the body remembers

"To keep our bodies less defended, to live in our body right now, to be present to others in a cellular way, is also the work of healing of past hurts and the many memories that seem to store themselves in the body. The body seems to never stop offering its messages; but fortunately, the body never lies, even though the mind will deceive you constantly... It is very telling that Jesus usually physically touched people when he healed them; he knew where the memory and hurt was lodged, and it was in the body itself."

~Richard Rohr, 

"Breathing Under Water: 

Spirituality and the Twelve Steps"

"God comes to us disguised as our life" 

~Paula D'Arcy

“And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, ‘Ephphaltha!’ (that is, ‘Be opened!’).” 

~Gospel of Mark 7:33

There are many stories of healing and cures in the Gospels. My former pastor often reminded us to pay attention to the details of a story because those specific details help us to better understand Jesus. 

As I read the passage from the Gospel of Mark about the deaf man, I am profoundly struck by the way Jesus physically touched the deaf man with the speech impediment. Since St. Mark doesn’t tell us the deaf man’s name, I’m going to call him David.

We’ve all heard the importance of touch, how babies who are given food but not touch or affection will literally fade and die, and how hospitals use therapy dogs to heighten the healing of patients, especially those with long-term conditions. 

When recovering from surgery I was perplexed by how much I craved physical touch—and how physically distant people became. It felt like a direct correlation—the more I desired the gentle touch of another human being, the more that well-meaning person would step back and say, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Jesus knew how much David craved this physical contact. He took him aside, away from the crowd, to give him his full attention. 

I can imagine Jesus holding his hand, looking into David’s eyes with compassion and love. I picture him giving David a reassuring hug to communicate his intent, and waiting until David nodded his consent. Jesus didn’t need to touch David to cure his deafness or his speech impediment, but he did! 

He put his fingers into David’s ears. He spit. He touched David’s tongue. He went out of his way to touch him, and by doing so, he nursed David’s emotional and spiritual needs as well. 

David was cured of all his physical impediments, but above all, David was touched by Love.

Elena loving on baby Ignacio

[A modified original of this was published first here]

this week from Denver: pondering on attitude

I am in Denver this week, attending the annual gathering of Catholic communicators from the U.S. and Canada -- the Catholic Press Association's Catholic Media Conference.

This is a rich, busy and special time with my colleagues and friends in the Catholic press, and my time will be limited to posting on my Facebook page and on Twitter. Please join me there!

So for now, enjoy this recycling of one of my early posts:

During a recovery period after one of my surgeries, I was not allowed to drive for months. The months became even longer because our car was a standard transmission—and both my physical therapist and my surgeon warned me that the shifting gears would set the recovery back on my right wrist. Unable to even drive myself to a haircut, I felt utterly isolated. I was, literally, stuck at home, incapable of getting to daily Mass or meeting a friend for lunch.

Like a toddler learning to walk, I battled to regain use of my arm in the smallest of tasks—opening a jar, holding a book, writing a note, and fixing my hair. 

I longed for any sense of normality, and of course, for contact with the outside world. I missed the ordinary, normal things that, so often, I complain about having to do!

Then I got the news that my writer friend Gerri had suffered a stroke that threatened her life and left her paralyzed on half her body. Gerri’s recuperation has been truly miraculous and impressive, but the most amazing aspect was her attitude and perseverance—and her marvelous sense of humor. Like the email she sent—punctuated with a smiley face, reminding us:

“Still alive and sort of kicking. My stroke was 1 year ago, on 2-15. Thanks for all the prayers. Keep them coming, I'm far from back to normal.” 

Or the email with dancing figures across the page where she joked, “I really miss driving my car and the ability to get to mass during the week—I am saving on gasoline costs, though!”

What Gerri reminds me of, constantly, is that only I can change my attitude. And attitude leads to behavior. It's not about noting that someone has it worse than me—someone will ALWAYS have it worse than me—but about stepping out of my personal swamp of self absorption and shaking off the mud long enough to walk in a different direction, towards someone else in need who needs my presence. 

Sculpture wall on

University of Oklahoma campus, Norman

Don't scream! stop your anxiety-fueled thinking

The Scream by Edvard Munch

A panic attack is when you experience a sudden burst of anxiety and fear for no apparent reason.

While we all experience anxiety and stress at times, a true panic attack comes out of the blue. Although looking back on them, it is evident that panic attacks often take place during a lingering stressful situation or period in our lives.

Panic attacks in my experience have also always occurred in the middle of the night.

It’s no great surprise that the times that I experienced these panic attacks were times when I was feeling physically vulnerable and broken—such as when I first started having physical symptoms that no doctor could diagnose, or perhaps after one of my surgeries.

I can testify that waking up with a panic attack is very scary, like being in a car wreck when I didn't realize I was even driving. I jump out of bed, run out of the room to nowhere in particular, feeling an elephant on my chest that keeps me from breathing.

While I know that I cannot prevent a true panic attack from happening again, I have learned that, on a day to day basis, there are concrete steps I can take to challenge my thinking, calm my mind, and focus on my spirit when I'm feeling anxiety. 

In other words, there are things that I can do to stop anxiety-fueled thinking, that vicious cycle of anxious feelings that lead to anxious thoughts—that in turn reinforce those anxious feelings!

My own “maría brand” of anxiety-fueled thinking is what I call going global, or overgeneralizing. Whatever it is that I’m stressing about becomes all-encompassing, universal—and obviously, permanent, in my stressed-induce (irrational) thinking. For example, 

“Wow, that project was a disaster. The editor hated it. Obviously, I have no talent for this. I guess I never will.” 

Get the idea?

But there are other common anxiety-fueled thought patterns [paraphrasing here from an article I read in February's Taste for Life magazine], such as: 

• fortune telling, when I start making predictions (in my head) as if they are actual facts; 
• emotional reasoning, treating anxiety itself as a reliable indicator for reality; 
• tunnel vision, where I see only the negative and ignore any positive facts in a situation; 
• catastrophizing, where I decide that the outcome that I’m stressing about (or the disappointment or the failure) is permanent and total! 

If you can relate to any of these, you're in good company!

I'm not a medical professional, so here’s just my three action steps for when I recognize that what I'm feeling is anxiety:

1. Stop and ask myself if my thoughts are reinforcing the anxiety (as in the examples above) – am I turning this moment into a global reality by overgeneralizing?
2. Name the specific (often irrational) thought that is fueling the anxiety – is it true to say that I have no talent at all as a writer in this area?!
3. Stop whatever I'm doing and ask the Holy Spirit for assistance!

Come, Spirit of Truth

Show me God’s reality right here and now, in this situation.

I surrender myself, 

acknowledging that I cannot control, fix, or change my negative thinking.

And I commend my thoughts, my feelings, my worries, my anxieties, my entire being,

To the God who knows me and loves me 

as I am, today and always.

What about you? How do you handle anxiety and its thought patterns?

touch

“And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, ‘Ephphaltha!’ (that is, ‘Be opened!’).” [Mark 7:33]

There are many stories of healing and cures in the Gospels. My pastor likes to remind us to pay attention to the details of a story because it will help us to better understand Jesus. As I read this passage from the Gospel of Mark, I am profoundly struck by the way Jesus physically touched the deaf man with the speech impediment. Since St. Mark doesn’t tell us the deaf man’s name, I’m going to call him David.

We’ve all heard the importance of touch, how babies who are given food but not touch or affection will literally fade and die, and how hospitals use therapy dogs to heighten the healing of patients, especially those with long-term conditions. 

When recovering from surgery I was perplexed by how much I craved physical touch—and how physically distant people became. It felt like a direct correlation—the more I desired the gentle touch of another human being, the more that well-meaning person would step back and say, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Jesus knew how much David craved this physical contact. He took him aside, away from the crowd, to give him his full attention. I can imagine Jesus holding his hand, looking into David’s eyes with compassion and love. I picture him giving David a reassuring hug to communicate his intent, and waiting until David nodded his consent. Jesus didn’t need to touch David to cure his deafness or his speech impediment, but he did! He put his fingers into David’s ears. He spit. He touched David’s tongue. He went out of his way to touch him, and by doing so, he nursed David’s emotional and spiritual needs as well. David was cured of all his physical impediments, but above all, David was touched by Love.

Let me be your healing hands today, Lord, in how I touch and reach out to others. 

Attitude is everything

During a recovery period after one of my surgeries, I was not allowed to drive for months. The months became even longer because our car was a standard transmission—and both my physical therapist and my surgeon warned me that the shifting gears would set the recovery back on my right wrist. Unable to even drive myself to a haircut, I felt utterly isolated. I was, literally, stuck at home, incapable of getting to daily Mass or meeting a friend for lunch.

Like a toddler learning to walk, I battled to regain use of my arm in the smallest of tasks—opening a jar, holding a book, writing a note, and fixing my hair. 

I longed for any sense of normality, and of course, for contact with the outside world. I missed the ordinary, normal things that, so often, I complain about having to do!

Then I got the news that my writer friend Gerri had suffered a stroke that threatened her life and left her paralyzed on half her body. Gerri’s recuperation has been truly miraculous and impressive, but the most amazing aspect was her attitude and perseverance—and her marvelous sense of humor. Like the email she sent—punctuated with a smiley face, reminding us:

“Still alive and sort of kicking. My stroke was 1 year ago, on 2-15. Thanks for all the prayers. Keep them coming, I'm far from back to normal.”

Or the email with dancing figures across the page where she joked, “I really miss driving my car and the ability to get to mass during the week—I am saving on gasoline costs, though!”

What Gerri reminds me of, constantly, is that only I can change my attitude. And attitude leads to behavior. It's not about noting that someone has it worse than me—someone will ALWAYS have it worse than me—but about stepping out of my personal swamp of self absorption and shaking off the mud long enough to walk in a different direction, towards someone else in need who needs my presence. 

Sculpture wall on

University of Oklahoma campus, Norman