Pain

We often don't like talking about pain, as it makes us uncomfortable, but pain gets worse the more we ignore it and the more we try to mask it. Think of a past physical injury. Did pretending nothing happened make it feel better? Did continuing to move the effected area as normal help recovery? Perhaps the old adage, "walk-it-off" helped? Too often we ignore pain as an inconvenience; we don't think of pain as our friend. Yet the truth about pain, that it is a guide to healthy recovery, goes un-promoted. Why? Because we'd rather not feel discomfort or be confronted with the truth: pain is a sign something is wrong.

How does pain signify wrongness? Let's consider the absence of pain. There is a degenerative disease of the nervous system that shuts down nerve receptivity. No reception from nerve endings means no pain, which means no feeling. No feeling means that people who have suffered from this disease have literally worked the fingers off their hands and the toes off their feet. Which is why leprosy was once believed to be a magical wasting disease that struck suddenly and without warning. And the only way to cure it was to cut off the affected appendages or limbs. Amputation is not the answer. Amputation was only the answer when an infected wound, which the affected person's body couldn't feel, became gangrenous. Which is a fancy way of saying part of the body was rotting while the rest of it was still alive. Anyone still want to go out for lunch?

Injuries are not rot, but unhealed injuries can be devastating. Crippling, even. Not just physically, but also emotionally. The physicians who overturned the magical diagnosis on leprosy did something unheard of, they didn't run away from their leprous patients, that is they didn't run out of fear of catching the disease. They sat down and studied the lives of their patients, and discovered that many of their wounds were overuse injuries that were never given the opportunity to heal. They discovered that fingers disappeared because open sores smell and rats like to eat smelly things. No pain means no feeling, even while being nibbled.

These grotesque images would surely be enough to convince a majority of people that its better to listen to our pain, then to ignore it completely. Or perhaps there aren't enough hungry rats in our lives to remind us to take better care of our bodies. But the rats we often see aren't the dirty and ferocious rodents we imagine slinking away in the dark. The rats many of us face are clean, well groomed and friendly. In other words the rats at our fingers are wearing us down with the promise of health, if we would work just a little harder for it. Or they tell us not to worry about it, take a couple of pills a day for the rest of our life and everything will be fine. We will be normal. Or they can take us away in a straight jacket and keep us away from society because they can't fix us.

Pain. It's a gift no one wants.

A gift that tells us when we're trying too hard. It tells us when we need to ease up on the reigns and relax a little bit. But too often we don't listen to this message. Instead we look for more stimulants, more masking additives that will keep us from focusing on the pain, but in the end make us cranky, irritable and completely oblivious to a beautiful morning sunrise. Many of us live with chronic pain, because we don't know what life would be like without it. Pain becomes apart of us, even as we try to get it away from us.

Jesus healed a man who lived in a cycle of constant pain:

"When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, 'What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don't torment me.' For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) Jesus then asked him, 'What is your name?' And he said, 'Legion,' for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. When the herdsman saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed."

The man in this story has deep problems. Problems no one in his community can solve. Problems so big that chains and guards can't sedate them. This man is crazy, by an ages description. He's so crazy he can come before Jesus and fall down at his feet, because no one is willing to try and stop him; they are all too afraid. Jesus doesn't pull back in horror of who this man is. Jesus could have easily jumped back in the boat and set sail without having to confront him. But instead Jesus steps out of the boat and into the man's world of darkness. A world of loneliness and failure. And where others have tried to set him free through chains, Jesus simply says a few words, and the demons depart from the man's mind. Clarity and health are restored, but the people of the city are afraid.

They would rather have a crazy man and a herd of pigs, than a restored man with no pigs. The pigs are the price of this man's sanity is not just a few words from Jesus. Its not that the pigs were a sacrifice. Pigs are not a sacrificial animal. But the pigs represent something wrong with the community of Jews. Jews don't eat pork. So why is there a herd of pigs near a Jewish city? Pigs are good for one thing, and one thing only. Eating. Somebody is eating something they're not supposed to, or taking advantage of an industry they are not supposed to be in.

Jesus didn't come across the lake to lecture the Jewish community about pork and pigs. He came to set a man free, and in the process he pointed out that something was wrong with their community. But the people don't want to be confronted with what's wrong, they were afraid of being judged. Which is a stark contrast to the man who has not moved away from Jesus feet. Despite all his flaws, lack of clothing, lack of friends and lack of just about everything, Jesus did not judge him. Jesus healed him. Jesus did not blame the man for his problems, Jesus set him free from them. When we fall down at Jesus feet, he does not condemn. He sets right. He heals. Not temporarily. Purely and fully.

It is the purity of Jesus that scares so many people. We'd rather cling to the pigs in our lives then let go and be free from the demons in our heads. Pain is a gift that tells us something is wrong. The man at Jesus feet was freed from his pain and restored to a healthy mind. Pain is not meant to be a state of being, its an indication something is wrong. It exists so we can be made whole. It exists so we can be healed.

Foundational Steps

The most difficult aspect of Tai Chi is the constant movement, even though most of the movements are slow. Each of the 108 short form postures is a series of flowing movements that continuously challenge balance, posture and body position. While there is always an opportunity to correct these foundations, I have often found myself one step behind; I've been slightly out of position and unable to explain why, even though I've been practicing these postures for more than a year. A few days ago I had an observational epiphany, which became a practical epiphany, and has strengthened my movements ever since. I was literally stepping with the wrong foot.

Since Tai Chi requires constant steps in various directions, movement isn't as simple as stepping with the left or the right. The angle of the step, the distance from one foot to the other, all play into the short form positions. Having spent most of my time focusing on angle and foot distance, I missed a core truth about Tai Chi movement. It's all about balance! Not balance as in achieving equality between right foot and left foot, but balance as in the ability to shift weight from one foot to the other while moving. This is incredibly easy to miss, especially if you have strong legs. The temptation with strength is to force the body into movement. Instead of flowing smoothly from posture to posture, from foot to foot, we end up flexing, holding and releasing; which is one step too many. There is a better, more efficient way.

Tai Chi is about emptying and filling. I empty one foot of weight and fill the other. I shift my weight into one leg, balance on that foot, move the other leg, then transfer my weight and balance on the foot I moved. This is extraordinarily simple! But I missed it because of all the distracting upper body motions. It's hard to think about our feet while thinking about our hands. So yes, it has taken me a year of practice to figure out how to correctly step and move my feet. It's not that I was putting my feet in the wrong positions, but I was stabilizing them incorrectly in those positions; I was not balanced. Balance is key to foundational movement. Not balance in the sense of equality, like balanced scales, but balance as the sense of emptying, filling and moving.

But how did I get to a place where I could think about my feet? How did I arrive at the conclusion that I was not moving the same way as the master? I didn't use mirrors to visually check my movements, rather I checked my difficulty of movement against his effortless flow; something had to be wrong, and I needed to figure out what it was.

Before I started thinking about balance, I started with posture, and I wasn't thinking about posture (spinal alignment) while practicing Tai Chi; I was thinking about it while weight lifting and doing boot camp. With my history of low back pain, stemming from a fallen arch in my left foot, I've learned a lot about strength and posture within the last three years. Foundationally, our body is a muscle. We can choose to strengthen it, prop it up, or do both. A healthy body does not need props, but a sick body does. A sick body needs external help, outside observations, and the occasional prop, to bring itself back into alignment. Once alignment is achieved, strength needs to be built in order for the body to maintain alignment. The health system I am most familiar with is all about external help and props, but it does not teach us how to be strong. And most of us don't ask, because building strength takes time. It's a slow activity; we'd rather do something else. We settle for someone else's advice and expertise, rather than digging into our foundational movements, comparing our movements to those who are healthy, and mirroring the movements of healthy people. I am for healthcare, as I have benefitted from healthcare providers, but there is a gap between those who rely on healthcare and those who are healthy. There will always be sick people in need of help, but we must own our bodies health or we will never be healthy. The study of posture has given me health. The practice of posture while lifting weights and moving quickly and diversely, has made me stronger and my health more secure. The greatest challenge of posture is to maintain alignment while moving. Building proper movement means slowing down, going at eighty percent, instead of one-hundred. At eighty percent we are still in conscious control of our bodies. At one-hundred percent we stop thinking, we just do. One-hundred percent is fun, but most of our injuries stem from going a hundred without the proper posture. We need to dial down our effort, take a little more time, take off a few weights and practice moving properly. It's not fun, and it almost feels like a waste of time, but it is worth the effort.

Achieving proper posture feels like this: doing multiple functional movements like running, squatting, dragging, pushing, jumping, planking and carrying. When we do these activities properly we feel it in our core muscles. Too often when exercising we do not engaging our abdominals, obliques, or spinal erectors in a way that functionally supports our movement. As we learn to engage these core muscles in our activity, our core muscles feel the burn; the idea of doing abs afterward sounds absurd, because our core muscles were already engaged and working. Proper functional movement engages the core and supports the spine. It doesn't cause pain, it eliminates pain. Which leads us to our last foundations: body position.

Exercising for an hour is only four percent of our day. The other ninety-six percent, how we position our bodies, plays a larger role in determining our health. How we walk, sit, sleep, what we wear on our feet impacts our posture and our balance. It's not enough to devote an hour of mindful exercise each day, we need to mindfully consider our environments. Are our habits supporting our health? Or are they taking away from the health we're trying to build? For example, I love taking naps. My favorite place to nap was a rug on my living room floor. Around a time I was taking more naps, I discovered my lower back was hurting more and more. More pain meant more naps, since I fully believe in resting sore muscles. Instead of getting better I got worse. One day I woke up from the floor and my lower back felt noticeably worse. I cut floor napping out. Soon my back started feeling better, and everything returned to normal. As a result I take less naps and have more time in my day. How we position and support our body matters, exercise isn't always the answer. How we position our bodies throughout the day, even while sleeping, impacts our overall health.

The most difficult aspect of healthy Christianity is the constant movement. Living and breathing Christianity requires observation, mindful movement, balance, proper alignment and good body position. Unhealthy Christianity requires no movement, no pondering, no risks. In other words, it is dead, because dead things don't move. Dead Christianity lives, because their are Christians who choose to lead dead lives. Our experience of Christians depends on whether they choose to live or be dead: to be healthy or unhealthy. To discover their own health and take charge of it, or to rely on props provided by others. Foundationally, Christians are supposed to move and be healthy, because they mirror their God.

The first description of God can be found in the opening words of the Bible, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters." The Spirit of God, literally the breath of God, not only describes God as alive, but also moving, 'hovering over the face of the waters." The image here is one of an eagle riding a warm breeze. In all of the Bible, the LORD God is never described as stagnant, even when His Spirit rested on the Temple Solomon built. "a cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD." God filled his house, the cloud is how he led the Israelites out of Egypt and to the Promised Land. God returned in the cloud after they established themselves as a people. It was His way of showing His people that He was still alive and active among them.

Fast forward a few hundred years, and several wicked kings, and the LORD is no longer pleased with His people. He's not pleased with the stagnant religion that's deadened the hearts of the followers who are called by His name. Even so, listen to how God deals with his people, "The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose against his people, until there was no remedy." God gives his people every chance to rebuild, to pursue health, until the very last moment. He keeps inviting them away and warning them of the path they are on, until it is too late:
"Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged... And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels." At this point, God had already left the Temple; it was only a mass of religious-looking rocks. Even so, if we keep reading until the end of Second Chronicles we find hope, that even though God destroyed the place where people practiced in his name, he wasn't done with his people, "the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout his kingdom and also put it in writing, 'The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the LORD his God be with him. Let him go up.' "

The final note of Second Chronicles is not one of anger and wrath, but of a chance at new life. That even what was deformed and dysfunctional can be renewed. Even though it seems like God is dead, because his people live dead lives or have all passed away, it isn't so. God is not tied to a building, He moves and breathes, even when we can't see him move or feel his breath. God is alive. He wants us to have life. He wants us to be healthy. He extends hands out to us to consider his ways, to live his movements, to learn how to shift our weight and stay in constant motion, even when it feels like we're moving very slowly and making no progress. It is in these moments that God is remaking us anew. He's stripping us of our bad habits, unhealthy environments and teaching us how to live again. This is the foundation God wants to build in us, even though its tiring and frustrating, it is the way of a healthy life. God's desire for us is to live healthy; its why his healthy followers are patiently persistent.

Striking

A few days ago a friend described me as a boxer and football player, and then remarked about my peaceful disposition. In his few short words, he expressed that boxers and football players are not often calm and peaceful. They are often thought of as forceful, emotional and quick tempered: personality traits he did not associate with me. Such a contrast creates a paradox, a sense of enigma, for it is not often we find our views of this world conflicting with the reality of others lives. His unspoken question, "how can a peaceful person partake of violent sports," went unanswered. As I reflect on his question, I do not have a simple answer. Love. Like I said, not simple.

I do not love violence, but I love moving. I love striking. There is something thrilling in the execution of a solid punch, or the crack of a precise tackle. There is something glorious in a solid defense. Either the duck and dodge, evading incoming blows, or the hands of an offense player keeping his teammate safe. There is nothing wrong in these movements. But occasionally there is something wrong in how they are carried out. I have vivid memories of a few times I have felt anger in the hands of teammates. It is one thing to know an opponent dislikes you, that is to be expected, but it is another to feel the anger of a teammate in his hands as he strikes you. It's a disgusting feeling. An enraging feeling. And rage is anger out of check.

Why is anger and rage a part of sport? Why is it that we associate these emotions with sports, even those that do not strike? Often the first emotion I see when I see a team start losing is rage. Someone breaks out in an angry shout. Equipment gets thrown. Cursing follows. Why? Why is it that defeat is visible, tangible and irrational? Does anger make us any stronger? It may cause a momentary adrenaline rush, but the rush fades, and it fogs our minds. Adrenaline, like any drug, takes stronger doses to get the same feeling, unless the body is given time to recover. If adrenaline use, for the purpose of fueling ourselves with anger, is left unchecked, we toe a line that can make adrenaline our only competitive savior: the only way we can summon the energy to win. Should we consistently behave this way, there is an emotional price to be paid.

I do not relish striking with anger. As such I try to avoid striking with rage or malice in my heart. Occasionally I do, but I do not wish for anger to become the source of my strength. Anger is a quick burning fuel; when it burns it consumes more than just energy, it takes a little bit of our calm, peace and love with it too. It becomes hard to focus on these things while we are angry. Anger is not sin, but it is an open doorway to dangerous and costly actions; we simply stop thinking about what we do and the consequences involved. I love striking, but I do not strike out of anger. I strike as a way of focusing my body into a precise movement that takes all of my attention, all of my being. I strike with purpose and care, not swinging wildly like a brawler or frightened school child. Striking precisely with my hands, shoulders and feet helps me strike precisely with my mind. And occasionally I practice striking at very slow speeds so that I can learn how to properly land a quick movement.

Did Jesus ever strike with such care? Did he ever strike so fast and precisely that he left his opponents wondering what happened? Did he slowly practice his striking, preparing for the day when he would talk action? Yes, he did:
"And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, 'Is it not written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?" But you have made it a den of robbers.' And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him,"

Let me explain this with a western edge: Jesus forced the cheats and liars out of the temple. He flipped over the carts and kiosks of the con-men who were taking advantage of the pious poor. He stopped people from making the temple a means to an end. He stopped people from walking over the temple because they were too lazy to walk around it. He openly accused those in authority of their purposeful misuse and abuse of his Father's house. He accused them of closing the temple towards outsiders. He accused them of creating an in-crowd. He accused them while they were watching. That day he openly confronted their thieving. The crowd listened to his words, and all the while the authorities sat back in the shadows afraid to confront him in the open. Jesus struck openly, intently, with a ferocious sense of indignation flowing from the love of his Father's house, and the people who should have been safe within it's walls. Jesus is a precise striker.

Jesus actions in the temple do not bear the mark of a man driven by anger or rage. Although they appear to be his dominant emotions. Jesus is in complete control of himself, even though this tale is full of violent imagery. Jesus had a stronger motivation, a motivation that would take him far beyond clearing the temple. His last week in Jerusalem, he confronts the religious authorities. He exposes their reliance on man-made laws, tells stories about unfaithful and corrupt tenants, he attacks their false doctrines and puts a spotlight on their filthy lives. He expertly disarms every faction of the religious authorities, by showing how little they know about their God, and the public cheers for him! This is why the authorities decided to kill him.

 His motivation is what I strive for when I strike. An action that has a greater and more significant purpose. The action is more complex than the visual. Jesus is still a man of peace, even though he lands crippling blows of criticism. Jesus is still be a man motivated by love, even when he looks angry and out of his mind. Jesus, who we often make out to be a simple quiet man, is very complex. To understand him as a person, one has to study how, when and why he strikes.

Jesus is not simple. As we come to understand his motivation, we come to understand his complex and puzzling movements; we begin to understand his mission. Jesus occasionally appears as a contradiction to his own cause; that is only because we don't understand how he strikes.

Movement

The body is made to move within it's range of motion. A motion's duration depends on how stacked a body is. Stacked, meaning how the body functions as a whole. For example, flipping a 300kg tire requires the upper body to lock-out while the lower body does the majority of the lifting. Any break in the tension between the hands gripping the tire, the elbows, shoulders and chest position cause the tire to become an immovable object. No matter how large the lifters physique, moving the tire requires proper alignment. Proper alignment is hard; dysfunctional alignment is much easier.

Dysfunctional alignment is simple, part of the body compensates for another part that is injured or misaligned. Dysfunctional alignment works for a time. The duration of its function depends on how big the dysfunction is. Small dysfunctions, which can be easily corrected if caught early, usually result in little discomfort. But the longer a small dysfunction takes place, the greater change it has to become a bigger dysfunction. That's the law of compensation. Once compensation begins, it has to be confronted before it will change; there has to be a will and a knowledge of what and how to change.

Most of the time, we are only aware of a dysfunction once it becomes painful. Small dysfunctions can be lived with because we don't often push ourselves to our limits; we like to stay within our comfortable boundaries, but outside our boundaries we discover truth. We test our knowledge of movement, to see if our constructed theories function in the real world. The truth about our theories? If they are stacked on fundamental truth and properly aligned, they will hold. If they are not, then our dysfunctions will surface. Pain, or lack thereof, is a good indicator of proper alignment.

Yet as we talk about the physical, the social world doesn't always adhere to proper alignment. Often times it follows the law of compensation, letting things get worse and worse while not address the underlying dysfunction; sometimes we prefer to numb our pain rather than let it heal properly.

When I think about the market for physical pain killers, I shake my head in disbelief. There is a time and a place for pain relief. But there is no such thing as vitamin A, T or I (Aleve, Advil, Tylenol or Ibuprofen) These pain relievers may help to reduce swelling, but taking them everyday is not the answer to pain. They simply let the pain get worse while we refuse to deal with the source.

So what is the source of our pain? Why do we push our bodies into dysfunction and misalignment? Sometimes it is unintentional, other times it is pursuit of the cure. Other times its in pursuit of money, or a relationship, an opportunity to win or get ahead of the competition. But are these movements, and are these actions justified?

If we look at history, we can point to times and places where dysfunction replaced health. It's usually toward the end of a people's existence; the end of their way of moving. Dysfunction always leads to the brink of annihilation. But before it goes, it often makes a final desperate attack on health. What happens when the healthy are pursued and struck down by dysfunction? What happens when dysfunction becomes the accepted norm?

King David lived in such times. Here is how he faced them; he cried out to God for deliverance.

Hear my prayer, O LORD;
give ear to my supplications in your faithfulness;
answer me in your righteousness.
Do not enter into judgment with your servant,
for no one living is righteous before you.

For the enemy has pursued me,
crushing my life to the ground,
making me sit in darkness like those long dead.
Therefore my spirit(breath) faints within me;
my heart within me is appalled.

I remember days of old,
I think about your deeds,
I meditate on the works of your hands.
I stretch out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.

Answer me quickly, O LORD
 my spirit(breath) fails.
Do not hide your face from me,
or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.
Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning,
for in you I put my trust.
Teach me the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.

Save me, O LORD, from my enemies;
I have fled to you for refuge.
Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God.
Let your good spirit lead me on a level path.

For your name's sake, O LORD, preserve my life.
In your righteousness bring me out of trouble.
In your steadfast love cut off my enemies, and destroy all my adversaries,
for I am your servant.


What I like about David's prayer, he doesn't base his plea on his own personal proper alignment. Instead he prays to be properly aligned, while those who are not (those who are pursuing him) to be brought to their end. David prays because God is aligned and fundamentally stacked on truth, and it is David's trust in God on which he bases his hope that the dysfunctional will not overtake him, but that instead their dysfunctions take their final course, so that health can be restored.