Gay Music: A Playlist Story

Valentine Artist Trading Cards by Phillip Hoyle

I like my music gay! For more than one reason I am planning to spend several months hearing mainly gay music. The first reason for this insistence seems most immediate: my current health crisis that demands from me a sense of upbeat expectation of a recovery from my present difficulties and from the therapies the doctors devise. So I’ll play gay music to speed along the healing process. The second reason for this gay insistence relates to having just retired from fifteen years of giving therapeutic massages, mostly to tempos largo, lento, and adagio. Back then (it’s been over a month and a half) I wanted my massages to promote relaxation and so avoided country and western songs, rap, abstract jazz, metallica, and most rock ‘n roll. I played almost no Nashville, no Broadway. Now seems the time to quicken the pace and lighten the mood. So it’s gay music for me in the coming months.

I’m a habitual shelf reader from my many years of roaming library stacks. I’m a methodical one preferring to read from left to right, following the ascending numbers of the Dewey Decimal System. So I’m going to read the shelves of my small CD collection to select my first round of music playing for the weeks to come. Luckily I no longer have a catheter in place so I can comfortably sit on the floor to view my low-down shelves.

So it begins, shelf one. Mathias organ music. I’ll skip that. Oh Dupré. More organ music but too dour and over serious for this man in recovery. Skip, skip, skip, skip. Hmm. Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto? No, I have always found this particular recording just a bit too screechy. I don’t want to put myself on edge. Skip, skip, skip. “Songs of Atlantic Canada”? Surely this album is out of place among these classical works, but I recall how accessible the arrangements of regional folksongs are. Guess I’ll select this Cape Breton Chorale album and think of my Canadian friend Bill, who gave it to me and has for years been thoughtful and supportive. John Tavener’s “Ikons” presents glorious, creative music but … no, not now. Just not gay enough. “Lend Me Your Ear” by Double ‘O Six. That’s a possible listen with classically trained voices. Very choral though all soloists who do crazy things to Chattanooga Choo Choo, With a Little Help from My Friends, and other pop pieces. Here. “Pieces of Africa” by the Chronos Quartet. I might put that on right now and reread the get-well note from my African son Francis. Oh, an album of Charpentier’s Christmas music. Yes. Even though the composer accidently poisoned himself and his family by serving the wrong kind of mushrooms, his music evokes a delicate gaiety. Well, it’s French Baroque with a light touch. Hum. “Albinoni's Adagios.” More Baroque, although Italian. I really like these but heard the album way too many times over the last twelve and a half years playing it for one of my long-time clients who listened only to classical music. As I mentioned, too many adagios in my recent past. Oh Dianne Bish’s “Great European Organs.” That sounds like a gay album. I clearly recall Bish’s pant suit—all gold sparkles—from when she concertized the Cassavant at East Heights United Methodist Church, Wichita. If she’d had a candelabrum she’d have seemed a twin to Liberace. How gay that would be.

Brahms. Lovely Brahms, but his “German Requiem”? They can play that for my memorial service that I hope is a long ways off. Hovhaness’ “And God Created Great Whales.” That one always picks me up, especially when the humpback whales make their first entrance. “The Choral and Vocal Arrangements of Moses Hogan.” Some of that album is somber but I’ll surely enjoy his stunning arrangement of Elijah Rock. Yes. And here, for a change of pace, Handel’s “Chandos Anthems.” I know at least a few of the anthems that can serve me for a special meditative gay moment, especially the soprano and tenor duet In the beauty of holiness with its long descending melismas spun out and interwoven by singers and orchestra. It thrills me. Brahms again; his ‘Complete Intermezzos” played by the Russian Luba Edlina. Yes. These always lift me with their lush harmonies and inventive melodies. I’ll float along with Brahms. While at it I guess I’ll hear Bach’s “Inventions and Sinfonias” played by Glenn Gould, for me always an exquisitely gay experience.

Okay, shelf two. Pop music. Hmm. Here we go. Imogene Heap’s “Speak for Yourself” will do good things for me with her always musical and creative command of synthesizers, her invention and variety. Yes. Of course Cyndy Lauper’s “The Body Acoustic” will be on my playlist. I probably will indulge in it daily, like She Bop and Girls Just Want to Have Fun. I like so many more of these pop CDs but played most of them too many times in massage. I’ll give them and me a rest! Now this one looks good, Keith Jarrett Trio’s “Up for It.” Yes. Jazz. I’m so pleased I’m doing this. And another jazz album but this one Jacques Loussier’s “Play Bach,” his jazz trio’s renditions of JS Bach pieces, an album from 1960 that I first heard in high school. I especially am ready to hear them improvise the Gigue from Partita No. 1 in B flat major, BWV 825. I’m feeling better already. Then another kind of gay music: “Whirl” from the Fred Hersch Trio. This album will surely move to gaity, both by the music and by the knowledge that all three men are gay! Oh and the three volumes of “Verve Remixed” with their most inventive remixing of jazz standards, many from my favorite singers, with hard-hitting dance beats. Certainly I’ll spin those albums for their tremendous energy. Now this should be fun, “The Original Cast Recording of Forever Plaid,” another CD from my Canadian connection of a musical we saw together, pure nostalgic fun. Sure. And how could I not select Dinah Washington’s “Finest Hour.” Any day she is okay for me. Oh I’ll have to skip these Miles Davis pieces. Too blue for the occasion. Guess I’ll skip the whole blues section for now with probably one exception; here it is, Cyndy Lauper’s “Memphis Blues.” She thrills me with her tremendous range of feelings and styles. Jai Uttal’s “Monkey” gets in, also his “Mondo Rama” with its high school kids. I am lifted by his traditional Indian raga, jazz, and rock fusion.

I’m tired from all these decisions. So … that gives me a good playlist that ought to last for a while. I hope they’ll lift my mood, help make me clever and gay, of course. So … I’ll just skip all the R. Carlos Nakai and other Native American flute players. I heard them too many times with my client who for over ten years wanted to hear only these pieces during her massages. “No strings,” she’d say. “They make me tense up.” Besides, if I were going to play Native American pieces, I’d want war dances. That’s not very gay sounding of me although Stonewall showed that gays in pumps and frocks can go to war. I think right now I’m just angry at disease and failures in my own body. I’ll pass on the flutes and war drums.

I’ve got plenty of music to soothe me with gaity. I’ll even listen to some of these albums with my gay partner. Suppose that will double their effect? I hope so.

Denver, 2014

If you follow this blog (I know there is at least one of you!) you may realize I didn't get this thing posted Monday. Sorry for that. But here it is even if a bit late. 

A few more Valentine ATCs by Phillip Hoyle

Don't forget Friday is Valentines Day. 

Stories I Tell My Clients: A Massage and Just the Right Word

A middle-age woman I massaged at the spa told me she was an office manager and warned me of stressed muscles in her back and shoulders. I worked hard with her. Near the end of the session, I found her right forearm extremely tense and in serious need for deeper work. I applied a combination of Swedish massage, deep tissue therapy, and an interactive myofascial release technique. At the end of the service, she went out into the hallway and by impulse picked up a glass pitcher full of ice water and poured herself a drink. Then to her amazement she realized that she hadn’t been able to pick up and pour like that for several years. She thought I was some kind of miracle worker. I claimed to be doing only what my teacher taught me and expressed the hope that she’d find someone in her hometown to work regularly with her.



Dan and I drove into the mountains west of Santa Fe, New Mexico one afternoon to camp at Fenton Reservoir. He took along his male red Doberman pincer. We got up before the sun hoping to catch some fish. Dan fastened the dog’s chain to a nearby tree, and we threw our baited hooks into the water. After sunup, some unsupervised kids began running back and forth on a path near the dog. An hour or so later, their mom dragged herself out of her tent and hurried by on her way to the lavatory. When she returned, she approached Dan and asked if the dog was good with kids. Dan replied, “Sometimes.” Her kids quit using the path.

I found Dan’s answer was perfect for so many questions and helpful as an interpretation of massage. Sometimes this approach or that technique brings relaxation to muscles or relief to pain, but there are no guarantees, no imaging procedures, and lots of guesswork. We therapists prefer to describe our guesses as intuition. At least that’s what I tell my clients. If they have had a massage accompanied with one of my stories, I know I’ve shared with them an idea or two that I find true. In my version, massage is a rather simple process. Its effectiveness is enhanced by thorough preparation and intelligent decisions, but ultimately the loving handling of another’s pain is its focus and benefit. I love my work and the storytelling opportunities it affords. If my clients laugh, I tell them the endorphin therapy from it comes free.

Sometimes I feel sure I know what a petroglyph
represents. Not so with this one!
Mixed media on paper. Phillip Hoyle

Stories I Tell My Clients: Habits and Habitats

A muscular client complained of pain running from his right hand to his shoulder and neck. I asked him if he worked at a computer. He said, “Yes,” but explained that the pain didn’t occur when he was typing. I asked him if he spent time on line. “Yes,” he again responded.

I told him I had noticed that when I was waiting on a slow-responding program, I tended to get lots of tension in my right hand. I keep it poised over the mouse as if my diligence will save me time. He thought about his habits and realized he slouched and held his body on his elbows when he was on line. And he kept his hand over the mouse ready to hit the button. I suggested he let his hand drop to his side and let his shoulder relax while waiting for a download. I further suggested he get a massage from time to time. I share this story with many people and often have to remind myself.




While giving chair massages at an investment firm for two weeks following the tax season, I watched a room full of customer service workers doing their daily business. They had great work stations with plenty of room, ergonomically correct chairs, the best telephone headsets, computers with large screens, and if they worked one year, any keyboard they desired. But their comfortable atmosphere eventually failed them. I noticed that by three thirty each day they started slouching, crossing their legs, reaching too far for their keyboards. They were too tired, putting in too much overtime, and stressing as they listened to people complain about how their investments weren’t yielding enough (as if this representative of a mutual fund could do anything about that problem). Although the company’s practice of providing massage was a nice gesture, a reward for the workers’ persistence, I thought once a year seemed insufficient. I handed out my cards.

Stories I Tell Clients: Luxury Item and Left or Right?

I received my second professional massage at the historic spa in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. The therapist asked me if I wanted her to concentrate on any particular place. “My forearms,” I requested. I had tightened them up by obsessively playing computer games—the ones that go faster at each level. She worked deeply; I almost jumped off her table several times the pain was so intense. We made it through the massage, and due to her skill, I had three and a half months pain free, a respite for me to figure out how not to hurt myself again. That’s when I realized massage can be much more than a luxury item.


“Are you left handed or right?” I often ask a client at the outset of a massage. I asked that of a young lawyer with whom I had already been laughing. He didn’t reply. I joshed him, “That’s not a difficult question.”

He finally answered, “I was trying to figure out why you were asking.”

I reminded myself that he was a lawyer.

I tell that story to other lawyers or to people who ask why I ask. It’s because I want to know where to begin my work—I tend to begin on the side opposite the dominant—and how to assess the differences in muscle tone and size by whether or not they are on the dominant side of the body.

For the Utes Coyote was a trickster.
Mixed media on paper. Phillip Hoyle

Stories I Tell Clients: Tickles and Pain

I used to give massages to another therapist, a rather interesting woman, middle-aged and artistic, who said, “Under every tickle is a hurt.” I thought her adage was too simplistic, yet it did give me something to think about, especially when a non-ticklish person gets tickled during a massage. And it supplied me another story to tell.

Ray came to me regularly for massage. Among other things, I worked hard to relieve his sciatic pain on the right side. During a period when I had been reviewing class notes on deep tissue work, I determined to get Ray’s hard right calf to relax. So I set to work applying the deep tissue routine I was taught. Of course the work was painful. Ray directed me by reporting levels of pain as I worked. When finally I felt the muscles relax, I finished up and excitedly asked, “Does that feel better now?” Ray quickly replied, “Well yeah, a lot better since you quit!”

I laugh at this point in the telling, hoping the client I am currently hurting will have the same good humor as Ray.

Mixed media on paper.
Phillip Hoyle

Stories I Tell Clients: That's Really Different

I still practice massage at my own office and used to at a downtown spa. I seek to create a warm atmosphere of helpfulness and healing but refuse to preach at clients about their bad habits that stress their bodies. I am willing to tell a few stories, though—real ones. Of course, I am careful not to use names, to reveal too many details, or to lie! And I respect the silence of clients who don’t want any talk at all. But for the loquacious, I use my stories to help them understand the condition of their bodies or the process of massage.

Occasionally new clients ask, “How long have you been doing massage?”

I tell them, “I’ve given massages professionally for fourteen years.”

“What did you do before that?” they almost always respond.

“I was a minister.”

That stops the conversation almost as effectively as being introduced as a minister to a group of people drinking heavily at a bar. Usually my clients are lying face down and so can recover without my seeing their hesitation or chagrin.

“That’s really different,” many of them say.

“No,” I answer with a chuckle. “My clients still tell me their problems.”

We laugh together. Then I continue. “Actually it is different. In the massage context they edit their stories much less, and I don’t have to see them and their families next Sunday.” We laugh some more and sometimes hold a conversation or lapse into silence.

The Shavano Valley site of Ute Petroglyphs
is noted for its many hand, foot, paw, and
hoof designs.
Mixed media with acrylic washes, oil
pastels, and Prisma color, Phillip Hoyle

Table Talk: Touche

     Last December, just before the holidays, I was asked to bring my massage chair to the hospital recovery room and spend the day giving massages to the operating room support staff. The ten-minute-long massages were a “thank you” to the staff members from their coordinator and one of the doctors. During their breaks, people lined up to get massage.

     The staff members were appreciative of the opportunity for massage and commented on how much they liked my work. Their necks and shoulders relaxed, their headaches receded, or their hands felt relieved. Several mused what it would be like to have this at work everyday. One tech seemed very enthusiastic after receiving her massage. As I helped her get up from the chair, she declared, “Everyone should be required to receive at least one massage a week.” She claimed it would change human society.

     I have tried to imagine what it would take to accomplish such a change. Given the competitive nature of social groupings, it would seem easier to organize fencing matches rather than massage. But perhaps the United Nations organization might provide external rewards to motivate participation. Massage competitions could be organized with prizes going to the nations that accomplished the most change through massage. Well, whatever. There is power in touch, a power to transform. I have experienced it. Perhaps it could change whole groups or even the world.

     I would be pleased to say, “Touché,” to any other group, even my enemies, conceding to their victory in the world massage competition as long as I was getting my own weekly massage. Who knows?

     Perhaps we can relate such possible change in human society to the creation story in which the creator scooped up mud, formed humans, and breathed into them the breath of life. I wonder if we could do something similar to one another through massage, actually touch one another in ways to create relaxation, value, and joy. We could reap benefits of increased health. Perhaps, then, we could truly become the kind of humans and human society the creative impulse of divine love imagines.

Warrior, after Kansas petroglyph, by Phillip Hoyle

Using images of dueling or warfare to represent values of  spiritual import always seems awkward to me, even uncomfortable. I'm more of the "beat the swords into plowshares" kind of guy. Still I put this painting here to represent how willingly I would say touche to even a warrior who would give me my weekly massages.

Table Talk: Jesus Massage

Shaman's Quest, mixed media painting by Phillip Hoyle

     One day, Jesus showed up at John the baptizer’s spa down by the river and asked for the special water treatment. He followed John into the water and yielded himself to the immersion therapy. Following the treatment, Jesus experienced a further baptism of holy spirit. He was moved by a compelling sense of God’s transformative love. In these twin baptisms, Jesus celebrated his calling into a ministry of teaching and healing, and he understood baptism as a cleansing that prepared him for his new work.

     In the water treatment Jesus was born in a new way. The sparkling liquid was somehow eternal, springing from a live source--a spring that provided water to drink in a dry and thirsty land. Symbolically, rivers of living water could then flow out of Jesus’ heart and those of his disciples. Many people would be cleansed, have their thirst quenched, and likewise enter into lives of service to others.

     Jesus ministered to crowds of people and healed many of them. He didn’t hide his gifts but, rather, worked freely among the crowds of people as well as with his select few. He taught them that they were ultimately valued, illustrating his point by saying that God knew the number of hairs on their heads. With his own hands, he reached out and manipulated the hands of others. He consoled his closest disciples by holding them, as well as by speaking words of assurance. He affected people, put his hands over their eyes, gave them water and food. He took a woman by her hand and lifted her up; he stretched out his hand and touched a crippled man; he put his fingers into another man’s ears; he rubbed ointment on a man’s eyes and laid his hands on him. Jesus helped children onto his lap, held them in his arms, and laid his hands on them, blessing them.

     Jesus’ touch was powerful. Not only did his teachings intrigue, challenge, and help others, but also his body emanated healing energy. In fact, so much power radiated from Jesus that people in crowds tried to touch him so they could be healed. He understood that the amazing energy was not his alone. Jesus always pointed to a divine source for the power that made it possible.

     At least one woman anointed his feet with oil, tears, and kisses. Following her example, Jesus washed his own disciples’ feet. John’s gospel describes the event at what later generations called the Last Supper. Jesus washed their feet and then joined them as they, in the custom of the day, reclined on couches and were served the feast. He lay at table with his closest followers in intimate, though common, poses. They knew him. They knew his body, his hands in healing service, and the presence of his power.

     Another man named John, not “the baptizer,” became Jesus’ disciple and was known as “the beloved.” When Jesus touched John, his touch may have been felt as healing, sexual, friendly, or ordinary. We don’t know, but we do imagine it was somehow exceptional. In the words of orthodoxy, Jesus’ touch was sacramental, communicating that people were being accepted by the divine. But Jesus himself taught more about this touch. For him, it was his own contacting of the divine in the bodies, personalities, and faith of the persons he touched.

     Jesus was a practitioner of love and touch. He taught his disciples to live extraordinary lives as well, sharing a sparkling, transforming generosity with those around them. They entered his reconciling work, characterized by their encounter with the divine in the bodies of the poor, the ill, the destitute, the powerless, and others in need. Massage, like Jesus’ touch, has the potential to communicate power and many of the feelings his closest friends may have perceived. It is a dance of eternal peace, a ritual of love, a show of friendship, and always a transformation of the ordinary. For the client, it may seem healing, sexual, friendly, or ordinary. They may be confused, or they may find in it a divine power. For the therapist, such discoveries may also surprise. If it is to be a Jesus massage, it will reveal the divine in the body of the massaged one and will begin anew the flow of living water from heart to heart.

Table Talk: Adjustments

Mixed media with acrylic washes and graphite, Phillip Hoyle

     Yesterday I was pleased to work again with Lynn. For a year I had given monthly massages to this thirty-some-year-old, well-organized man. He regularly scheduled his massage at the AIDS clinic and never missed an appointment. Then, right after he told me he was going to go on disability, he quit scheduling. I assumed he must have taken an extended trip to his family home or moved from the community. Yesterday, one year and ten days later, he returned for a massage.

     Lynn hadn’t been away. He came into the therapy projecting cynicism, anger, and disappointment, although he remained pleasantly mannered as usual. His past year had been full of difficulty and challenges he felt he hadn’t met very well. Almost simultaneously, Lynn lost two important mainstays of his life: work and being a jock. Leaving his job was devastating. He had worked almost everyday for years, part-time while attending junior and senior high school and full-time ever since. He wondered if it was wise to quit work. Without it, he has lived with both regret and frustration. His job wasn’t his only loss. In a year’s time he lost an alarming amount of his muscle bulk. With horror he watched his butt fall away and his arms shrink to half their former size. He had to give up weight lifting due to a cold that had persisted for months. I recalled from earlier conversations how important weight lifting and running had been to him. His losses were great.

     Perhaps his not going to work and suffering such dramatic body changes threw him into an extended dying process. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross described the process as a progression through denial, isolation, anger, bargaining, and depression towards the eventual acceptance of one’s impending death. I wondered if the feelings Lynn expressed were manifestations of anger or if he had progressed on to depression. I am not sure. But something changed recently, something that prompted him to reactivate his relationship with his AIDS case manager and to schedule a massage with me.

     I have been thinking over several things Lynn said during yesterday’s massage. He told me he had asked to be taken off the subscription lists of several AIDS-related magazines because he didn’t want to focus his life on the disease. “I’m just a guy who happened to get AIDS,” he explained. He expressed his impatience with individuals who major in being gay and HIV-infected people who make the disease their main focus. He, by contrast, wants simply to be a person who is homosexual and who just happened to get AIDS. He seemed angry about his muscle loss, his persistent illness, and his own inability to accomplish almost anything since he quit working. Perhaps his inability to get on with his life, especially when almost all his time has become discretionary, is a manifestation of depression.

     I wonder if Lynn’s re-emergence represents an acceptance of his eventual death and an acceptance that he is not dead yet. Kubler-Ross’ work emphasizes the function of hope and its almost constant presence for many people. Perhaps this double acceptance, should my surmise be correct, is, in fact, the emergence of Lynn’s deep hope in life.

     Perhaps coming back to me for massage marks some kind of acceptance of his death. Am I, as a massage therapist, to be an instrument of Lynn’s acceptance of death? I suppose so. Lynn may have come back because he knows I will accept and love his body even though it is betraying him. I assured him he still has a beautiful body, an ample butt, a wonderful face, and is a fine person even as he watches his muscles become smaller. Did he get strength from me? I don’t know. He did get acceptance. When someone compliments your body while they are running their hands all over it, perhaps you can more easily accept the idea of their sincerity. Or you can assume they really like you! Either one may be supportive enough.

     I probably cannot express how meaningful Lynn’s return to massage is for me. At first, I was simply pleased to see him. As the complexity of his reasons for returning started to become clearer to me, I found gratification in the fact that he counts me and my work as important in his life. And I am inspired by observing his responses to his dying process, even though its details still seem a bit unclear to me. I look forward to whatever time we have left to work together, whether weeks or years.

     We had a wonderful conversation while I worked on him yesterday. He received a good massage, many affirmations of his life and body, helpful talk, sound advice, and loving acceptance. It seemed like a very successful session. He left the clinic with his face alive, with a childlike radiance revealed through twinkling eyes and smiling mouth. Massage therapists know that anger can rarely be maintained while receiving a massage. Perhaps it emerged again today, and Lynn is still dealing with the anger, the depression, and the threat of hopelessness. But he is dealing with his life, making adjustments, and that’s hopeful.

Table Talk: Contrasting Sorrows

Mixed media, acrylic washes and graphite, Phillip Hoyle

     In the years when I served churches as a minister, I visited in the homes of grieving families. I talked with them, held them, listened to stories of the deceased, and helped them plan funeral or memorial services. I led the services and often, as a part of my comments, encouraged people to recount their own recollections of the person who had died so together they could smile, laugh, and weep in telling and hearing them. I became used to death in congregational life--its occurrence, its ritualization, its attendant emotions and actions in the grieving.

     Of course, not all of the deaths were the same or had the same affect on the congregation or me. Some of the deceased were so distant from congregational life that they were barely known, if at all. Their deaths seemed to generate little feeling except within the family and friendships. Some deaths affected the congregation deeply because the deceased was so well-known and appreciated. Other deaths seemed tragic in that they came to younger people. By contrast, and because of old age or the nature of the disease involved, a few deaths seemed a great relief to the dying persons and their loved ones. Always there was grief, but usually it was not my own.

     In the past dozen years I have lost five very close friends and relatives, including my parents. If before experiencing these deaths, I was helping other people to mourn, since then I have become one of the grieving.

     Deaths of my clients from the AIDS clinic have deeply affected me. I was a bit surprised by this since I had been professionally related to death for so long. These deaths seem more like those of family and friends. I suspect the personal feelings arise from the fact that I have massaged these people. The direct physical contact creates an intense bond, at least for me. Perhaps I pour more of my energy into massaging them than I ever did into praying and visiting with parishioners. In trying to understand this phenomenon, I find helpful the Cartesian observation that emotions arise from the body. Whatever the contributing causes, the deaths of my massage clients seem more personal, very close to my life.

     Sometimes my massage-related grief brings with it a sense of responsibility. From our conversations during massage, I know that some of my clients appear to be living in great isolation. Following their death, I believe not many other people may be grieving for the deceased. One client had only one woman friend and no relationship with his family. I felt a tragic sense in his aloneness, perhaps more than he did himself. My former congregational connection had always provided a mourning community to remember the one who died, even if they didn’t know him or her well. Now I sometimes feel I mourn alone.

     That usually is what happens to me. I don’t hear of the death until weeks after its occurrence. I don’t attend a funeral or memorial service; I never visit a gravesite. I mourn by telling another volunteer massage therapist about the death, by remembering the few things I know about the deceased, and by writing my memories and feelings. I recall images of their bodies, a few details about their lives and illness, an interesting thing we talked about, and some of the emotions I experienced while working with them. These few, simple actions and memories do not seem like much, but they always seem intense because I have touched my clients and they me. I am sometimes moved to tears and sadness upon learning of their deaths and to even more emotions in recalling the few things I know about them. Am I now called to mourn? Is this a feature of some on-going ministerial vocation? I mourn. I thank God for the lives of these people, my new congregation, my current experience of the body of the living Christ. While I miss their skin and muscles under my fingers, I continue to cherish their memories.

Table Talk: Anointing

Collage of petroglyph rubbing on mat.

I sometimes wish I could ride to the rescue in my work as a massage therapist. I'd like to have a strong horse or group of horses to assist me in arriving at just the right time with just the perfect touch and just the proper measure of wisdom to share, but that rarely happens. I like this image of something--I think of a rider on a horse that is moving so fast as to appear to have many legs. 
I wish I could be so able.




     Michael died on Sunday. He wasn’t my first loss to HIV and AIDS, but this was different. I was present, and I loved this guy unlike any man I had ever loved. He was comatose when he died, had been for several hours. His RN sister and I gave him medications every fifteen minutes or so for pain control, and then he just stopped breathing. His heart quit beating. He died quietly.

     Over several months I had watched his body turn on itself, nourish itself with its own mass as the disease started overpowering the immune system. Michael lost his appetite. I observed his weight loss and saw him hike up his pants with ever-tighter belts. He became unsure on his feet, had little strength, and needed to sleep long hours each day.

     I studied his body after his last breath, its continuing losses of color, movement, and shape. The little bit of muscle and fat left seemed to deflate. His all-too-prominent skull became more pronounced. I observed his dog, Willie, regard Michael after the death. He, too, noticed the difference. Ozzie, his other dog, wouldn’t look at him, but through his nervous behavior, communicated his awareness that Michael was dead.

     I have lost a friend and lover in this death. Tears well up in my eyes and my throat clutches when I think or talk about Michael. I feel alone. While I have some of Michael’s friends as new friends of mine, I don’t have Michael to visit, to eat with, to lie next to, to laugh with, to hold close to me. I am sad at the loss of one I loved, one who loved me.

     I felt like Mary Magdalene when I massaged Michael, understanding that I was helping prepare him for his death. As I kept watch at his death I felt like her again, she who had stood at Jesus’ cross and watched him die. I helped lower the bed and re-arrange Michael’s body after death, as Mary helped receive Jesus’ body when it was removed from the cross. And like Mary, who rushed to Jesus’ grave after Sabbath in order to anoint him, I wanted to apply oil to Michael’s body.

     I stood in Michael’s bedroom remembering what a Greek Orthodox priest had told me: how a dead priest is anointed by other priests. I wanted to do something similar with Michael. But because I was afraid it might freak out his sister or the hospice nurse who came to the house quickly after his death, I contented myself with anointing his forehead. Searching the room, I found some lotion. I rubbed it on his face, following its contours and, finally, I made signs of a circle and a cross as a kind of prayer, a final touching. It was my own good-bye to Michael.

     Following the advice of a book I had been reading, I decided not to ask why, but rather, what now? What next? Two days later I went to my volunteer work at the AIDS clinic. My first client that day was even skinnier than Michael. I traced his ribs and sought ways to rub my hands comfortably over his bony shoulders. Tears fell from my eyes. I worked to channel all the love I had for Michael into my client’s body. By contrast, my last client of the day had a well-developed and ample body. I told him how pleased I was to massage a body that appeared so healthy. Still I cried and touched and loved. My work has aided me with my grief process, providing me reminders rather than rejection of loss. At the same time, it keeps me focused on a future of staying connected to a community where I encounter others’ needs and an opportunity to care for them.

     In a world where many people live with AIDS, I can expect to encounter many losses of friends and acquaintances. I want to mourn them properly and lovingly. I am prepared to help them live with the comfort of massage right up to the time of their deaths. I feel sure I will be able to offer my services to them as a living memorial to Michael.

Table Talk: Power

Colorado Cave Bear painting by Phillip Hoyle

     As I entered Alfredo’s massage office, my attention was drawn to a Navajo saddle blanket woven of wool yarn in several shades of brown. Though clearly the centerpiece of the room, the blanket was in sorry shape. Someone had tried to repair its fraying edges to keep it useful or, at least, intact. But the design itself had not been damaged. Its saw-toothed mountain pattern dominated the space, creating a sense of movement. I liked the design, but the blanket’s greatest appeal for me was knowing that it had been used for many years. I ran my hands over its surface, surprised and pleased by the softness of the wool. Touching it, I got goose bumps on my neck and head.

     “What do you feel from it?” Alfredo asked. I had recalled the red monoliths of Monument Valley, and imagined horses resting after a day of riding across mesas and mountains. I could almost smell burning piñon from an evening campfire where an old-timer told Navajo tales of sheep, snakes, and sex on the Rez. I pictured stacks of weavings in a trading post, but none of them were quite so attractive as this beat up blanket. But I explained to Alfredo only about having the goose bumps. They continued for about a minute, reaching down my backbone to its base.

     “When I felt it,” Alfredo continued, “I had images of a shaman. I think he used the blanket in healing ceremonies. It’s a very strong feeling. There’s lots of energy there.” My friend was sure that the blanket still had in it power for healing.

     Alfredo discovered the blanket in a pawn shop along with a bear skin. He purchased both: this healer’s blanket and the skin of an animal widely regarded for its healing properties and, in spirit form, for its aid in healing ceremonies. The blanket hangs on the wall over his massage table. I suspect the bear skin may be in the room as well, although I didn’t see it. Perhaps he placed it beneath the pad on his massage table.

     My friend reminds me of the Navajo bear priest in Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony. The old man was called to help save a child from the bear people into whose territory the youngster had wandered. In one scene, the priest runs towards the bear canyon, strapping onto his wrists sprigs of spruce, readying himself for the ceremony that would call the boy away from the beasts. I picture Alfredo bedecking his massage table’s legs with spruce branches in anticipation of the arrival of a client he wants to help. Certainly Alfredo is a kind of priest, a healer.

     I once helped organize a seminar that sought to create a New Mexico definition of health. The event brought together medics, lawyers, judges, philosophers, theologians, social workers, psychologists, Hispanic curanderas, and Native healers. We talked. We laughed. We prayed. Together. We created a statement that we hoped would assist the New Mexico legislature as it tried to create health laws to benefit all the citizens of the state.

     Green-eyed, Mexican-American Alfredo manifests a similar inter-cultural, multi-lingual, broad-perspective definition of health. While he gives Swedish massage, he is always alert to his intuition, informed by the traditions of the curandera. He uses Native symbols and techniques in his work. My buddy believes in his intuitive insight, finding it both meaningful and helpful.

     If Alfredo hadn’t asked me what I felt when I touched the blanket, I believe I would not have noticed my goose bumps, or if I had, I would have registered them as only a response to touching the very soft and worn wool. Still, my mind was working in response to the touch. Did I, too, sense a lingering energy in the rug? While I was pleased to have seen and touched it, my rationalist education regarding common and holy things stood in the way of my perceiving the item as being imbued with power.

     An old woolen rug. Is it more than a common object? The designs worked into it do have some kind of religious meaning. I can easily accept that the weaving does have symbolic power such as theologian Paul Tillich described--the existential power of true symbols. Perhaps the blanket does “partake” of the power to which it points. I wonder, though, at the notion that the rug itself may contain some of the strength of mountains or the capacity to heal. I feel I cannot begin to answer my questions, but I do connect the rug with the bear skin and see their potent symbolism for healing.

     My own experience alerts me to some possibilities. Perhaps my goose bumps relate only to my imagination of Native American life, but such images may provide actual connections with a past and a present reality. They could communicate an invitation for me to accept and use healing energy. I do not want to project an image of myself as some kind of psychic or magical healer. But while I usually want to limit myself to ordinary experience, at the same time, I would like to open myself to any potentials that may reside within me. My thoughts want to be more than thoughts, definitions more than words for someone else’s use, scenes from books more than simply literature. Perhaps the power of blankets and bear skins can become as plain and ordinary a power for me as they are for Alfredo.

Table Talk: Acquainted with Grief

     I lost another client last week, a man to whom I had given massages occasionally for two years. Samuel was a gentle person who loved flowers and looked after the needs of his aging parents. He died from AIDS complications.

     In the course of the time I knew him, he had almost disappeared. Each time we met, there seemed to be a little less of him--less fat, less muscle, less energy. The skin draped loosely over the bony structure of this skinny, skinny man. I used very flat hands when massaging him since there was so little depth to the tissue, and I didn’t want to hurt him. I felt like I was massaging bones. I remember holding his head in my hands one of the last times I massaged him. The prominent vein on the forehead and the deeply sunken eyes and cheeks reminded me of others who had died. Quiet tears rolled down my face while I worked. I realized I was beginning to grieve for yet another client, this man who didn’t appear to have much time to live.

     The ancient Etruscans believed that once grief started it never ended and so advised that there was no point in grieving one hour earlier than one must. I failed to heed this advice with Samuel and started grieving him several months before he died. But it wasn’t just him. I had lost two friends and two other clients to this disease. My mourning for him seemed an extension of other griefs. While I have not honored the advice of the ancients, I do believe in the first part of the saying. Grief seems never to end.

     Life-change theory asserts that the grief cycle takes about two years to complete. Issues of loss change within the time period and usually encompass aloneness, readjustment, acceptance, and a need to get on with one’s life. Typically, the emotions related to grief relax significantly by the end of the time even though one may continue to experience occasional episodes of feeling bereft. Armed with this information, in my mid-thirties, I started thinking in two-year increments about my own emotions related to loss. Feeling hurt or confused, I’d figure if I were still within the two-year allotment of time for the grief cycle. The realization sometimes brought a small relief, a kind of calendared comfort, when pain persisted. But after age forty, I noticed that before one cycle could complete, I was starting another one. It felt like a stacking up of caskets in a temporary, winter-time mausoleum waiting for burial after the spring thaw. The bunching up continues. For me, grief seems here to stay.

     Two deaths have contributed most to the early onset of grief. The first, Ted’s, was preceded by his phone call telling me that his doctor said it was a matter of weeks or months before he would die. I was pondering that information when, a few weeks later, another friend, James, called to tell me he had just found out he was HIV+. These two phone calls plunged me into a grief I fought hard to resist. Certainly, I was confusing concepts of terminal disease and chronic disease. (Terminally ill, Ted died four months later; years later, James is still alive.) But I grieved several months before Ted died. In the second death, Michael’s, there were no phone calls. I was face to face with the disease as I watched him die. For months, on an almost daily basis, I observed his tiny losses of life, including changes of emotion, giving up beloved activities, decreases in energy, increases in pain, growth of lymph nodes, and more. Perhaps, empathetically, I was joining Michael in his dying process. Together we recognized and mourned loss after loss. Grief entered the picture long before he actually quit breathing.

     Michael had not been dead many days when I realized my client Samuel was becoming deeply ill. My tears for Samuel that day as I held his head were also tears for Michael. Two months later, Samuel missed an appointment without canceling. It didn’t seem like him simply to miss, and he had been so frail the last time I had worked with him. The case manager contacted his family and discovered that he had died.

     I now am living with grief, and I imagine it will follow me throughout the rest of my life, both as an ordinary occurrence and as an occupational given. Surely the Etruscans were right; once grief starts it never ends. I wonder whether I will learn not to begin grieving before I must. Perhaps I can ritualize my grief, turn it into a duty, and assign it predictable parameters for beginning and ending. If only life were that simple. Overlapping griefs have come to color my life and work in a significant way. I will try to recognize grief’s power and live into its significance.

Exultation, acrylic on paper, by Phillip Hoyle

Table Talk: Failing Bodies

     I became domesticated. Already I was doing more things at his house than I ever imagined: cleaning up after the dogs, mowing the lawn, pulling weeds, even cooking. These were helpful to Michael, of course, but I wanted to do more, something to help him feel better.

     Michael’s illness was advancing too rapidly. I remember when I started to feel my time with him was really limited. I realized I might not have many more chances to express my love or to do nice things for him. I had met Michael when he came to me for a massage. The connection between us was instant and mutual. Before long we were meeting for coffee, talking and laughing together. Then there were small gifts: a magazine from him, a candle from me. I prepared him some artwork; he fixed me a wonderful meal. I still hoped for new and enjoyable experiences with Michael. I wanted him to feel my love, concern, and humor. I wasn’t ready for him to leave me and decided I would do what I could to make our remaining time together enjoyable--even with the pain, grief, and fear. Nearly every day I rubbed lotion on Michael’s dry back and arms and often massaged some sore spot on his body. He loved my touch. Finally, I realized that my most distinctive and comforting gift was the same gift I had first given him. “Maybe I can give Michael a massage tomorrow morning,” I thought.

     Recalling this, I think of other clients of mine. Kevin is having a harder time. Pat‘s liver is failing. Judy has cancer. Connie feels confused. Still others are experiencing decreases of energy, increases of motor problems related to peripheral neuropathy, memory loss. I hope to help them deal with their difficulties by the massages I give. More than one client has told me, “Phillip, you’re the only person who touches me.”

     These failing bodies prompted me to choose Saint Mary Magdalene as the patron of massage therapy. I find especially helpful the story of her anointing Jesus. A woman often identified as Mary comes into the banquet room and anoints Jesus’ feet with an expensive ointment. There is criticism: “The oil could have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor.” There is innuendo: “Don’t you know the reputation of this woman?” Jesus counters the arguments. “She has done a beautiful thing. She is anointing me for my burial.” His death was still weeks or months off in the account. The story seems all too apt. No one else was preparing Jesus’ body for his death. Perhaps the others were focused on trying to prevent his death or in denial of its inevitability and approach. Whatever else may have been happening, Mary was the one who touched Jesus’ body. The Gospel paints a picture of intimacy, caring, love, extravagance, and much more. Mary stooped over Jesus’ feet, applied oil, massaged it in, wiped off the excess. I imagine Jesus’ relief, thankfulness, and pleasure.

     Something similar occurs in my massages at the AIDS clinic. I anoint failing bodies. My work values them with touch. While the client may have to deal with the ongoing failure of systems within his or her body, I have the luxury and the task of working with what medical people call the presenting problem. I don’t carry into the massage the memory of a healthy body. I simply greet the person and start my work with questions like: “Do you have any particular aches or pains you want me to address?” “Do you prefer a light or heavy touch?” Where I sense pain, I ask how much it hurts, and, following my work, I ask if the client is feeling better. I value the present person through the quality of my touch, hoping to communicate love and my own valuing of their body.

     The body’s breakdown often leaves persons with remembered images and an elevated sense of loss. Some of my clients have lost their stamina and with it their jobs. Some have had to quit working out. Others can barely make it to their many medical appointments. Such losses erode self-confidence, self-image, self-reliance. Not only have they lost the ability to do what they used to do when they had better health and stronger bodies, but they also realize they will never be able to accomplish all their hoped-for activities. Their bodies are failing them; their lives may end soon. They have difficulty valuing the body that is betraying them.

     I knew Michael less than nine months. He had been HIV infected for several years and was already on disability when we met. He was pretty skinny, living with some unlovely side effects from his medications, but still able to enjoy eating out, to take short trips in the area, to tend flowers and vegetables in his garden. I saw a spare, even gaunt beauty in his face and frame. I appreciated, touched, and enjoyed every part of his body. I was unwilling to give up any part of it even as I watched it betray him. I saw him lose more weight, heard his roars of anguish at his pain, and steadied his shaking body. I realized I was watching him die, but still I loved him, all of him, even those parts that weren’t working well.

     Michael readily agreed to my suggestion of a massage. We drove to my apartment. I helped him climb the stairs. In the massage room he undressed and got onto the table. I covered him with a blanket. As Michael relaxed, I loved him with my hands. I stooped over his failing body, rubbed in the oil, removed the excess. I anointed him in his life and in preparation for his death.

Mixed media art by Phillip Hoyle

Table Talk: Full of Feeling

     Troy is on my mind. I remember feeling so good, so concerned, so bad in connection with him. I met him at the AIDS clinic, but Troy wanted more than the one allotted massage per month. That pleased me. He came for work at my studio with some regularity and always set the next appointment at the end of a session. Then he missed an appointment. I figured with his occasional dementia he had simply forgot. A couple of days later, though, I grew concerned when I didn’t see Troy in the neighborhood. I was afraid that perhaps debt was keeping him away since he owed me money for a massage. A few weeks later as I was walking past Troy’s apartment, he tapped on his window to get my attention. I was so relieved to see him again even though this relief was still tinged with concern. He told me he had been ill and in the hospital, but now he was back home and ready for a massage. Working with him again was a delight. He was full of humor. We laughed together at the funny things he said although I nearly cried when he told me I was the only person who touched him.

     Then I didn’t see him again. Troy seemed to be gone. Not a word, no answer of his phone, no sign of life at his apartment. I recall the insuppressible joy when I saw the light in his window, and I can still feel the drooping disappointment when, looking in, I noticed that his furniture and other things were gone. Was he in the hospital or a hospice? Was he dead? I tried to find out from his case manager but only felt frustrated by the bureaucratic barriers that kept his information from me.

     I am full of feeling. I suppose some of it is residual, related to my friend Ted’s death by AIDS and my being unable to help him at the end. Then I was working more than full-time, and he lived halfway across the country. Now I have the time and am living in the right neighborhood. I want to help Troy like I wanted to help Ted. I prize the massages I have given this man. Where is Troy with his sad body, humorous imagination, and occasional bitchiness? I treasure my memories of sliding my hands over his body, of pulling, beating, pushing, and soothing. I have held his head, mussed and straightened his hair, put oil between his toes, rubbed lotion into his dry skin.

     I feel how Mary Magdalene may have felt when she anointed Jesus--intrigued with his life and anticipating his death. Life is good. I affirm that every day in my writing. I pray that death also may be beautiful. Has Troy died? If so, “Go, Troy. Show the holy oil on your dry skin to the creator of the universe and of the human body. Let the divine light reflect from your own glistening and softening skin. I love you and thank you for presenting yourself to me for anointing.”

     Where is Troy? I need to know. Perhaps this feeling, too, is related to my past. Having worked many years in church ministry, I knew about the deaths of persons I had served or met. I planned and led their funeral services or at least attended them. Perhaps I will have to learn to massage without such a personal connection, but it doesn’t feel good. I have laid my hands on Troy in therapeutic love and want to know his situation. Surely his case manager will find a way to tell me about Troy. I simply want to know whether he is dead or alive.

     If he is dead, I need to mourn him.

     If he is alive, I need to give him a massage.

Urban Power Shileds, mixed media art by Phillip Hoyle

Table Talk: Healing Hands

     As a minister making hospital calls, I feared a patient might be healed miraculously when I prayed with them. I admitted this in a discussion group with laypersons. When asked why, I confessed that I assumed it would ruin my life as a plain and ordinary person and my career as a liberal minister. I’d hate to be a faith healer in a church of rationalists. One woman in the group, Shirley, said, “But, Phillip, you have Reiki hands. I knew that the moment I met you.”

     I wasn’t sure what Reiki hands were, but I did understand that she assumed I had some kind of healing gift. Shirley couldn’t imagine why I didn’t want to use it. The image of myself as a healer was almost overpowering, an assault on my pragmatic upbringing and liberal education. I thought it appropriate to leave healing to the medics and for me to support patients in related issues such as dealing with health care systems. I helped parishioners to confront their religious questions and, in general, to clarify their attitudes towards and acceptance of their medical therapy. I prayed with patients that God would enhance their natural ability to heal.

     Now, even as I do bodywork, I keep hoping people won’t assume their healing is a direct result of a special power I hold. I recall the phrase from some novel about a character who had hands with “palms as hot and sweaty as a faith healer’s.” My palms get hot during massage. Perhaps it was the heat that alerted Shirley to the possibility I could be a healer. But to me, my hands seem to be simply part of who I am. I don’t want to be a faith healer.

     “Those hands.” It’s the compliment I have most often received from teachers, friends, and clients. “Wonderful hands.” “Healing hands.” I gave up protesting and now simply thank people who remark about my hands. They are my main tools, and I am thankful that they are effective in my work. Certainly they are a gift since I did nothing to earn them. I felt like a client put me on the line over my reluctance to understand myself as a healer. She told me about a tumor she had discovered on her back, at the base of the neck near the spine, and asked me to put my hand on it. I did so, placing my hand over the spot she indicated. I could feel a slight protuberance, cupped my hand over it, and left my hand in place for several minutes. When I finally moved it, she asked, “Was it your hand or my skin that was so hot?” I reported that her skin had felt cool to my touch.

     Then she asked, “Did you feel malignancy in the tumor?” I didn’t have a clue what I was feeling, except my own discomfort at her assumption that I’d know anything. It seemed one thing for me to place my hand on someone’s body and quite another to imagine I could make a diagnosis from doing so. I told her I didn’t know what I was feeling there. I meekly excused myself on the basis of inexperience.

     While I do not have any inclination towards intuitive diagnosis and have received little training in healing energy work, people still want me to place my hands on them. I touch people in the healing context of massage. I am not a Hindu healer, but some of my clients see brilliant colors when I place my hands over their chakras. I am not trained in Japanese Reiki methods and thought, but when I am around such healers, they assume I am one of them. Certainly, I am some kind of healer, and bodywork modalities from other religious backgrounds are encouraging me to integrate my own healing tradition into massage.

     Being a Reiki healer herself, Shirley understands the complexities of healing. She knows how the laying on of hands may not take away a disease but simply bring perspective to one’s attitude toward it. Like any minister, she believes that emotional releases may pave the way for a deeper healing of the psyche or the body. Shirley knows the kinds of success and failure I have sought to sidestep through my objections to healing work and my reluctance to enter into it.

     I avoided this work as a minister, but I cannot avoid it now as a massage therapist. I may be impeded by my own attitudes of suspicion, doubt, and fear, but I am willing to lay my hands on someone’s body where they feel pain or suspect some other malady. If there is power, it will do its work. I doubt that it is my power, but if the heat from my hands does have an effect I do not understand, I am willing to let that energy heal. Expect something good to happen in the massage; I do. But please don’t expect a diagnosis or a miracle if you get a massage from me. 

Oh Divine healing, may we reject the temptation to turn your work into a moralized commodity that we deserve or not deserve but want anyway. May we steer clear of turning your great mystery into magic that we can control and use. We bow before your ultimately unknowable power with humility and awe, and sometimes are bold enough to ask you for a miracle. Amen.

    

Paintings by P. Hoyle Extension, Hand and Foot 7, Hand and Foot 19

Table Talk: Holy Bodies

Whoever you are, how superb and how divine is your body,

or any part of it!

Leaves of Grass, W. Whitman

     When I am working with clients, I sometimes become aware that their bodies are holy. I feel a sense of privilege, an awareness that a gift is being given me by the persons who present themselves for massage. The vision of holy bodies helps me to work with greater intent and to remember that I am treating whole persons. I realize that while these feelings are subjective, they are related to an objective reality. I ponder the nature of the body lying on the table before me. It is a body, but more than that, this is a person with intrinsic, sacred value.

     Theologians reflect on the nature of the human, weighing the evidence and reaching conclusions in line with their beginning premises, optimistic or pessimistic. They emphasize a vision that arises from a compatible set of images from the Bible and theology. So some Christian leaders preach from the prophet Isaiah: “All flesh is grass.” They stress human moral weakness and the transitory nature of life in order to build a case for a better, eternal life in God’s future. They may wax so eloquently about the sinful and the temporal, that they never think to mention the words of divine pleasure at creation: “It is good.” They are so excited to speak of salvation that they forget the ancient teaching that God made the world. Certainly life is as precious as it is fleeting and contains as much potential for good as for ill.

     I am not naive about the biblical teachings or about the history of Christian theology. The conceptual settlements which resulted from discussion and reflection over many centuries continue to be important. But now I am searching for ways to talk about the body for massage, in order to understand it as God’s creation and to love it as it is.

     My reading of the Oxford Dictionary of Saints encouraged me to continue my search for body-positive images within Christian tradition. In the volume, some saints were remembered for their bodies. The idea of being known for your body in a body-rejecting society intrigued me. I found significant the tension between ideas of holiness that reject the physical as sinful and accounts of saints that consider at least some bodies themselves as holy.

     A bit of background information may illuminate my interest. New Testament writers considered all Christians to be saints, called out of the world into a special, ministering relationship with both God and the world. The later cult of saints originated in the veneration and respect afforded those persons who were martyred for their faith. Their lives and even their bodies were considered to be different. Thus “Saint” came to describe a special class of the extra-holy.

     Several articles in the Dictionary indicate particulars about the bodies of these saints. For example, St. Oswin, was described by his hagiographer as handsome and large. Similarly, one source stresses St. Oswald’s fine physique and his attractive and accessible character. John of Capistrano was a small man, we are told, withered and emaciated, but cheerful, strong, and strenuous. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi was strikingly beautiful. St. Radegund, too, united comeliness with piety. Some saints were revered because they gave up the power related to physical attractiveness for the disadvantages of following the religious way, but others were just good looking or had fine physiques.

     The veneration of relics preserved remnants of bodies for holy purposes. Relics of saints, especially those reputed to be powerful for healing, were moved to Christian sanctuaries in some cities to compete with the revered presence of idols in older temples. Some saints’ bodies, which were discovered not to have disintegrated in their tombs, were afforded particularly intense devotion. Apparently not everyone in Christian tradition thought the body awful or an irresolvable problem.

     If I have any wisdom about holy bodies, it arises from the experience of touching the people who present themselves to me. Here on the table, I see people, whole people. Fragile, strong, hurting, determined, unsure, hopeful, and more. I see physically strong people who need reassurance and physically weak people carrying on with the greatest determination. I work with healthy people who don’t feel healthy and dying people who are determined to survive. The variety seems endless, and the lessons difficult to grasp.

     Why people come for massage provides some insight. Many seek pain relief. Others wish to affirm their own bodies, to be touched, or to enjoy the total environment of therapist, space, music, etc. Some folk want to feel they are taking care of themselves, even pampering themselves, or simply desire to use a gift certificate they have received. These massage-related needs are both individual and social, prizing and honoring the body.

     Significant words present themselves for my contemplation: difference, variety, diversity, amazement, infinite experiences, and evolution. They represent ideas as diverse as the people to whom I give massage. The concept of “infinity” leads me into more theological reflection. “Evolution” I examine without assuming the changes implied by the word lead toward perfection. Rather, I consider the concept with an appreciation for tenacity and surprise at what changes and what endures.

     In my massage-oriented cult of the human body, I don’t want to discover a perfect body, incorruptible and powerful to cure. I see only ordinary bodies but am utterly amazed at how durable, powerful, and at the same time, vulnerable they are. Most importantly, I see persons’ spirituality within their physicality, their enduring quality within their total experience. And I discover these things in all bodies, not just special ones.

     In these reflections I feel somewhat insecure, like I imagine the earliest believers felt as they tried to understand eternal values in the vulnerable body of Jesus. My concepts seem as fragile as those of early Christian belief, before it was bolstered by the stability of conciliar agreement, the seeming impermeability of orthodoxy, and the temporal power of an empire and church alliance. At the same time, the primitive, unstable truth seems more akin to what I observe in massage therapy.

     For example, I wonder how ancient categories contrasting finite and infinite can be meaningful after the discovery of the infinite differences in cellular functions in the human body. The accumulation of any single human’s experience makes the old distinction almost meaningless to me. The orthodox language tried to express that God, unlike humans, was not subject to the limitations of time and space. But surely newer understandings of the infinite variety of human or cosmic experience have the capacity to sufficiently express the limitlessness of the divine. One may want to retain an idea that God is still more than all this experience, or one may be pleasantly overwhelmed that we don’t even begin to understand our own “finite” experience. At least, in this way God is still more, and still “beyond human understanding.”
So I touch a person who is lying on my table, unclad except for the thin covering of a cotton sheet. I touch the skin, palpate the muscles, and begin a communication of my amazement at the great wonder this person is. I massage this holy body knowing that here I meet God.

Big Brother, mixed media by Phillip Hoyle

When artists in primal cultures show animals standing like humans, they often are pointing toward a holy figure, some anthropomorphic characterization of a god. So among Utes big brother, Mountain Lion, shows up this way in a western Colorado petroglyph site. To me, this character seems powerful and somewhat boastful. He also appears that way in traditional Ute stories.