Hello, friend!
“You’ve done ballet before, haven’t you? For a long time?”
A couple of weekends ago, I spent time with friends in London and had the opportunity to attend a ballet class. If you know me in real life, you probably know that I dance. Or at least, I used to dance. A large part of the first two decades of my life was dedicated to honing the craft, and even if I did not end up “good enough” to pursue a career in it (or perhaps, I simply didn’t spend enough time mastering it?), ballet is written in my body.
As I executed the exercises at the barre, it was as if my body was waking from slumber. Movement came naturally, but my muscles — oof — I definitely felt pains I had not before. The articulation of the limbs, the slight movements of the head and eyes, the voices of my teachers past calling out reminders and critiques — it all rushed back.
Our bodies hold on to memories. Even the ones that our minds cannot, or don’t want to, remember.
What happened to me in that ballet class happens to all of us, as we journey through the ordinary chapters of life. For those of us who are parents, perhaps we see it acutely when something a child does elicits a certain memory from our own childhood.
In such moments, I am reminded of a truth that as moderns, we often forget.
I am more than just what’s in my head.
Duh, you might say. We don’t exist as spirits floating around. We have physical needs. We have physical limitations.
Yet, as moderns, the way we live often reflects an underlying belief (whether conscious or not) that all that is important is what happens in our heads, and that our bodies at best are instruments to allow us to carry out or thoughts, or at worse a limitation on our “true ability”. We fail to see our bodies as a part of who we are, and put aside physical needs like sleep and nutrition in favour of “higher pursuits”.
As a Christian, I am called to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. My physicality is involved here too. It is not solely an emotional love, nor an intellectual one, but one that engages my embodied being.
The ancient Greeks regarded gymnastics, or the training of the body, as an essential part of the holistic education of a person. The training of the body was necessary and a prerequisite to the training of the mind and soul. We see glimpses of this in modern life, for example, where someone with a rigourous morning gym routine finds themselves more able to focus at work.
Today marks the start of Holy Week. It is an opportune time to consider how, beyond reading and meditating on Scripture (Very Important Things), we can engage the other parts of our being. (This, for people whose minds are easily distracted like mine, is a real “hack”.) It could be as simple as adopting a physical posture like kneeling when praying, to help the mind stay focused. It could be reducing the amount of artificial light in the home, and use of candles or dim light in the evenings and early morning to engage the sense of sight in remembering the heaviness and darkness of the week. Or, it could be as involved as fasting from something which you allow you to feel lack, so that your body echoes the plea of Hosanna! (save me!) and remembers its need for a Saviour.
I’m thinking about how I can create a home atmosphere in this season, such that when the children are all grown up, a whiff of a scent, or taste of a particular food, would bring them back to the yearly Holy Week traditions, just as my body does in a ballet studio. Because even if the mind cannot, the body remembers.
Further up and further in,
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From my commonplace
“
No one is more influential in your life than you are because no one talks to you more than you do.
— Paul David Tripp, New Morning Mercies
Just to share
If you don't already have a plan for Holy Week, might I suggest this free guide by Lithos Kids? They publish some of our favourite books for children, including our current favourite storybook Bible (see the blog post below).
On the blog
I put together a short review of the children's storybook Bibles we've read (and that are accessible in Singapore). What I've found is that I can't solely rely on reviews from the West because many of these Bibles actually make many modern cultural references that may not be relevant to us here in Asia. In the blog post, I highlighted some examples, so that you might be able to consider this if you're looking to purchase one of the books.
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