Driving my kids back to Tennessee from my rowdy and fun family's 65th reunion in Pennsylvania several weeks ago, I asked my kids to tell me about their favorite moments of our trip.

My shy 10-year-old daughter said, "Well, my favorite thing is that I surprised myself...I actually carried on conversations with people!  I was even funny.  AND, I surprised myself because I actually enjoyed it!"

Her surprise was met by my own, for I was not only overjoyed but completely caught off-guard, not expecting to hear this out of my quiet, catlike girl, especially not as her favorite part of the trip!  It was a good reminder of how we often pigeonhole ourselves and others.  

The term "pigeonhole" was first used in 1864 to describe placing a person or thing in a narrow or confined category that resembles a literal hole a pigeon roosts in.  As you can imagine and see from the picture, the borders of the pigeonholes tend to be pretty rigid so it's up to the one roosting to leave the safety of the confined space.   

Speaking from experience, we often let our expectations keep us from discovering and entering into the "new thing" the Spirit of God is inviting us to discover, whether it be within or without. Instead we keep rehearsing (& posting) old stories and viewpoints.  A look over our social media posts or reflecting on recent conversations inside our heads or with others can reveal a pigeonhole or two we roost in.  
 
But might our continued pigeonholing be fear in disguise?  For once we venture outside a particular pigeonhole we can no longer dwell within that hole again. After my daughter said she surprised herself by enjoying a conversation, she can no longer claim she's too shy to carry on a conversation (or enjoy doing so)!  

Bursting out of the pigeonhole takes courage...what a beautiful spiritual practice she invited me (and now you) into!  Let's try it:
   
*  Take a moment and look at the above pigeonholes.  Maybe even sketch them out and put a word in each box that you would use to describe yourself (begin with yourself then branch out to another person or situation).  

*  Now let the below words from Isaiah 43 or II Corinthians 5 blow through your pigeonholes.  
“Forget about what’s happened;
    don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
    It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?"  

"...we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it!"

*  Whether experienced as a gentle breeze or wild wind, stay with it for a few moments.  Notice which words are being ruffled.  You may experience this as a feeling of resistance or fear around a particular word, you may have immediate knowledge as to which word is being blown forward, or you may be more visual and imagine how the words are affected.

*  Is there a particular pigeonhole you're being invited to step out of?  Write it down, pray, and tell someone!   This will help you spread your wings and fly, carried by the currents of the Ruach, the Holy Wind.  And, you may even find, much to your surprise, you enjoy it!

More than I thought.

In 2009 I had emergency back surgery for a ruptured disc that caused the worst nerve pain I have ever felt...paralyzing lightning down my leg and out my right toes leaving me screaming.
   
After the surgery, I'd hoped the muscle pain and sciatica I had experienced on and off since high school would finally be gone...it wasn't.  I did physical therapy (having already done chiropractic).  Again I was hopeful...it didn't help.  

Whenever the pain would hit, I'd chalk it up to accidentally bending or twisting and tweaking an old basketball injury.  It would have me either in bed or on the floor with my feet up on the couch for days.  I thought my active life of hiking and carrying stuff (like my own little girl) was over.  I (& those around me) started treating my back gingerly, making sure I did not lift or do anything that could trigger that familiar shooting pain.  You can imagine what I looked like whenever I walked and sat down or did anything that included my back (amazing how much does!).    

One night at a breathwork class, after observing me, the instructor told me to read John Sarno's The Mindbody Prescription, saying it would help. I thought this was laughable.  I'd undergone the knife and physical therapy, how could a book help?  Undeterred she told me how it had helped a friend with my kind of pain. At the end of our time she said, "You're so young, I just don't want you to be in pain the rest of your life."  What did I have to lose?  I read it.  
I haven't been on the floor or in bed due to back pain since.  Seriously.  That was 8 years ago!

Over the past eight years, beginning with that book, I've learned three things: 

My physical self is interconnected with all other parts of myself. How I am spiritually affects how I am emotionally which affects how I am physically and all can affect how I am relationally.  What's happening relationally can affect how I am mentally and emotionally and physically and so on.  If we choose to dissect and isolate any of these when we have dis-ease or pain in any given area, we miss ways of healing that come when we consider the whole of us.   

A lifetime of being a "good girl" coupled with perfectionism affected my body.  It led to the suppression of anger and other unwanted feelings which finally erupted in physical pain.  My unconscious thought physical pain a better choice than emotional pain.  Locating an old area of injury and a socially acceptable place of pain (back pain is what ulcers used to be!), that's what it chose.  It's interesting the games our minds can play (thinking that they're helping us)! 
 
Seeing God as a Divine Task-Master perpetuated my good girl-perfectionist cycle.  Since we become like the God we adore (as I mentioned in last week's post), my inner critics had no problem replicating this God-like perpetual drivenness to accomplish and improve.  Be better.  Try harder.  Be (or at least act) perfect.  And it's no surprise that snippets of Scripture would often run through my mind to back up these "commands"!  Anytime I fell short, which of course I did since I'm human, I took the feelings of anger and shame and stuffed them. Eventually my body would no longer "play these reindeer games" (it began warning me in junior high but it took me a long time before I would or knew how to listen!).    

Now my body is my friend.  I view it as part of the whole.  It tells me the truth.  When I feel nerve pain begin in my toe, I know that if I don't tend to what feelings are running under the surface, it will soon start in my back.  My God-created body has invited me to not only reflect on my God-created emotions but even my image of God.  As my image of God has undergone healing and transformation, guess what?  It's affected my mind, emotions, relationships, and yes, my body.  Thank God for that gift of back pain.  

Over the years, the simplest and best prayer practice I've found for healing our image of God and teaching kids how God loves them is based on a prayer found in Matt, Dennis & Sheila Linn's book, Simple Ways to Pray for Healing.  

In that book and in a previous book, Healing Our Image of God, they reiterate how we become like the God we adore!  So if the God we worship is critical, judgmental and condemning, guess what?  We're going to be critical, judgmental and condemning!   If the God we picture is stoic and distant...you got it...we're going to be stoic and distant.  And this can be passed along from generation to generation.  

One way to heal our image of God is to realize that God loves us at least as much as the person who has loved us most.

Take a moment to consider your image of God.  What words or images would you use to describe your view or understanding of God?  Would you like others to describe you in these ways?  If not, your image of God may be in need of healing.  

Or perhaps parts of you have a healthy view of God and parts of you do not.  This prayer has been instrumental in the on-going healing of my own image of God.  My inner critic can often have a very sanctimonious sounding voice and when I'm vulnerable I can easily mistake it as God's until I bring to mind a person who has loved me most.  This immediately exposes the false god and I am able to not only receive God's love but let God join me in my vulnerable place (which is transforming).

After facilitating this prayer with countless people, I've tweaked it from how it appears in the Linn's book, like adding the love of a pet because some people cannot recall a person who has loved them in a healthy way.   Or sometimes a pet is how God wants to best communicate love to us at a given time.   

Here's the prayer for you to try: 
​
Receiving God's Love through the Person or Pet Who Loves You Most

1. Hit the pause button. Close your eyes. Listen to the sounds around you. Breathe in the love of God.
2. Bring to mind the person or pet who has loved you most (or at least the one who comes to mind in this moment). What is the special gift that person/pet has offered you? Unconditional love? Humor? Gentleness? Understanding? Wisdom? Take a moment to breathe it in as a way of gratitude. 
3. Now take a moment to be with God as you understand God. See if you can appreciate how God loves you in these very same ways! The person or pet who has loved you most are “faces” of God. How this person/pet loves you is the very way God wants to love you.
4. If you can't experience God loving you at least as much as the person who loves you the most, simply be with your hurt & longing. Breathe in God's love and let God love you just as you are. 

​I hope you'll try this prayer for a week and see what happens!  A bonus is that it makes us even more grateful for the person or pet who has loved us so well...and what happens then?  We cannot help but love them back!  It becomes a love circle of giving and receiving (which is exactly what the Trinity is)!!  Now that's a beautiful image of God!

I am grateful for freedom.
And to those who have made my freedom(s) possible.  

I am grateful I have the right to vote and worship God how I choose.  I am grateful I got to marry who I chose.   I am grateful I do not live in daily fear in or outside my home.

And yet in the midst of all of my gratitude this July 4th, I am reminded of Frederick Buechner's words about peace in Wishful Thinking: 

"...we are homeless even so in the sense of having homes but not being really at home in them. To be really at home is to be really at peace, and there can be no real peace for any of us until there is some measure of real peace for all of us. When we close our eyes to the deep needs of other people, whether they live on the streets or under our own roof-and when we close our eyes to our own deep need to reach out to them-we can never be fully at home anywhere." 

I think the same can be said about freedom.  Can there even be real peace without freedom?  

Will you join me this July 4th in asking the question, "Who is not free yet?"  
Who is not free to worship how they choose?
Who is not free to marry who they choose to?
Who lives in fear inside/outside of their home?  
Who has no voice in religious, political, and business institutions?

It shouldn't take too long to identify at least one person if not an entire group of people.
 
Then with the voice of the Holy Spirit and the entire tradition of the Holy Scriptures urging us on, let's take the next step and do something about it.  Like those who gave their lives for our country's freedom.   

Then this will truly be "the land of the free and home of the brave."