Reclaiming Who We Are…to Find the Holy One

When I was in seminary, I spent a summer working in a mental hospital—it was part of my Clinical Training, or Clinical Pastoral Education as its called. And while I was there I learned something that those who work in this field know very well. That those who suffer from mental illness, often have a heightened understanding and sense of the religious.

In the time of Jesus mental illness was often characterized as possession—demonic possession. And when we read the story before us today we marvel at two things—first, how Jesus could change this man’s life so easily. Second, that there definitely was a heightened sense of the spiritual in this man. We marvel that he—long before the confession of Peter—knows who Jesus is. He knows Jesus is the holy one.

We live in an age where we have tried to separate the spiritual from the physical. And, silly movies about exorcisms aside, we look to the fact that what we once thought was possession can be controlled with medication as a reason to do so. But we have separated the physical and spiritual so completely that we fail to see that they are still related at the core. In our own society this has resulted in a tendency to think that what the body does has nothing to do with the health of the spirit (and vice versa). Much of society tends to act one way outside of the walls of church, and another way inside those walls.

For an example of this, take a look at what seems to be a dying art form in our time: soap operas—especially weddings in soap operas.

Now, I hate soap operas, but on a soap a person might marry the same person five or six times. They might fool their friends into thinking they are dead and then come back. People get in love triangles, quadrangles…yuck! But, get them into the church for a wedding, and suddenly everyone is spouting about God and Jesus as though their entire walk of life is a walk of faith. The result is eerily like a Kim Kardashian nuptial.

And I do think that this mirrors much of what goes on in our world today. Many people want to take the spiritual, put it into a neat little package and allow the rest world to go by as though the life of the spirit has little to do with it.

Hopefully those of us gathered here are gathered because we don’t want that happening to us. But when it’s happening all around you, it has its influence. It’s hard not to hear those voices that say, “Live the way you want, keep the spiritual stuff in church. The grace of God will pull you out in the end.”

And though I do feel that grace will pull us out (it had better pull us out) there is a much better way to live. A way that recognizes that, in reality, there much more connection between the spiritual and physical than there is separation.

How do we live lives that recognize the connection between these two vital elements of life? My answer might surprise you. Well, the first part won’t—love you neighbor, help others, pray, and worship. But the second part might: the second part of understanding the connection between the spiritual and physical I believe comes through participation in two things: play—that’s right, play, and the arts.

We often marvel how children are connected to God. Well, look at the lives we live as children. We engage in the arts. We cut, we color, we sing. But get the average person past high school and what happens? The opportunity to do those things decreases dramatically. I haven’t picked up a paintbrush to paint a picture in my adult life. (Believe me, this is not a loss to the art world.) But it is a loss. If you don’t believe that, sit down with your child, or grandchild, or someone else’s child sometime and color with them. Color with them and then consider the feelings that will stir inside—in your spirit.

This is certainly more of a problem for most men than women—at least you women have crafts, which are arts in their own right. But I think we often look down on the arts, and, from a religious perspective, it’s the role of the artist to lift us to the realm of God, to the realm of the great creator. When we hear something beautiful played by Mark on the organ, or a new song from the band, we are often transported into that realm. The role of the arts in the religious life—in life period, in terms of both experience and participation, cannot be overstated.

Like art, play is vital to understanding, to sensing the connection of the spiritual and physical. (Art, after all, is largely structured play.) And like art, we don’t think play is very important for adults, unless it’s on a golf course.

But if you don’t think play is important, consider this sad commentary on my own life. One of the happiest times of my adult life occurred about 7 years ago…and this joyous time was the thirty- five minutes I spent with my son on the soccer field, playing a game of parents vs. the kids. I had a ball, running around, pretending to be desperate to beat those little guys, sliding, laughing, pretending for a while that I wasn’t a forty something with a meeting to go to later. In those moments I felt close to my son, closed to the earth and close to God. And it didn’t cost me a dime—but it was also an experience I seldom have repeated.

Why do mentally ill people often have a heightened sense of the spiritual?  I think that part of the reason is society doesn’t make sense to them anymore. The rules and expectations of society have often ceased to hold meaning for them, and thus they begin searching for meaning. And every great search begins in the spirit.

Likewise I think we need to reclaim the things that allow us to forget about the walls society would build for us. Things that allow us to reconnect the spiritual and physical.
We need to embrace art, we need to embrace play, I can’t help you do that—how you do it, if you choose to listen to me, has to be up to you because it has to take a form you love. But if you don’t, if we don’t, we will have a much harder time understanding that the spirit is not something we can keep in our little just-for-church box, but rather something intimately connected to all that we do.

I do believe that much of what we call sin in this world comes from the frustration caused by the loss of the arts. I do believe that much of what we call sin in the world comes from centering ourselves on what people think of us, playing the role people want us to play while simultaneously refusing to express ourselves in play. I do believe that much of what we call sin comes from our refusal to recognize and express our entire being, and from failing to recognize that being is rooted in a playful creator God whose boundless imagination is beyond our comprehension.

I think we need to take the challenge to reclaim the arts, play, and, perhaps to sum it up, the child in us. Doing this, I believe, will awaken us to God’s all pervasive spirit. And, perhaps, make us a little more able to look at our savior and say…I know who you are. You are the holy one of God.