#StirUpYourPower ∞ Embodied Prayer
Week Four; Day Twenty-Two. Holy. Luke 1:49.
This last week of Advent, we welcome Tamika Jancewicz as our featured voice. In her words: Mother. Womanist. Seminarian.#ForCollardGirls co-founder and co-host.
This past fall semester I took a class called Embodied Prayer that was taught by Kathryn Sparks at Wesley Theological Seminary in DC. In this class, my classmates and I learned how to approach life and dance by grounding ourselves, letting go and allowing what might be, moving in response, surrendering ourselves to the unexpected, relating to ourselves and each other, and embracing the wholeness of our lives.
We danced freely with one another, laughed a lot, and experienced the liberation of being in our bodies as we prayed and moved together and individually.
It was glorious. It was holy.
One of my favorite (and most terrifying) parts of the class was a group dance/prayer we all performed at an Advent worship service at Wesley on a Tuesday morning.
Our embodied prayer was to the Magnificat — the Song of Mary. I have read this song before, and I have heard beautiful sermons on these powerful words of the pregnant young girl, who literally felt the goodness of G-d in and around her, and praised G-d for it.
And the experience to embody this prayer — to stretch my arms wide, then lift my hands up towards the heavens while my face and body followed as we heard “for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name” — made the words come alive in a different way. Mary’s song of praise became more real.
It was a faithful prayer of hope and adoration to a G-d who saw her and her people. A G-d who lifted up the lowly. A G-d who shared a deep and merciful love through the womb of a young girl, who understood very well what it meant to be among the marginalized and oppressed.
And on that Tuesday morning, I finally felt her song, her praise to G-d, in my bones. And it has stayed there throughout this Advent season.
It’s hard to explain what it feels like to finally feel a prayer or song when your body moves to it.
You hear the words for the first time again. Your body doesn’t forget what you just felt in your toes when you moved from low to high, and your heart can’t not feel the feelings of joy and sorrow you experience when you realize how relevant the words are to the world right now.
Like Mary, you get to revel in the holiness of G-d and G-d’s namesake, because you know that G-d walks among the lowly, making what is so deathly wrong right, by shaking the very fragile ground that has kept so many in the shadows of despair. And you also feel the pain of knowing that we are in desperate need of G-d to once again show up in a mighty way for those who are being trampled by other’s fears, greed, and corruption.
It makes you wonder why in G-d’s holy name, we have these songs of liberation and freedom in our midst, but so many are still willing to dehumanize and oppress others.
Why in G-d’s holy name, are children dying at borders, on the streets, and in their own neighborhoods, by those with the power to actually be merciful and gracious? Have they not heard how G-d sees these acts of injustice?
And why in G-d’s holy name are we still willing to create more barriers, more oppressive, sin-filled, inhumane laws and restrictions on those who actually need a safe haven? Have they not heard how G-d chose to enter into our world in such a times as these?
This is unholy.
And so, this last Sunday of Advent — when we are singing songs of joy, hopefulness, and anticipation for that blessed little brown baby we’re so happy to celebrate in two more days — I also hope we feel Mary’s song in our bones.
Let’s not forget what in G-d’s holy name this liberating song of freedom is all about. Let’s feel the real urgency and need for relief from this agonizing reality of what is so broken and unholy around us. Not for the sake of our own heavenly gain, but for G-d’s reign of justice and peace to be among us, allowing us to love with true intention towards our neighbor.
And showing us how to finally live out what G-d so lovingly wants for all of us in G-d’s holy name.
