being aware of one’s thoughts and actions in the present moment. Those who seek to practice mindfulness spend years meditating in order to clear their mind of distractions and barriers that would keep one from being aware. The early Christians (Monastics and Desert Fathers) wrote of being alert to the Spirit of God and awake to the Spirit’s movement and direction. In response to others, the early Christians spoke of the practice of hospitality, or availability to others. Within the tradition of psychotherapy, the concept of emotional availability enters the picture. In other words, when I am in the presence of another person I attune to the other’s needs, wants, and desires rather than being distracted by my own thoughts and feelings.

To be in a state of availability is no easy task. There is a walking/biking trail near my home. One mile of the trail consists of a creek on one side and an open field of wild flowers on the other. When the weather is nice, I walk this trail on a regular basis with my three toddlers. I have been doing this since they were infants. One motivation for these walks is to help myself and my children become more mindful and alert to the world around us. I usually begin our walks by arousing curiosity – “I wonder what we will see, hear, and smell today!” Our walks have brought many surprises including snakes, frogs, butterflies dancing with the stroller, woodpeckers, and the occasional doe and buck eating flowers in the fields. As I became more alert on our walks, I began to notice minute details of an ever-changing environment. Each week brought about new and different wild flowers. The blades of grass changed colors. Caterpillars turned into butterflies. Rains changed the flow of the creek, and thus it echoed a new tune. And the smells – each season, each day, and each step brought a new fragrance. The more alert I became, the more curious I grew, and the more I desired to wake up and experience even more of the small details.

I do not notice the small delicate leaves of a budding maple tree when I am distracted by my mounting to-do list. Part of being available is surrendering control and to know that if I relinquish my involvement in the world, the world will still go on. Letting go of control requires us to loosen our grasp on our possessions, thoughts, and relationships.

Being available to others is no easy task. People are messy. To be emotional available to people is risky. We might get hurt. Being available is being empathic. In other words, I enter into another’s emotional experience. There are times of celebration and times of great sorrow. I allow myself to connect with another and suffer alongside the hurting soul. To avoid feeling another’s pain we may try to “fix it” and come up with solutions, but sometimes there are no words. It is in these moments where the presence of another becomes critical. If the other is emotionally absent their physical presence is of little comfort.

How alert we are to our world and how available we are to others is often a reflection of our availability to Christ. Am I still enough to notice the Presence of God? Am I emotionally available to Christ? Do I allow myself to know the suffering Christ? Do I allow myself in all my beauty and ugliness to be known by Christ? Availability is no easy task. It requires bravery as it might bring to light those aspects of ourselves we prefer to keep hidden in the shadows. It requires discipline and intentionality as we still our souls in order to be alert to the quiet whispers of God.

Sacred Objects.

The other day my almost three-year-old bumped her finger. This bump resulted in an invisible “boo boo” and a few shed tears. “Mommy, kiss it; kiss it, Mommy!” The magic medicine of a mother’s lips on a sore finger is usually all it takes for the tears to stop and my daughter to skip away happy and content. Unfortunately, this mommy had her hands full of dirty dishes and I could not provide an instant kiss and I told my daughter she would have to wait just a moment for that kiss. Her response shocked me. “That’s okay Mommy. I will just rub it on your shirt and it will be okay.” And like the magic kiss, she touched my shirt, the tears stopped, and she skipped away happy and content.

My daughter’s solution to touch my shirt brought to mind the story of a woman seeking healing from Christ. She had enough faith and believed that if she only touched his garment, a garment worn by someone holy, she would be healed. And indeed, she touched his cloak and she was healed. I began to wonder, was it faith that healed her, or the garment, or both? Is there a place for relics within worship or is some type of idolatry?

In recent news, there has been conversation regarding the Shroud of Christ and it will once again be on display in Italy. It is expected to draw over a million pilgrims seeking a glimpse of this relic. I remember walking through Vatican City several years ago and being moved by Michelangelo’s Pieta. The sculpture of Mary holding the dead Christ is truly a powerful image of suffering and a mother’s love, but this was not the only thing that caught my attention. The toes of Christ were worn away from people kissing the feet. The Pieta was placed behind glass in order to protect it from pilgrims seeking to touch this piece of sacred art. To some, the Shroud and the Pieta are sacred – set apart and made holy. To stand in the presence of these relics is to stand before something holy.

Some may refer to relics as idols and those who make the pilgrimage to these sacred objects as idolaters. I used to believe this. While in Italy, I saw the jawbone of a saint encased in glass. I did not understand the point of preserving a bone. And then I remembered stories of the Old Testament prophets and how the people preserved their bones. There were legendary stories of people touching these dry old bones and being healed. The miraculous powers of the prophets somehow carried over to their bones.

Perhaps opening our minds to the ideas of relics may help to reconnect us to our rich spiritual history. I find it ironic that we readily accept objects that connect us to our national heritage and yet shudder at the idea of embracing a relic connected to our spiritual heritage. In fifth grade, our class took a fieldtrip to Greenfield Village in Michigan. It was mostly made up of historical artifacts from Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and others from their era. One student from our group kept asking if it was “the actual” object used by so and so. She was on to something. The actual carried more meaning and importance than a replica.

I remember walking through the secret annex that hid Anne Frank and her family in Amsterdam. I could not allow myself to take pictures inside because in many ways I could still feel the presence of their story. A few days following this, I had a similar experience walking along the gravel pathways at the Dachau Concentration Camp outside of Munich, Germany. No one found it strange when I shared my powerful experience from walking through these places of history. I wonder if people would be as understanding if I shared about touching and smelling the bones of Saint Teresa of Avila and feeling connected to her and her story. Or more, would we accept that a miracle occurred after touching a garment worn by someone holy?

Rituals.

It was during the Easter Vigil of 2009 when I officially joined the Catholic Church. As a former Evangelical youth/non-profit director, my transition to Catholicism has raised many questions. One frequent question centers around the many rituals involved within Catholicism and how I find this to be beneficial. Ritual was a dominant motivation in my journey toward becoming Catholic (that and my belief in transubstantiation, but that is a topic for another day.)

Faith has never come easy for me. I appreciate doubting Thomas and his need to see the evidence. For me, it was not so much a need to see the facts and evidence but rather a need to trust completely that which I was going to follow. I needed to trust before I could be vulnerable, be seen, and be known. I realize that an all-knowing God already knows, but I preferred to live with the illusion/delusion that in my lack of trust I could somehow remain invisible. When I was twenty, I hit a major “crisis of faith.” I felt nothing, believed nothing, and yet longed to be intimate with God. I sought the counsel of Dr. Higgins. Dr. Higgins taught a Sociology of Religion class I was taking and found her to be a woman worthy of seeking spiritual advice. In a surprisingly simple statement she said, “Look to the liturgy and rituals to hold you through your unbelief.” To a Catholic or mainstream Protestant, this would sound familiar. But, within the Restoration Movement/Independent Christian Church I was coming from, ritual and liturgy were nearly absent. We were taught, “No Creed but Christ.” In other words, worship and church life focused on “preaching the Word” and the only rituals I can recall were marriage, ordination of preachers, and baptism by immersion. I heeded Dr. Higgins advice and I began looking for ritual and liturgy.

As a therapist, a lot of my therapeutic practice has been working with children who have experienced abuse and trauma, and as a result have difficulty forming a trusting attachment and bond with their caregivers. Even children who have been removed from horrible conditions and placed with loving and devoted adoptive parents resist being loved. They fear people getting close to them and so they use protective means to maintain a fortress of protection. These children often believe they are unlovable and so rather than resist others finding this out and rejecting them, they do the rejecting first. It is a painful cycle that is difficult to break. But there is something that helps these children begin to trust that their new world is safe, that there new relationships are not painful. This something is consistency. The more the child’s environment is predictable, the safer they feel (this goes for all children, but especially those who have experienced trauma.) In other words, families that create rituals and routines help these children heal and feel safe.

Life in a predictable and consistent family is full of rituals. My own children learned from a very young age that we have a clear bedtime ritual. We have bath time, movie time, story time, prayer time, turn on the music, and then I move from bed to bed and rub their backs and give kisses and hugs. Last night, Bill tucked our kids into bed and did not follow the routine. He left the room and the crying began. I asked him, “Did you say prayers and rub their backs?” He shook his head no. I went back into their room and completed the ritual. No more crying and they were asleep within minutes (it does not always work this well.) They knew their ritual and they knew when it was being altered. The alteration left them feeling anxious and the return to ritual calmed them down. Children feel safe when they know what to expect.

Religious rituals, I believe, have a similar effect. The predictability leads to a feeling of safety. There are clear expectations, forms, and patterns. In times of anxiety or “crisis of faith” the ritual provides a consistent environment. I remember sitting in a Mass in Germany. I was clueless and feeling out of place. Bill, a cradle Catholic, was able to follow along and speak his parts in English. While the Mass was in German, he knew the rituals and form and this gave him a sense of belonging. I told Bill I was ready to join the Catholic Church. I wanted to be connected to the Church universal and all its rituals.

Faith, at least in my experience, is also like a marriage. There are times I do not like my husband (and I am sure he would say the same about me), and during these times I remain married out of commitment rather than a romantic love relationship. Loving my husband during times of “marriage crisis” consist of acts/rituals of love rather than a feeling. These acts (kisses on the lips, conversations about the mundane, date nights . . .) carry our relationship through until the romance is rekindled and/or I have sought reconciliation for my toxic attitude. Spiritual rituals have a similar function. During the “Dark nights of the soul” where there is no passion or zeal to be devoted to God the rituals carry me through until the passion returns. I continue to pray, to cross myself, to state the Creed through those times when I lack a vibrant intimacy with God. Rituals remind me of my need for reconciliation even when my pride tells me I am “right” and do not need forgiveness. Rituals keep me physically connected even when I feel emotionally isolated from God.

Rituals connect to memories. My late grandmother always kept gardens – flowers and vegetable. Every spring as I grab my garden tools and start the rituals of prepping the soil, planting seeds, and pruning trees I remember my grandmother. I feel deeply connected to her when my hands are dirty. I can picture her looking down from heaven and smiling. Like gardening, Church is full of rituals. This past Sunday, Father Tom stood at the baptismal font and as a congregation we reaffirmed the vows of our baptismal covenant. He then took water from the font and walked up and down the aisle sprinkling each of us. The ritual reminded me of my own covenant as well as the covenant Bill and I made with the baptisms of our three children. Within the context of a ritual repeated every Easter I am reminded in a very real and tangible way of the covenant I made with God as well as the covenant God made with me and the Church.

And then there is Tradition. Since the time of Moses, there have been rituals associated with God. Rituals regarding food, cleanliness, sacrifice . . . rituals guided the Hebrew life. Rituals dictated the early Church, especially around the Eucharist, baptism, and catechism. We do it because this is how it has always been done. Sounds a lot like family holidays – we expect certain foods prepared in certain ways because that is how grandma and her grandma and her grandma before that did it. Holiday traditions connect us to our lineage. Religious rituals connect us to our spiritual family including their stories and legacies. We do it because they have done it for hundreds and even thousands of years.