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SUMMARY:Embodying Spirituality
DESCRIPTION:  Why is it that we as Christians struggle so much with our bodies? Why is it so challenging for people of faith to integrate our bodies with our hearts\, minds\, and spirits? What makes us uncomfortable about our bodies and why do we separate off our bodies from our experience of faith?\nAs many of us did\, I grew up in a social and religious culture that at best ignored the body and at worst taught that the body was bad and to be overcome. I learned that our bodies were not to be trusted and must be controlled because they were the source of “fleshly desires” which were to be avoided. Living a life of faith was to strive for spiritual wholeness and that was the antithesis of embodiment.\nIn retrospect these teachings strike me as curious given that a central tenet of our faith is the incarnation – the enfleshment of God in the body of Jesus. In addition\, each time we gather as a church to share communion\, we offer to one another in the bread and cup the body and blood of Christ. And in the partaking of this meal we manifest the body of Christ today\, the beloved community of faith in our world.\nThis disconnect between clear Christian language of embodiment and the faith expression that denies and denigrates the body that many of us have experienced has led me to explore what it means to live an embodied spirituality.\nFolks in the Alliance are engaging these same questions and are discovering methods and practices that integrate the body\, mind\, heart\, and spirit into a holistic Christian faith. I have heard the stories of many Alliance people who are seeking this body integration by engaging in such practices as yoga\, Reiki\, Feldenkrais\, Rosen work\, labyrinth walks\, pilgrimages\, biospiritual focusing\, and massage. There is a hungering for spiritual experiences that bring the body back into the life of faith\, integrated with mind\, heart\, and spirit in a desire for wholeness. There is a longing to reclaim an embodied Christian faith that is reflective of our central metaphor of incarnation.\nIn response to this hunger for an embodied faith\, we are pleased that Cynthia Winton-Henry will be one of our worship and spiritual practice session leaders at the Convocation this summer in Pacific Grove\, California. Cynthia along with Phil Porter founded InterPlay more than 20 years ago as an active and creative way to unlock the wisdom of the body. Using the tools of movement and stories\, silence and song\, ease and amusement\, InterPlay invites individuals and communities not only to play – which we serious adults need so much – but also to listen attentively to the wisdom of our bodies\, wisdom that is far greater than that of our minds. Cynthia will guide us to gently and playfully attend to our bodies as spiritual practice in order to deepen our relationship with God.\nIn my own spiritual practices of embodiment I continue to learn that as people created in the image of God we can trust our bodies and our body wisdom. As incarnational people\, God is revealed to us through our bodies in the same way God is present in our thoughts\, feelings\, interactions\, and desires. As we seek to live a more embodied Christian faith\, one question remains\: How might God be present to us in ways previously unimaginable as we notice and heed our body wisdom?\n
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