Blue Spring State Park in Orange City, Florida, provides shelter from the cold for hundreds of manatees each winter.
Our family had the privilege to visit early this year, only weeks before we began sheltering-in-place here in central Illinois. Not only did we get to see no less than 70 manatees resting peacefully in the water, but we got a rare, front row view of experts preparing to release a rehabilitated manatee into these waters. Here is a place where all manatees are welcome, and where an orphaned manatee finds a home.
Could this place be an icon, a window, for us as the church to learn how to be a space of healing for the broken?
I have enrolled in Yoga teacher training. A training where I am not certain a single other person in this 500+ group is a Christian, and quite frankly I do not care.
As a first exercise, we relived the experience of saying “yes” to #YogaTeacherTraining, became present to what we felt in our body, and were asked to craft some words describing the experience.
My words?
A space to heal.
I want to say something. I know it is controversial.
Our world needs spaces to heal, and unfortunately, the church all too often has not been this space.
There is no need to spend time trying to convince you our world needs spaces to heal. It is plastered everywhere. It is in the air.
Hurt. Anger. Depression. Anxiety. Misunderstanding. Disgust. Anguish. Neglect. Rage. Despair.
It is palpable.
And we are all so busy defending our fortresses and qualifying those we deem worthy of our graces.
Church, if I may be so bold, the Yoga community is transcending you in offering space for healing and justice for our bleeding world. In just the few days since I began my Yoga teacher training, I have discovered a community who longs to find and bring wholeness to our world, whose heart is for alleviating unnecessary suffering.
I began connecting to #Yoga back in March when the COVID-19 pandemic led to shelter-in-place orders all around the country. One day, a Yoga instructor explained namaste as meaning “the light in me bows to the light in you.” In the weeks and months since hearing these words, I realized how much this simple word, this simple phrase, defines my life.
While journeying through recovery for #OCD/anxiety, I have discovered a light within. This light is courage, life, boldness, tenacity, fierceness, and love. It is me. And though I attribute the presence of such light as a gift from the Divine, there is no mistaking its presence, even if certainty of origin cannot be known.
I have within me a light. A light whose imagery guides me and always has. I am a mix of many things. Some lovely, some I would like to keep hidden, but all mixed with light.
I have a light, and so do you.
And by you I mean you universal.
Not just you who have been born again.
Not just you whose sexual orientation meets certain theological standards.
Not just you who are repentant.
Not just you who are open-minded.
Not just you who look, talk, think and act like me.
Not just you who have made responsible and upstanding decisions.
Not just you who carry influence.
Not just you who can give me something I need or want.
YOU have this light. All people, everywhere. And because you have this light, I honor you. To the best of my ability, I honor you.
You are worthy of love, grace, and healing.
I have hurt plenty of people in my life. I have let people down. I have failed to show honor, love, and respect. I have acted in ways which filled my heart with shame. I am an unsettling blend of dark and light, but my disposition to the world, from the days of my childhood, is and always has been “the light in me bows to the light in you.”
I am broken. You are broken.
I am light. You are light.
It is honestly so much easier to see people as either darkness or light. Caricaturing people as either good or evil makes life simpler. It makes our stories cleaner. But it is not reality.
We need places of healing so much more than we need places of judgment. We need places where we honor the differences in one another rather than desiring and assuming sameness from the communities with which we surround ourselves. Perhaps we need to be more like Blue Springs State Park.
We need to lay down our idol of needing to save ourselves and others, and instead of worrying whether people meet certain qualifications for salvation, become spaces for healing. Church, we need to be spaces for healing.
Until next time, may God hold us close, in darkness and in light,
Jen
If you are hurting and you feel no one is listening; if you need a space to share your story with no fear of condemnation, let me offer you an open invitation to share your story with me.
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