More on disposition and the Christian community -"Let the Bones Dance" by Marcia W. Mount Shoop.
Feeling is the conduit of God's redemptive power breathed into our bodies. God works through feeling. It is our bodies' capacity for transformation. It is the mechanism of God's redemptive power as it integrates what is hoped for into what has been and what is. Feeling gives us insight into how we can dispose ourselves and cooperate in our own redemption. How we attend to bodies informs how we are able to enflesh the Body of Christ. The tragic, relational, and ambiguous attributes of our embodied existence urge us to nurture these three dispositions in particular: compassion, interdependence, and adventure. When we are awake to the tragic, the relational, and the ambiguous dimensions of embodied experience, then we can intentionally nurture practices that expand our vision of who we are and who we hope to become in God's embrace. This almost sounds like the way we can move together into a 'beloved community.' We feel our way into it. We feel our way into the shape of the room and those who are there. I think of feeling here as the reaching out and touching. In the movie Robin Hood, the old father in Nottingham wants 'Robin' to come closer so that he can see him. Coming closer means - come within my reach. To moves his fingers over Robin's face - every bit of his face is touched. He shakes his head as though he now knows what he looks like. He then tells Robin to take a bath, "you stink." We cannot know the feel of the flesh of the Body of Christ unless we get close enough to touch and close enough to be touched. No, I don't think we need to 'feel each other up' - rather we need to be vulnerable enough to enter into relationships that allow us to see and feel and know the Christ who is alive in each of us. I think that involves what is noted here - "compassion, interdependence, and adventure." Sure it will be adventure - it demands that we get a feel of things around us and that can always be surprising because of what we find 'out there' and what we find 'right inside' here. Connection: Some folks talk about getting a 'feel' for a room or a group of people or an individual. There is no touching. There is willingness to be available and sense the life that is in the room or the people. There is that vulnerability that allows others to get a sense of us. Gather us as one, O God, that we will feel life that you have waiting for us as we enter into the Body of Christ. Inspire us to be bold, gentle, and compassionate. Amen. |
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