Uploading.

Labyrinth, movement 3

Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which He looks compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.

— St. Teresa of Ávila (attributed)

This is the third in a blog series prompted by my labyrinth video, and tracks the final movement: outward into the world. After having walked into the labyrinth (offloading), there is a pregnant pause in the center (downloading), and then there is the journey outward to re-engage the world from the place of spiritual abundance and healing. The ancient term for this phase is “union,” and I tipped my cards on that theme in the last post. I will call it uploading.

To upload a file, we send it from a small individual system up into the larger community. In a very real sense, we do not belong to ourselves; we belong to the whole. Both our human and divine potential depend upon our relationship to the human family, the planet, and to the One in whom “we live and move and have our being.” We withdraw periodically into solitude (as Jesus modeled) only to then bring forth our unique gift and offer it to the fellowship (as Jesus also modeled).

Our world, as the news daily reminds us, is a torn and fractured community—socially, politically, economically, and spiritually. And the news media itself serves to rend our community further, sowing fear and outrage in every broadcast. Truly, our world is in need of the healing of Christ in profound ways…and Christ shows up through your hands and mine. Your feet and mine, as Saint Teresa reminded us above.

Here’s the problem though: So many of those seeking social justice in our world today leap into the third movement of engagement without the requisite first and second movements of purgation and illumination. When that happens, they attempt to heal but carry the same spirit of anger and alienation that injured us to begin with. Their ministrations are marginalized at best and re-traumatizing at worst.

The world—yours and mine—begins next door: neighbors, co-workers, and colleagues. Despite all bolstered appearances to the contrary, they are “weary and worn out, like sheep without a shepherd” (Mt 9:36). We often feel that way ourselves, but part of our healing comes in pouring out healing upon others. The timeless truth that the labyrinth offers is the way to become wounded healers: first, we “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” Next, we “fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” And only then can we “run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Heb 12:1-2).

Whether you walk the labyrinth literally or metaphorically, I invite you to offload, download, and then upload your healing soul into the world as a healer. This is our great calling, all of us.

growing the soul

Don’t shortcut your inner work in your rush to heal the world.

serving the world

And don’t stop with inner work what is meant to show up as a healing force for others.

meditation

takeaway

Be healed, then heal.