The Gift of Feeling

It occurs to me that one of God's greatest gifts is the ability to feel. I mean in a sensory way, but I also mean the deep, visceral way of knowing and feeling. Looking back on my life, I am not sure that it was normative in my family to feel. I remember not feeling well physically, and not being given the ability to just be sick. Do you know that it is a gift to be allowed to be sick?

I had stomach pains that were never explained as a child. I certainly don't remember going to the doctor to figure out what they were about. I also suffered with asthma, and though I had medication that was so nasty I still recall it's disgusting flavor, I always felt like I couldn't breath deeply. So, I learned to get by without breathing deeply, and didn't find relief until I learned to play the flute. Playing the flute gave me the ability to breath more deeply, and the skill helped my entire life. Somehow, God knows how to work like Flip Wilson's old character Geraldine, "...in the back, in the corner, in the dark..." All in all, what I began to believe is that it was normative to repress dissatisfaction, joy, illness, sadness, love, and fear. Eventually, as a teenager, I was attracted to the quick fixes that mimicked deeply emotion and feeling, but was left wanting.

As an adult, I finally figured out that I didn't hear "I love you" enough. I figured out that I missed too many kisses from my mother, and too many compliments from my father. And though I am now a confident, high-functioning person, I am going to work on giving permission to myself to feel in spite of. Someone I love very much doesn't appear to love me back--at least not as I wish this person would. So as I am writing, I'm crying. How liberating! I'm so glad that I can cry and know love in such an abiding way, even when it is painful. I'm so proud of Barack Obama I can't help but smile when I think about how history has turned, and how he has participated in that change. I smile until my face hurts sometimes! As I got out of the bed to write this entry, I shut the door on my fingers by mistake. After my initial reaction and assessment of whether or not I was hurt, I was struck by the pain. I'm not sadist or crazy, but I was glad in that moment to have the ability to feel! I know it is a gift to feel in whatever way, because if I can hurt like that physically, I also have the capacity to be joyful and fulfilled.

In my maturity as a human, as a woman, in all my gifts and faults, I am so proud of my decision to live more fully. This includes loving myself and others more intentionally, experiencing life more fully, even when I am afraid, and feeling deeply. After years of believing whatever is holy must be the opposite of what is divine, finally I realized they can be one in the same. Just breathing is a holy act, so I offer to you that everything you are--even the parts you fear or don't understand--can be a gift that leaves you standing on holy ground. Maybe the next time you look in the mirror, you should breath deeply... and take off your shoes.