Today we will work in a chapter called "In-Forming the Body of Christ." It begins with a 'pentecostal/charismatic' woman who comes to a group where people are gathered for contemplative prayer. We'll she was speaking in tongues and moving around the sanctuary - a bit distracting for some. From here Mount Shoop takes us along a look at ourselves and the whole body and how we are in-formed.
We are in-formed when we listen to the wisdom, the pain, and the promise of body language, and let these narratives, poetics, and metaphors enhance our embodied awareness. This dynamic forms us from the inside, out by virtue of its primal intersection with embodied experience. While we most often understand ourselves as receiving "information" cognitively, in-formation is received cellularly. The how and the why of this kind of cellular communication is the very nature of feeling itself. Feeling flows, it forms us, and it is the mode of our redemption. To in-form is to permeate, to inspire. In-formation means feeling is acknowledged, enriched, and nurtured. To in-form is to strengthen the flow of feeling. To in-form is to facilitate the integration of cellular knowing.
Just today in worship I told a story of a nurse who laid her hand on my shoulder as as I was waiting to go into surgery - I was frightened. I didn't say anything - she just knew it. Her hand rested there. I was being healed through and through. She did not need to speak words. I was being in-formed of the power of God to be utterly present and available even when I was just another piece of meat in the pre-op area. I was no piece of meat. I was being held up and sustained and honored. Deep down on that 'cellular' level, there was a conversation taking place - an announcement. There were no right and proper liturgical movement - not here. It was more on line with being grasped and caressed from within so that I could breathe freely. The anesthetic always puts me out cold - way cold. But this touch put me in touch with a place peace and rest that only comes when others gather around us and with us and let God's presence flow deeply among us. Connection: There are so many ways we can be in-formed about the presence of the Body of Christ. Too often we are looking elsewhere. And then, in the 'out of ordinary' maybe even the 'intrusive other' we begin to fly. Within the strangeness of all who gather in your name, O God, comes the fire of that your Spirit that disturbs and heals. Within your creative power we are made new in ways we have yet to understand - we are always blessed by your action. Amen. |
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