Mediation – Page 3 – Organizing Threads

I came across this video this morning (as I don’t have a TV I don’t see commercials in the usual way):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXTZbv4fums

Turning 60 last November was very strange for me. I don’t feel 60 — what should it feel like? I think I don’t look 60 — or what my imagination says 60 should look like. Where do those images come from? And how does one change them?

Like so many women I struggle with body image. Going to the swimming pool with my daughter and grandkids while in California, I had to change into a bathing suit in a semi-public area, then walk from the change rooms to the pool (once in the pool I didn’t care anymore about the scars or cellulite or the way my belly sticks out or my boobs don’t) I do it fighting an unwanted sense of shame.

I watch my granddaughter, at age 5, completely unaware that there is any reason to feel badly about her body. I see my daughter who wears a bikini even if, after two babies, her belly is no longer flat. I am so glad that I have not passed on to her all of my traits!

One older woman dressing after a swim complimented my long skirt. She commented that at the athletic club you frequently see the same people wearing very little, and then you see them somewhere else, dressed, and they look familiar but it takes some minutes to figure out who they are.

Another woman about my daughter’s age had forgotten her towels. She walked around the shower/change rooms, drying herself and her little girl with several washcloths without any embarrassment or self-consciousness. How I envied her.

When my Beloved Man tells me that I am beautiful, that I have a beautiful body, I rejoice that as we age our eyesight diminishes. Ha! I accept his compliments with joy, but I don’t really believe him now any more than I believed Volker 40 years ago? Why?

Truly, I am grateful that, thanks to good genetics and a healthy lifestyle, I have a strong healthy body, that I can freely move through each day, play with my grandkids, make love with joy and so much more.

I resolve to keep on giving my body good food, plenty of exercise and loving care so that I can keep on feeling young. I will likely continue to feel that sense of shame about my body, but I will not live there. I will feel it, but not own it. I am beautiful, whatever my age!

HealBleedingWoman — Christ healing a bleeding woman Photo from Catacombes of Rome Source: http://campus.belmont.edu/honors/CatPix/womanblood.jpg Over 1500 years old 2d art

Now there was a woman who had suffered from a haemorrhage for twelve years; after long and painful treatment under various doctors, she had spent all she had without being any the better for it; in fact, she was getting worse. She had heard about Jesus, and she came up through the crowd and touched his cloak from behind, thinking, ‘If I can just touch his clothes, I shall be saved.’
And at once the source of the bleeding dried up, and she felt in herself that she was cured of her complaint. And at once aware of the power that had gone out from him, Jesus turned round in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ His disciples said to him, ‘You see how the crowd is pressing round you; how can you ask, “Who touched me?”‘ But he continued to look all round to see who had done it. Then the woman came forward, frightened and trembling because she knew what had happened to her, and she fell at his feet and told him the whole truth. ‘My daughter,’ he said, ‘your faith has restored you to health; go in peace and be free of your complaint.’ Mark 5:25-34

Here is a story I love. This un-named woman, who for twelve long years has been excluded from her faith community because her haemorrhaging, hears that Jesus is near. Hope gives her courage to put aside all that she has been told about her unworthiness. Trust in her own innate sense of value whispers at she can do what others have forbidden. Faith propels her through the crowd, unmindful of who else she might be touching. Love of and desire for life abundant move her to reach out and touch Jesus’s robe. She does not wish to distract him from whatever he is doing; she does not want to disturb him or call attention to herself. Just touch his robe. And it works! Glory be! She knew immediately that her body had been healed!

And Jesus knew immediately that power had gone out from him. He asks, “who touched me?” His disciples think he’s crazy — so many people are touching him. Are they too being healed? I think not, for this woman’s touch was somehow different.

This is the crucial part, I think: the woman again takes responsibility for her own life and actions. She steps forward, so afraid and yet so filled with joy at her release. What will the penalty be for all the wrong she has just committed? Defiling so many by coming into the crowd. Touching, and making unclean, this popular Teacher.

Can you not see God’s infinite love in Jesus’s response? “My daughter” he calls her. Not sister, not mother, but daughter — one from your own heart and body, one you protect, nurture, love forever. He then affirms everything she has just done — her hope, trust, faith, love and desire for life. She was right, life abundant can be hers, too. Glory be to God!

[C]haracter — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs. Joan Didion, Slouching toward Bethlehem

Category: Mediation

Aging Beautifully

Mediation on Mark 5:25-34