Foot Rub

Now would be a good time for a foot rub! Ahhhhh….

An assignment: take a family member or friend aside while everyone else naps or watches football, and have them probe your feet strategically according to the above chart. Have them move slowly, in millimeter increments. You will discover certain points are tender.

“It’s all in your head.” For centuries, since the philosopher and scientist René Descartes (1596-1650) said I think, therefore I am, the western world has looked at the body at a mechanical instrument, with the mind operating as its control tower. Modern biology is beginning to upend that idea with the advent of neuroscience and a more sophisticated observation of the body.

How beautiful are the feet. The ancient Chinese viewed every organ in the body as a kind of “brain”: the heart, lungs, liver, hands, feet, and so on, each have their own “computer,” as we might call it today. Each organ is the body in microcosm. The feet are an exact map of the body; the discipline called “reflexology” studies and applies this map to healing.  

If my head is not the control tower I thought it was, are there are new possibilities for helping my body to heal, energize, and resist disease?

Embodied Lord, help me to understand how to heal. Amen. 

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Back to the Body

Twenty years of back pain, and I am finally making progress. It is coming from an unexpected source: Chinese medicine.

To set the context: after this doctor and that specialist and this physical therapist and that umpteenth stretching regimen, my back still hurt. As in, stop everything and lay on the ground hurt. The ibuprofens and acetaminophens and other drugs worked little or not at all. 

The most troubling thing (besides the money spent on all of it) was the utter lack of answers. I saw the best of the best specialists, neurosurgeons, and therapists, and not one of them—over a twenty year period!—could offer me a real explanation for what was causing my problem. 

I finally got brave. I asked my doctor for a recommendation to an acupuncturist. (To his credit, he had one ready at hand!) After just a few visits, the effect was so palpable that I knew I must be on to something. That in turn has led me into further study and work in reflexology, acupressure, and herbal medicine. I am embarking on a whole new world of understanding about the human body.

Glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:20) Chinese medicine, as it turns out, is not so mystical or otherworldly. Rather just the opposite: it is deeply grounded in the body. Ignoring this tradition, have I denied God’s body the health it naturally wants to achieve?

Embodied Christ, open me to what my body is really saying. Amen. 

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http://acupressureonline.org/

Headache? Take a look at Aaron Stein's Acupressure Guide at the above link or Amazon. 

Using acupuncture and Chinese medicine, I am working on my asthma, healing from the immense dose of antibiotics I had to take because of Lyme, and a number of other issues in addition to my back. It is a very comprehensive system and can address depression, anxiety, sleep disorder, and a host of other chronic symptoms and diseases.

The simplest explanation for how acupuncture (and acupressure) works is that it sends a signal through the body's nervous system to increase blood flow to a certain area (such as the lungs or back). Blood flow is the only way the body has to heal itself, so increasing its flow will bring down inflammation, pain, and other symptomatic signs.

I will discuss more about acupuncture, the body's meridians, the mind-body connection, and other related concepts such as how foot reflexology works, in coming Minutes.

Open Door

Exploring a church recently, I came across a welcome poster with children’s drawings illustrating four quotes: “Open Door, Open Road, Open Table, Open Spirit.” I cannot think of a better way to present a church’s mission. And from the mouths of babes!

The repetition of the word “open” reinforces something quite easily lost upon churches: in my experience they are usually anything but. This is nothing new: Jesus’ chief confrontation is always with closed religious minds that say, “We understand doctrine. We control values. We will set the agenda for our religious culture.”

Unless you receive like a child….The best thing we can do is become like children again, open to the various diverse and other ways in which God works, ways wholly foreign to us, outside our understanding and control. Only then can the transcendent cosmic Christ be seen.

And he opened their minds. Jesus spoke to the people to open them up to another reality: see this water, it is now wine! See these loaves, they are enough for everyone! The mind-opening and truly mind-bending part of it is that Jesus is at the center of this reality, but not in a closed way. The cosmic Christ contains all things, all roads, all spirits, and is therefore not exclusive to any one of them. Everyone is invited to the wedding.

Open my mind, open my heart, open my spirit, open my path. Amen.

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Recommended: New Album by Yo Yo Ma and Chris Thile!

The Goat Rodeo Sessions

These musicians had to be remarkably open to a diversity of sound, style, and instrumentation: a good metaphor for humanity's need for more openness!  

Goat Rodeo video teaser

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Not being open to the (dangerous) reality of spirit, and instead trying to control it through the camera, causes huge problems for the characters in the delightfully scary Paranormal Activity films: 

Read more about this strange and ironic combination of denial and control at my film review blog: 

Deeper Film