Wild Spaces
I was listening to a podcast today during my lunch hour at work and they were talking about inflammation. They were talking about how inflammation signals to the body that healing needs to be done. When there is inflammation present, our first response is to grab the ice pack, to find something to soothe the pain. But sometimes, when that inflammation is present, we need to sit with it and let it be there so the body can heal.
Something about this struck a chord with me. I've been thinking about it all day, going over what was said about inflammation and the body and how this isn't just a physical thing but for spiritual and emotional inflammation too, that the body doesn't just refer to the single human body but to the faith community body and the family body and all these different systems that we are a part of. How our first response to pain is to find something to kill it, but in reality when we do that we may be prolonging the healing process.
I've spent a lot of my life in wilderness spaces. The in-between spaces between what was and what will be, and a lot of the time these wilderness spaces carry with it some sort of internal inflammation. Something rises up in me and it aches and I am learning to sit with it instead of fight it, dull it, numb it or avoid it.
Currently in my life I strongly identify with being in a period of wilderness. Everything I thought I knew and had has fallen to dust within my clenched hands and I'm not quite sure where I'm going next or where all this deconstruction will take me. I know I had to leave the old system, the way things were, but I haven't yet entered into this new way of being.
I've been thinking a lot recently about the story of David and Saul. After killing the giant, David became hated by Saul. Arrows were thrown at his head. David had to make the choice between throwing the spears back or ducking. He ducked, keeping his eyes on his own side of the road, doing what he knew he had been called to do. And then at one point David had to leave the way of Saul, the way things were, and flee to the wilderness. He was in this in between space, not the shepherd boy he once was but not the king he would one day be. And so David learned to dwell in this wilderness space.
Throughout Scripture the wilderness has been characterized as a place of healing, a place where people would encounter Divine Love.
I'm currently in a wilderness season and I have found myself thinking it would be a lot easier to go back to the way things were. To the old system, to the comfortable and known. I wonder when the people from the old way will stop caring that I am no longer with them. I wonder when it will get easier to see through all this fog, when I will find something tangible to land on instead of not quite being clear, and feeling like I'm living empty. I wonder when the answers will be made clear to me.
This is what I'm learning in the wilderness spaces though. I'm learning to trust what I know. To trust the voice of Divine Love that is in me that this time out in the middle of no where is to teach me something. It is believing that the bitter water is for my healing. I'm learning to keep my eyes on my own side of the road, to focus on my healing, to sit with the inflammation.
I'm in the wilderness but the wilderness is not a place of exile. It is the place where the voice of Divine Love speaks tenderly to me, where I am healed.
Ideas from this post can also be found in Stephanie Moor's podcast The Love Activist
Something about this struck a chord with me. I've been thinking about it all day, going over what was said about inflammation and the body and how this isn't just a physical thing but for spiritual and emotional inflammation too, that the body doesn't just refer to the single human body but to the faith community body and the family body and all these different systems that we are a part of. How our first response to pain is to find something to kill it, but in reality when we do that we may be prolonging the healing process.
I've spent a lot of my life in wilderness spaces. The in-between spaces between what was and what will be, and a lot of the time these wilderness spaces carry with it some sort of internal inflammation. Something rises up in me and it aches and I am learning to sit with it instead of fight it, dull it, numb it or avoid it.
Currently in my life I strongly identify with being in a period of wilderness. Everything I thought I knew and had has fallen to dust within my clenched hands and I'm not quite sure where I'm going next or where all this deconstruction will take me. I know I had to leave the old system, the way things were, but I haven't yet entered into this new way of being.
I've been thinking a lot recently about the story of David and Saul. After killing the giant, David became hated by Saul. Arrows were thrown at his head. David had to make the choice between throwing the spears back or ducking. He ducked, keeping his eyes on his own side of the road, doing what he knew he had been called to do. And then at one point David had to leave the way of Saul, the way things were, and flee to the wilderness. He was in this in between space, not the shepherd boy he once was but not the king he would one day be. And so David learned to dwell in this wilderness space.
Throughout Scripture the wilderness has been characterized as a place of healing, a place where people would encounter Divine Love.
I'm currently in a wilderness season and I have found myself thinking it would be a lot easier to go back to the way things were. To the old system, to the comfortable and known. I wonder when the people from the old way will stop caring that I am no longer with them. I wonder when it will get easier to see through all this fog, when I will find something tangible to land on instead of not quite being clear, and feeling like I'm living empty. I wonder when the answers will be made clear to me.
This is what I'm learning in the wilderness spaces though. I'm learning to trust what I know. To trust the voice of Divine Love that is in me that this time out in the middle of no where is to teach me something. It is believing that the bitter water is for my healing. I'm learning to keep my eyes on my own side of the road, to focus on my healing, to sit with the inflammation.
I'm in the wilderness but the wilderness is not a place of exile. It is the place where the voice of Divine Love speaks tenderly to me, where I am healed.
Ideas from this post can also be found in Stephanie Moor's podcast The Love Activist
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