Teaching-Learning Devotion -- Is There a Better Word?

We need a new word or phrase in our over-sexed, media-saturated culture to describe the physical sensations and cognitive overwhelm of devotion. At this point, this term refers to that generative, holistic, even holy, driving force of connection that reaches outside the self toward expressive delight, what some scholars call “a horizon of ultimate meaning.” Others of us settle for “wholeness” or “fullness of life” given specific articulation in distinct traditions of religious heritage. This force is often observed between spiritual teachers and their students, professors and their graduate students, spiritual companions who find themselves sharing a path, or those who have married or are in a covenant with one another. If and when it happens on an intentional (or unintentional) spiritual path, the unsuspecting recipients have few, if any, categories or tools with which to make sense of the experience. It may be just fleeting too, like in an exchange of strangers that startles new awareness of life’s fullness. Such things happen all the time as seeds to awakening. Without frameworks of sense-making, so many of us miss the beautiful force of Life devotion is, how it connects those who are different and similar in its web of compassion for all. Instead, we seem to live, captivated, in a media-saturated, love-hungry popular culture, starving itself from the healthy generativity it requires for survival. A teacher of mine called this the “sex charade” and its “loss of intimacy,” but I think there’s more than just sex and intimacy. A new word or phrase won’t get at this “more,” nor will it change the cultural poverty, of course. But it would sure ease my own mind a bit. It would open a crack to seeing the fullness of life that surrounds us all, even amidst overwhelming turmoil that is the daily news. That’s not nothing.

In full blossom, the sensation and cognitive overwhelm of devotion is not unlike “falling in love,” but that phrase is inaccurate and imprecise on so many levels to almost make it useless. First of all, it’s often suspect to fall in love unless it is within socially acceptable norms of gender pairing, orientation expression, biological comforts. “Falling in love” describes a state so desirable for many, yet also so contentious. With whom? What is his/her biology—same or hetero to yours? In what standing (legal or otherwise)? In what sort of community of others? We seem to have created a cultural setting in which it’s a political statement—perhaps even dangerous—to fall in love. How did we get here, and how do we brave connections of life with others within and beyond our established ‘norms’? What a strange world we live in, where it’s socially and politically suspect to “fall in love.”

Part of the issue here, of course, is that “falling in love” has primarily sexual connotations in common parlance. What I mean by devotion, in contrast, is not primarily sexual in nature, though it does have erotic and/or sensual nuance. A description that arose recently was “a sensation and unruly overwhelm of cognition by a beautiful, frightening, wonderful force of Life that seems to come from elsewhere even as it is irrepressibly intimate in body.” Devotion, like sex, is a body thing. It is irrepressibly intimate, attractive, enlivening of body and mind, opening of heart and spirit. Unlike sexuality's common associations, however, devotion can flow easily between persons who never touch one another, physically, at all. Devotion can be sensed in a gentle gaze offered, not demanded; received, not refused. Eyes, a gentling physicality, healing energies—all beckon this sensual, erotic but non-sexual phenomonen of devotion.

It need not be—one might even say ought not to be—captivated by our culture’s social norms of monogamy either. Because it is a force for Life, without attachment or need, it overflows human beings as a force of connection and transformation. Unlike sex, which seems to require intensely care-filled and mutually negotiated boundaries in any society I know, devotion is most powerful when allowed, shared, without specification, without demand for return. Philosopher Jean-Luc Marion describes what I mean with his erotic phenomenon in which a love without being grows in direct proportion to the reduction of reciprocity and insufficiency of reason. Devotion grows when there is no necessary expectation for return, for reciprocation. It is a free gift offered into the world, rooted only in its own erotic rationality. Not that of provision and consumption, certainty and truth, but instead, an unexpectedly answered quest for assurance, a discovery that when one learns to love first, devotion arises.  When one lives into attempts to love first, to love without expectation or attachment, abundance grows everywhere.

This is an impossible human journey, of course. As soon as devotion breathes into unexpected places in human life, human minds and spirits attempt to hold onto it, to grasp it, to earn it. We conceive social norms to socialize any erotic, sensual phenomenon for steadying control, and this steadying is good. Except when it causes us to forget the connective and compassionate work devotion does regardless of tradition or belief. Captivating it, attempting to place it within socialized norms of sexuality, misdirects its energies. Then, this force for Life intended to be shared without specification with all becomes a hothouse plant unable to bear any fruit at all.

Another complication is that devotion is irreparably particular, connected with the uniqueness of a human person and his/her narrative, struggles, way of being in the world. Devotion requires an individual willing to open heart and mind to another whereby the Life between them becomes Real and liberating for them both as they live it into the world around them. It is exquisitely intimate, therefore, but free. This does not mean without cost of course. It’s a wisdom path that de-stabilizes as it grows, transforming all who walk it. But it is freely chosen. It is free to share and be shared, to shape and be shaped by others’ mind(s) and wisdom.

All this arises from a relatively recent "new hypothesis" in my life and embodied self: perhaps it's not a shameful thing to feel this force of devotion from time to time—a sensate-spirited, even erotic love—for others known and unknown. Perhaps it's even a most holy gift that has been too heavy for me to hold in awareness until now. I have wrestled with my body and its sensate communications with me for decades. A sensate awakening when I was six so overwhelmed me, especially within a cultural context of body-shaming for young women, that the only logical thing to do was disconnect, dissociate from these unruly feelings of connection with others (both boys and girls). Dating life was sporadic but gifted—high school crushes, preliminary explorations of sexual expression—but again, the intensity of experience created need to dissociate and vow utterly willed control of this shameful force of attraction, yearning to connect. Integrative work in young adulthood, through clinical training for a ministry profession, opened doors to the primary relational commitment of my life, marriage to a dear friend now lover. “That should take care of it,” I thought to myself. But it only intensified the outward reach of what I now know as this devotion. Within the ultimate commitment to another, to this one I know as my home-mate, a stability of cognitive and embodied expressiveness has seemed to shape a container or channel of sorts to share this gift of connection, within limits, with others both known and unknown. Sexual ethics lie at the heart of this force of devotion, but the force refuses to be contained in my socialized mind. We find ourselves in the strange predicament of ultimate commitment to each other and a sense of radical covenant and companionship with multiple others.

Why has it taken so long to allow the force of devotion to overflow, to sustain its current within my body and mind? When will I learn to see, at least with more regularity, that the societal shaming and resistance I know within and beyond my own mental-voices speak a deep cultural yearning for the fullness that only devotion can provide?

Maybe when we have a word or phrase to describe the abundant gift and conceptual overwhelm that is devotion for another, for the world.

Until then, collaborative poetry will have to suffice.


The divine bows to itself, multiplying its wisdom in the overflow.
Do not struggle. Do not strain to name that which cannot be, but love.
Embody it. Sculpt it. Sculpt it in yourself with others until you see
Non-self everywhere, opening to the night air, moon above,
Warm air surrounding nature and God in abundant devotion.

Mid-Section Blues

I have fought with my mid-section most of my life. The lower abdomen that the Chinese name the dan tien, the area that rests between the hips, the navel, above the legs. My physical build is in the tradition of Titian’s paintings, you see. This was a marvelous thing in the 15^th century (or whenever) when he painted female nudes with a sizeable ‘Venus mound’ around their mid-section, then considered beautiful. Yet today, this area of my anatomy is nothing less than an Achilles heel or vulnerability with respect to a healthy sense of self, body-confidence, sense of voice.

How does one fight one’s own anatomy? you may ask. Most women I know do, for good and ill. Every woman I’ve ever met has greater or lesser distaste for some part of her physical build, be it legs, face, breasts, eyes, feet or whatever. In the internal strand of argument, voices of disdain or fear loom large in the psyche. “Wow are you fat there,” or “You don’t look very normal, let alone pretty,” or “You’re not as beautiful as (fill in the blank with either name or media-image).” The external strand of argument may manifest in actions as extreme as cutting, eating disorders, binge-dieting and more. These internal and external strands of argument may exist for men as well, though I suspect the actual manifestations would differ substantially. Though perhaps not, for some. The more I reflect here, the more I’m impressed with how many of us live continual arguments between our bodies and the surrounding media-saturated culture with its norms of advertised beauty and marketed appearance.

I write here to explore my own living argument, but also to learn more about it in the engaged artistry that prose and poetry seem to offer me today. I often write to find out what I’m thinking, to learn more of my internal dialogues, to heal and strengthen myself in the Jewish tradition of tikkun olam or repair of the world. The moral responsibility within this wisdom tradition is to repair oneself each and every day, for the work of repairing the world around you, within your reach. You cannot ever change the world, goes the saying, but you can change yourself and be in the world in a new way…which results in a new world or new life, each day.

The first thing that strikes me as ironic in these “mid-section blues”? A woman’s mid-section is the reality and symbol of new life, for herself and others, and yet I seem to wrestle my mind and bodyself to the ground every time I venture close to it. How odd, to resist new life. Health and new life for me reside, flow from here, says Chinese wisdom. The dan tien is central to one’s energy flow, one’s qi. Though I’m not a big proponent of Chinese medicine or its cosmologies of energy and flow, I do respect its wisdom. When I have explored beginning practices of qi gong, I have noticed a change in my body-energy and depth of awareness. Still, I procrastinate from practice, avoid my body’s language, and then tangle myself up in mental knots about my own physicality. So, it strikes me as significant that, at least in this frame of listening, I’m at odds with an arguable center of my body’s energies. Another woman’s voice observed a connection between my mid-section blues and the fact that my husband and I chose not to have children. “The place representative of a woman’s strength, voice, contribution to the world is what you seem to avoid, to keep underdeveloped. Why is that?” she asked. For her in this sense, my mid-section was primarily a womb, a center of life for others, the avenue through which human beings come into the world. There’s a grain of truth here, though of course any decision about children/no-children is much more complex and multifaceted than her narrow view. Not only do I resist my body’s energies for myself, she was suggesting, but I resist my body’s energies for the (physical) life of others. Given that extreme focus of energies—new life for self and others resisted?—no wonder I don’t spend any time there.

When I listen to my world today, attending to it in my mind rooted or directed from the dan tien, what do I hear, see, sense? First thing I observe is awareness of posture. Living from the core straightens my mind and spine. That’s interesting. I stand taller if and when I live from the core. I also find myself breathing more deeply. More breath expands my chest as well, with an acceptance that my upper body is just as it ought to be. Said impishly, I am reminded that I have breasts for which some women pay lots of money! More poignantly, it’s amusing how I try to shelter or hide that fact. I find myself aware of cycle issues—not only the ebb and flow of my own body’s rhythms but the connection between all life and incessant flow of time, change.

Perhaps it is time for a longitudinal experiment of listening to the world through the dan tien, of intentionally strengthening the core muscles of the body, simply to see what new life for self and others may grow. One thing I know from listening in this fashion: nothing in academic professional preparations touches the intimate wisdom felt here on the cusp of life’s energies made one’s own.

Starting Anew: Teachers for the Path?

 “So, you have words for me. Good.”

I have long had elder teachers in my life, sometimes even after they die. The above words came to me in a dream, spoken by my doctoral mentor who has been dead for ten years. He and I embraced hello in an elevator—yes, Jung would smile—and he spoke the words into my ear gently, with admiration, invitation. I felt relief, connection of being known and accepted, and surprise, mostly because I was unaware what words I might have for him. My sense now is that the words would have been difficult to share without trust of the relationship, like angry words, or words of disappointment and disillusionment shared with one’s family. He was telling me that it was okay to be angry with him, to distrust him, even to be disappointed in him. “So, you have words for me. Good.” So, this path of learning in Spirit has wounded and healed you, healed and wounded you. You wish I had prepared you better for that. Good.

The startlement in this felt-tectonic dream startled me into some new questions with both personal and professional dimension. Personally: by what tradition(s) or processes have I accepted these elder teachers into my life, my path? An important question for anyone serious about a spiritual path of integrity, wholeness, delight. As I’ve listened, I realize that the kind of teachers we choose say more about us than him, her, them. The kind of students we become shape the teachings we receive. More broadly, I realize this is a pressing question for many of us today. In a time of great institutional and cultural upheaval, how do we recognize teachers and teachings that shed light on a spiritual path?

Already the necessary, critical caveats clamor for attention. Aren’t ‘teachers’ those whom our educational institutions certify and employ as educators? Aren’t ‘teachings’ the subjects or disciplines they have mastered and ‘tradition’ with their students toward the educational mission of the communities in which teaching/learning occurs? And ‘spiritual path’? It can mean anything from adherence to or rootedeness within  a historical religious tradition to a more 1960’s-nuanced, eclectic collage of traditions’ wisdom stewed into a life of seeking and upheaval. This ‘path’ can also mean a complete disregard of the question of significance in religious terms, professed instead in a vibrantly secular or atheistic voice without reference at all to ‘spiritual.’ In that case, it’s probably more precise to call it a human path, located accurately in the irrepressible cognitions of a specific form of species homo sapiens. In a time when so many cultural (especially religious and political) institutions face both internal and external transformations, however, these previous assumptions beg critical review and imaginative reconsideration.

Without institutional continuity, in times of institutional decline and increased discontinuity(ies), how do we recognize and authorize those who will teach us, those who come after us, in a life-giving path of shared values and compassionate care of others, our world? More boldly, how are we to teach those who have taught us, those who serve faithfully within current institutional settings with both cultural and political power and therefore great investment in older habits of mind? What words might I have for this mentor, a most significant teacher in my life who was yet one of the loneliest men I’d ever met? He was held captive, in a way, in his own intellectual passions, almost to the exclusion of the communal intimacy he conceived and articulated for so many of us.

If I were to reflect summarily on this for a moment, I would say that the most significant teachers in my life have arrived when I had great need, whether I was aware of or could describe the need in any detail. One came when I was at my loneliest: away from anything familiar, friends, my home, my family as I started a new job across the country. She understood loneliness, I think. Her gift seems to be companioning the wounded. She’s also deeply steeped in her tradition of faith—years of wrestling, years of surrendering to the shape of ancient wisdom in Triune Christianity lived within Christ’s teaching and life of Spirit. The fellow above ‘arrived’ into my life when I had had most of my rose-colored illusions about faith-community life shattered by the (now-) predictable frailties of human beings searching for love and wholeness as best they know how. He, too, understood loneliness. He, too, had a calling for companionship of Spirit, whose logic he attempted to articulate within his own deeply-steeped traditioning in Chalcedonian Christian discipleship.

Pair these recognizable elder-teachers with three others, no less significant to my path in their challenge and care. The first appeared in a difficult time of my professional and married life. This woman is not steeped in any faith-tradition to speak of, though she demonstrated a keen perception and abundance about life. While I think she knows of loneliness, I do not think she would spend much time or effort thinking about it. While the first two teachers here were recognized teachers within a tradition of faith and practice; this one is completely unknown, unrecognized within any tradition. A significant distinction, though it does not preclude the validity or significance of her presence for my learning. This teaching/learning relationship both healed and wounded, wounded and healed—the latter only upon completion of our companionship. The next one I see as an important teacher entered my life in similarly unanticipated fashion, but with recognizable resonance of devotion and mutual teaching. He’s a listening companion, an unknowing sage within his own tradition, who startled me out of my localized awareness toward an impassioned work begun in ambition but pursued in contemplative surrender. His entrance into my life was not unlike an earthquake, a fundamental force that rearranges tectonic psychological plates, not to mention the existing mental furniture. The rhythm of his presence and absence in my life has done more to free me—from captivating attachment, from narrow-mindedness, from isolation—than anything else I know. We seem to open to the Real whenever we’re together and neither of us survives the encounter unfulfilled…or unscathed. The third one of note here is a fine-arts sculptor, daughter, mother, friend, and for me, professional translator of body-speak or body-wisdom, especially for women. Her teaching connects people with their embodied and intimate strengths, though I had not understood her as this kind of teacher until the day before I left for a long business trip. I had been receiving teachings about the significance of connection and body-awareness for months before I awakened to her as a significant presence upon my path.

These are only a few of those who have shaped my path significantly, particularly as the intimate companions in whom I know my life remain unmentioned. Each shares a quality of “significance for the path” I know as my spiritual life today. What makes them good teachers, who both heal and challenge, even wound? Do they even consider themselves teachers of significance for a spiritual path? Do they have other students, particularly those who are aware of receiving teachings that shed such light? Do they have characteristics in common—style or traits by which others may recognize and authorize such teaching in their own lives? In a time of great institutional and cultural upheaval, how do we recognize teachers and teachings that shed light on a spiritual path? Without institutional continuity, in times of institutional decline and increased discontinuity(ies), how do we recognize and authorize those who will teach us, and those who come after us, in a life-giving path of shared values and compassionate care of others, our world? Significantly for me, here, what words do we have for our own teachers? What do I have to teach my teachers, here?

Time, and future postings will tell…