When I was nine-years-old, my cousin and I went swimming on a hot summer day in Manila, Philippines. Upon returning from an invigorating swim, I noticed the sun had touched my skin and left a darker tone on my complexion. I did not give this change of color that much attention; in fact, I carried a sense of pride bearing the sun marks on my shoulders. I never thought of it much until the people around me did. Friends and family members would say, “Hala, Gabes! Ang itim mo na!” (“Oh no, Gabes! Your skin got so much darker!”), “Gabes, did you even put sunscreen lotion on? Look what happened now.” A friend of my cousin’s even hugged me apologetically and with deep sympathy, as if getting darker skin was the worst thing in the world. But what she did not know was that the loss was not in the change of complexion. This was the time when my younger self began to rethink her relationship with swimming—that perhaps she should refrain from the water for now.

In the Philippines, there is an implicit and pervasive understanding of what it means to be beautiful, and this underlying notion has carried on for centuries. The ideal image of beauty is to appear more white: to have caucasian features and lighter skin. I’d hear stories about parents who used wooden laundry clips on their kids’ noses to reshape the flat and broad cartilage into a bridged form., Filipinos with darker skin tone and a flat nose would get bullied and teased by others for their natural looks.

In my work at ÌìĂÀÊÓÆ”, I have researched and processed how this stigma stems from my country’s history of oppression and that there are numerous types of oppressive forces and scripts around body image that have already been shaping social and cultural contexts which, frankly, are forces and scripts that seem more familiar to us than they are oppressive.

The in society and media, especially the realms of fitness, clothing, advertising, and film, have taught us to hate our bodies. They capitalize on our self-esteem, our body hatred, and our fear of not being pursued, accepted, and loved for their own economic and societal advantage. But as much as there is urgency in exposing and challenging these self-loathing ideologies and systems that magnify the so-called standard for beauty, we must be awakened by our own unconscious tendencies that replicate and reinforce such scripts and ideas which continue to dismiss and think less of ourselves and others based on how we look or not look. We see these ideas in the minor and seemingly ‘normal’ details of how we compliment our friends who lost weight, exchange dieting tips that subconsciously inflict fatphobia, give our lingering attention to people who resemble television models, stereotype marginalized bodies, and in my case, praise the white body and reject the natural parts of being a Filipina.

I know that our world is changing and is reckoning with these issues and stories, but have we examined our own part in holding an inhospitable and discriminatory system together? Have we paid attention to our vernacular and our assumptions of what our own standards of beauty look like? When we think of ‘beauty,’ is it more automatic for us to think about someone or something else other than us? Have I, as part of the marginalized group, made the efforts to reclaim who I am in my body as an act of defiance against the social stigma? Have I returned to the sun and the water – the natural friends to my brown, islander body? Have I befriended them again, as it chooses to nourish and replenish me in my full self? Will I let it hold me again?

Resources to Go Deeper:

, Sabrina Strings

The post A Response to the Oppressive, ‘Standardized’ Image of Beauty appeared first on ÌìĂÀÊÓÆ” of Theology & Psychology.

Earlier this year, two summer-term classes took ÌìĂÀÊÓÆ” students beyond our walls (and beyond Seattle). In Engaging Global Partnerships, Dr. Ron Ruthruff, Associate Professor of Theology & Culture, and Cheryl Goodwin, Director of Institutional Assessment & Library Services, led a group of students to Kenya, inviting them to let their assumptions, beliefs, and practices be challenged and clarified by the stories of a place and the people who serve it. That same month, spiritual director and pilgrimage guide (MA in Theology & Culture, ‘12) and spiritual director and retired faculty member Tom Cashman journeyed to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona to guide students through a pilgrimage grounded in the ancient Christian tradition of desert spirituality.

Engaging Global Partnerships in Kenya

“We’re taking a deep look at the history of colonialism and religion, and the relationship between a place and the people who inhabit it—especially in places of wounding. How can we enter those wounds in a way that is honoring to others’ stories and also helps us reimagine our shared future?”
–Dr. Ron Ruthruff

Pilgrimage to the Sonoran Desert

“During our time in the desert, we explored the ancient Christian tradition of desert spirituality with an emphasis on the apophatic way and the contemplative path. The word apophatic means ‘without image,’ and during our time in the desert we sought to abandon our expectations and preconceived notions of God through themes such as awareness, inviting us to non-dual consciousness; surrender, inviting us toward a posture of kenosis or self-emptying; and encounter, inviting us to be present to the desert, the Divine, and ourselves with loving indifference or non-attachment. Ultimately, the fierce landscape of the desert served as teacher and guide on our journey, teaching us how to tend to and be with the sacred and fierce landscape of the soul within.”
–Lacy Clark Ellman

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When Heather received her cancer diagnosis, she knew this was not a road that she could walk alone. So, somewhat on a whim, she got a Wonder Woman costume to match her daughter’s Halloween costume, and she wore it to her first day of chemotherapy. A friend, Bridget Beth Collins ( on Instagram), created a plant-based portrait of Wonder Woman for Heather, and #chemowonderwoman was born.

Soon, Heather’s friends and family were spreading the word and wearing Wonder Woman shirts in support, along with teachers from her kids’ school and strangers from around the country—Heather shares in particular about a grandmother in Ohio who prays for Heather every day even though they have never met. Even Gal Gadot, star of the hit Wonder Woman film, for Heather.

“I just felt really carried, I felt really held by hundreds of people I’ve never met.”

Heather tells Shauna that while she was grateful her journey could inspire and encourage so many people, she also launched out of her own need for support. “I need people alongside of me, to cheer for me, to be with me in this,” she says. “I can’t do this alone. I can’t do this even with just my small family tribe. I really need to, in some ways, open myself up to receive more help. I need connection and care.” In that spirit, her friends told her, “You’ve got this. We’ve got you.” It’s a truth that flies in the face of our cultural “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality: We need each other.

Shauna: “You allowed us all to experience something of your beauty in the midst of this seemingly daunting race—the way that you’re able to go after the experience of suffering with such play is profound to me.”

Shauna shares that she can feel joy in her body, almost to an unfamiliar degree, when she’s with Heather, when she witnesses Heather’s “come with me” posture that is vulnerable, courageous, and infectious. Heather reflects on the intentional choice to hold onto her hope in beauty and goodness, even in the midst of darkness—not in denial of the darkness, but in defiance of it. She shares how that posture is informed by the world around her, including the beautifully stubborn life in her garden, and by her eschatological hope in a new heaven and new earth.

Heather: “Our body wants to heal. I really, really believe that, even more strongly after all this treatment than I did before. I talk about that as a gardener too: the plants are on your side, they want to live.”

Shauna: “I feel like the hope isn’t just optimism. It’s rooted in your theological framework, but it’s also rooted in your trust of creation—the plants want to grow, your body wants to heal. There’s this sort of rooted hope and trust in the evidence of life always moving toward goodness or growth or healing or wholeness.”

Heather: “It doesn’t mean that I believe with an optimism that every single story ends in healing and being alive here until you’re 95. That’s what I want my story to be, and I want that for everyone, and yet also knowing that we don’t have a guarantee of that. But we do have a guarantee that God is good, and that he has created us, and he has made us for more than we realize.”

Heather shares how, at the time of this recording, there was no longer any evidence of cancer in her body. The journey of healing now offered a new challenge: The sprint for survival was over, and now she was facing the marathon of the rest of her life—the hard work of emotional healing after being so close to the experience of human fragility and finitude.

“I’m going to have to suffer through being faithful here on this broken and beautiful earth.”

Heather: “That’s what it means to be vulnerable. This is what it means to be human. I’m going to sit with that, and I’m going to accept that God, in all his goodness, is with me in the middle of the vulnerability, in the middle of when it’s scary, in the middle of when you feel blindsided by something.”

Resources to Go Deeper

• You can follow the next chapters of Heather’s journey on Instagram —keep an eye on , too!
• Shauna mentions that this conversation reminds her of the work of writer Annie Dillard. For a hauntingly beautiful example of Dillard’s writing about how the chaos of nature confronts us with the deepest parts of ourselves, check out her 1982 essay
• Parts of this conversation bring to mind the work of artist Makoto Fujimura, who wrestles with the role of beauty in the wake of tragedy and destruction. We’d especially recommend his inspired by Shusaku Endo’s book of the same name, and his , which “reflects my journey with T.S. Eliot, and Dante, to recover my imaginative vision during the aftermath of 9/11/2001, living in ground zero, New York City.”
• At the end of this episode, Kate Fontana, a Master of Divinity student, shares her poem “An Imbolc Call.” This poem is part of the latest issue of LIT, a student-run literary magazine that gets published here at ÌìĂÀÊÓÆ”. You can read the full issue at .

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So the question arises: What next? Besides celebrating with loved ones (and maybe taking a nap), how do you mark the end of such a significant chapter and begin transitioning toward whatever’s ahead? We shared that question—What should I do after graduation?—with our alumni community, asking for advice, stories, and resources. Here are some of their answers:

Explore

• “After I graduated I gave myself two full months to live life before I started looking for a job. I road tripped and camped through Crater Lake, Grand Tetons, and Rocky Mountain National Parks for about two weeks and then traveled to Rome, Morocco, and Los Angeles. I did all of this because I wanted to revisit some significant places in my story and have a new adventure to reclaim the part of myself I set down as school took up so much time and space. I’m forever grateful I was able to do these things so I could get centered again, remember that the world is big and beautiful and full of possibility, and take that stance/mindset to step into my professional role as a therapist.” –Krystina Ptasinski (MA in Counseling Psychology, ’16)
• “After graduation, I went on a pilgrimage to Norway—a decision prompted by several classes I’d taken, including Multicultural Perspectives and Celtic Spirituality. My pilgrimage was to explore the (primary) land of my ethnic/ancestral roots. I knew that I had family scattered about Norway—not many contacts, but enough info to risk going.” –Eric Nicolaysen (Master of Divinity, ’12)

Center

• “Two things that were helpful for me: 1) Go to the doctor and get a full physical. Grad school can be stressful, and stress is tough on your body. Get a full picture of your physical health and make some plans to recover. 2) Take a lot of naps over the next few months. You have probably lost a lot of sleep over the last few years, and graduation in and of itself is wonderfully exhausting. Get some rest!” –Ashley Wright (MACP, ’16)
• “I think everybody should join me on a . Let’s get out of the city, inhale the ridiculous beauty of the Pacific Northwest, gain healing wisdom from Mother Earth, and reconnect with our own inner, still voices.” –Michelle Allen (MACP, ’14)

Read?

• “This one probably seems preposterous, since right now some of you might feel like you never want to look at a book again. But the summer after graduation, I listened to of the entire Harry Potter series (yes, audiobooks count) and it was exactly what I needed—a sweeping, fantastic story that managed to transcend my day-to-day life while still helping me feel more closely connected to the world around me.” –Beau Denton (MACP, ‘17)
• If you’re looking for summer reading ideas, check out these faculty recommendations for incoming students on the Matriculate blog. Because every ending is really another beginning, right?

Whether you’re graduating next week or just looking forward to a couple months without classes, we hope the summer ahead is full of rest, connection, and the opportunity to grow more deeply into yourself. And in the meantime, we’d love to see you at Commencement next Saturday—either in person at Town Hall or , where we’ll be streaming the whole ceremony live.

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“
and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)

Earlier this spring, my family and I came across a(n) (un)welcome surprise: We had joined forces with a tree that hid our home from others, but also from ourselves. What’s more, like this hiding tree, we realized we had each been hiding from each other, and also from the world around us. And it was by the wounds of this (tree) friend that we were healed. Let me explain.

My wife had been suggesting that we cut the tree down for any number of years, but I hadn’t been open to the idea. She knew she’d need to keep peppering me with this suggestion, until one day I would bend. I did, and welcome to our relationship.

It turns out the real estate agent who sold us our house back in 2009 had made a similar suggestion fairly immediately upon seeing our house for the first time. You see, our house was depressed when we bought it. It had held the energies of what sounded like a pretty brutal divorce, and it came onto the market mid-depressive episode. It would take lots of cans of paint, new carpet, and a series of house blessings from a team of pastors to clear the air in our home. Those dark, depressive energies seemed to be fairly deeply rooted, not unlike our hiding tree.

Our hiding tree was a Japanese maple, and alongside of the tree that stood beside it, this tree had kept our house from being fully seen from top to bottom. We live in a split-level home, which is fairly boxy, and this hiding tree contributed to the apparent plainness of our home’s curb appeal. So these suggestions to take down the tree had everything to do with aesthetics: Our house would be more visible and would appear less overgrown if we allowed it to be better seen. The beauty of this hiding tree had become a source of its contribution to the concealment of (or in) our home.

My wife and I are both therapists, and when we got together, we had a lot of learning to do in terms of the art and skill of vulnerable living. I came to our relationship loaded with theories that could cover insecurities, vulnerabilities, and frailties. My ability to theorize is actually a thing of beauty and something that contributes to my calling(s) in life, both as teacher and as a healer, but my ability to theorize is also a beauty I’ve hidden behind, often concealing the life that twists and turns within me.

“My ability to theorize is also a beauty I’ve hidden behind, often concealing the life that twists and turns within me.”

But back to the felling of this tree: It was a Sunday morning, and our family had chosen to stay home and get some housework done, rather than going to church. What we didn’t know was that “church” would be coming to us that morning. I started to cut some of the smaller branches of the tree: the ones that were fairly high up but also within reach from the ground. The cut limbs began to weep. The water that had coursed through their veins now poured out onto the ground with surprising haste. I began to feel the pain I imagined this tree was experiencing, as I cut and as it was cut. My own body started to ache as I pressed on in my work, soon realizing that this tree and me were in a deeply spiritual contact with one another.

Soon I called my wife and our three boys over to the area where the tree had once stood, and I spoke with resonance to the life and pending death of this tree, and to how it had clearly served as a vestige of pain and hiding: a legacy of the house that was our house before it became our home. Maybe the irony of this service was that, by all appearances, the tree in and of itself was beautiful.

Ever since, I’ve been working with this experience turned memory. That spring Sunday in March our family, to a person, each spoke to the ways we felt freer as a result of the ritual we spontaneously created as we brought the hiding tree down. We each confessed to each other, and to the more-than-human world around us, how we had joined with the tree in our respective hidings: We were each able to articulate ways we used “things,” maybe even things that looked good (e.g. for me, a busy schedule), to keep us from more stark exposure to each other, and to the world that awaits and calls us by name.

Typing these words I’m quickly reminded of what I learned when I came to ÌìĂÀÊÓÆ” (then Mars Hill Graduate School) as a Master of Divinity student in 2002: I had used the beauty of a strong intellect (remember that theorizing my wife referenced?) and my intensity as an “8” on the Enneagram (too much is just about enough for me) to become quite technically proficient at practicing and teaching the life and work of a therapist, all the while hiding myself from myself and also from the world around me.

I’m currently listening to a book on tape entitled , by psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb. The book follows multiple therapy patients, including the life that Gottlieb has lived as a patient herself. In talking about what separates more senior clinicians from those that are proverbially greener, Gottlieb notes that one has to be willing to be the same person, the same “self,” both inside and outside of the therapy office, in order to set oneself apart as more senior or advanced in the work. In other words, if I put on the garb of therapist and I use such a costume to distance myself and my clients from my own human experiences and vulnerabilities, then the work of therapy (and probably best said the therapeutic relationship) will not progress in the same way it would if I felt freer to be me across time, space, and frame.

In my listening, as I move back and forth between my use of the word “client” and Gottlieb’s use of the word “patient,” I am reminded that the Latin root of the latter is the word patiens, which means “to suffer.” So a therapist treats “one who suffers.” But a therapist being true to all of who they are means that they are patiens, ones who suffer, as well. The version of me that came to seminary was acquainted with grief and suffering, but of the ilk of serving others who were supposedly experiencing it differently (more profoundly) than I. It was only in being cracked open by my practicum (Listening Lab), personal counseling, and other extra-curricular experiences that I came to believe that being a co-traveler (ala Irvin Yalom) would be the only path to shared healing.

In April, Meg Wheatley, renowned organizational psychologist and author of , came to campus and put a call out for “human human beings” who could serve as “islands of sanity” for each other in an age that calls for “warriors of the human spirit.” Meg spoke to how the ever-present need for belonging can twist and turn its way into lots of unhealthy human behaviors and interactions.

One way such a downgrading happens is when a person decides to take on a role as a way of limiting their exposure to the interconnectedness of all things. Gregory Bateson, a systems-thinker and major player in the establishment of the field of cybernetics, called roles a “half-assed relationship,” in that surrendering one’s interconnectedness to the discreteness of a role allows and results in half-assed living for the role-bearer. This is often the way of it for many who find themselves in helping roles, healing capacities, and/or positions of spiritual authority: Their roles become their identities, their identities become half-assed, and they function as other/less than human humans (a nod to social identity theory).

If this month’s blog posts are about nurturing and formation, it wouldn’t take a far reach to claim that positions of leadership (including the pastorate, helping, and healing professions) often stifle those very things (nurturance and formation) in the people who serve in such posts. Rather than being permitted the messiness of having needs and of fraying at the edges like formation so often requires, such leaders are invited to be anything but human as they are charged to constrict and/or to restrict themselves to that which appears shiny and clean.

“Leaders are invited to be anything but human as they are charged to constrict and/or to restrict themselves to that which appears shiny and clean.”

Like our family’s home, helpers and healers are often subtly charged to hide behind beautiful things. It’s a beautiful thing to be called into ministry. It’s a beautiful thing to be in a position to see and to name on behalf of another. It’s a beautiful thing to walk the road of healer, having tasted some of the trials and tribulations that have brought people to one’s door asking, seeking, and knocking (Matthew 7:7). Our society desperately needs healing professionals and spiritual leaders willing to heed the call of caring for others. In a land rife with derision, we need to become “islands of sanity” for each other (thanks again, Meg Wheatley!).

That said, one can hide out on an island, just like one can hide out behind a beautiful Japanese maple. For me, the call to hide long preceded me. I come from a long line of men who hide behind positions of power and influence, or behind an absence of words or authentic encounter with another. A mix of Methodist good works (appearances) and Presbyterian rigidities (male privileging) coupled with war-time trauma, sickness, and a modern-era milieu populated with a toxic male code (see David & Brannon, 1976) contribute(d) to my ongoing tendency to use beauty (my intellect, my speed of processing, my use of words, and other performance-related variables) to hide.

But it is by the wounds of the suffering servant that we are healed (Isaiah 53:5). The felling of our hiding tree offered us a taste of that very reality. Our family was able to trade one beauty (hiding) for another (warmth and connection), in the form of a repurposed engagement with our hiding tree. Branches are now neatly stacked and ready to be used for summer backyard bonfires, and a seedling that had started to randomly grow on its own has since been replanted in our front yard, showing good signs of vim and vigor but also standing at least 10 yards from our house.

Beauty requires deliberation (see the work of Elaine Scarry), and beauty renders us impotent (and also the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar). Beauty calls, and the recipient responds. Beauty can and will draw us face-to-face with our need to receive, and with our need for divine encounter. But beautiful things can also be used to limit, if not conceal, other forms of goodness longing to be exposed to the light. Rooms on both levels of our home now beam with light in ways they never had before, and that light calls each person in our family to do and be the same.

So maybe an invitation for any of us who serve in helping or healing capacities, or who are called into one or more positions of spiritual authority: Where do you allow what was planted before you to keep root in a form that hides the fullness of who you are? Where do we take what we’ve been given, bidden and unbidden, replete with beauty but also defense, and repurpose such into opportunities for warmth and connection?

Chances are it was our wounds that got us into our work, whatever it may be, in the first place. Wounds heal not only on or in bodies, but also in souls as well. Roles protect humans from the inevitable wounding of their humanity, and beautiful things can be used to hide deeper goodness. Islands can isolate, or islands can protect. And always we begin again.

Feeling called or compelled to emerge in some way? If so, please don’t be bashful in sharing with others: Our own nurturance, formation, and sanity awaits.

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