Soul

 

The night before Jesus died He washed the feet of his disciples. At the time this action was seen as a hugely humbling gesture. Feet are intimate, they are sweaty, dusty, our very human connection to the earth upon which we walk. Knowing what we know now about feet and their connection to the rest of our bodies, and our souls, I feel this humble act that Jesus performed for his beloved friends must have been a far more intense spiritual experience than we initially make it out to be. He wasn't just cleaning the dusty roads off their feet, he was cleaning their souls.  

Jesus would have connected to his disciples in a way that would have told him everything he needed to know about them, of this I am certain. He would have known who was tired, overwhelmed, battling with digestion, anxious, who had betrayed him. The stories of his friends would have been written on their soles, and souls. I suspect that Jesus would have gone to the part of the foot connected to the solar plexus of each disciple and I can only imagine the outpouring of emotion that would have sprung forth from each one of them. 

I know this because I have a friend who does this for me. When my world has been upside down, when my hearing loss is overwhelming, when my womb is hurting from the memory of childbirth, when the acid in my system is too much, when my soul is battered, Lauren knows. She knows when I don't know. She knows what makes me weep before I do. She also knows when I am at peace. She knows because she has Jesus's gift with feet. She can chronicle the stories of human beings through the narratives we leave in our soles. Today people would call her a gifted reflexologist, but those who have been treated by her all call her one thing - healer. 

Something happens when one person heals another person, like the intricate sinews and ligaments and systems that link the foot to the rest of the body, so too do we remain linked to the person who has healed us. They become a part of us, of our story. Just as Jesus heals us and becomes a part of who we are, so too can we do that for each other. 

Just over a week ago I felt a deep punch in my solar plexus. The feeling is hard to describe. Breathless, panicked, I suppose it gives meaning to the description 'gut wrenching'. I had to sit down. And then I got the call. My healer has been broken. And so has her beloved Andrew. And their whole world has fractured. Nothing is the same anymore. 

The miles that separated me from them in that moment disappeared. In that moment I was there. I was connected. The sinews stretched across the globe as all those who have been healed by Lauren and Andrew gathered invisibly around them and wept. They will not have seen us, or heard us, but they must know that we were there, and we continue to be there. They must know that at any time of day or night someone is gently soothing the parts of their souls that are torn and so painfully damaged. They must know that although their grief is so private we will sit in the dark spaces with them. We will reflect the light of who they are to us back onto them. 

The night before Jesus died he connected to his beloveds in a way that they would always be connected to him - in life and death. He knew that he would not be able to protect them from the very human experiences of death and grief and agony and darkness. But he knew in washing their feet, in cleansing the dusty world from their beings, in touching intimately the parts of themselves that needed healing he would assure them that he would always remain connected to them, that in life and death love will always remain and will always prevail. 

Lauren and Andrew and Gray and Harri your connections to each other have been stretched so painfully across two realities. The physical agony of ligaments pulling across this world into the next are unbearable. But they are there. Nothing will ever ever sever them. And a time will come when your souls will be restored, reunited and healed. This is the one certainty we have. 

Until then please know that because you have loved and have healed, those who you have loved and healed will never stop reminding you that you are part of a great, interconnected system of souls, both here, and in heaven. Please imagine in the dark times to come that we are humbly sitting at your feet, cradling your soles in our hands, praying for healing.