Refuge

I have been discovering again that going into social media leaves me feeling like I’m out in a sea of turbulent emotions in a very small and unsteady craft. I notice that it doesn’t matter whether I agree or disagree with someone’s resounding anger or support, grief or gladness, about the world. Lately nearly every message sends me into a freeze response. I feel myself shrinking inward, barely breathing, frozen to discern or respond at all.

That’s no refuge for me. This morning, I took refuge in my bathroom to have a moment to cry. Tough news, tough household emotions, a big birthday for my youngest…all of it came pouring out. Then I pulled myself together, took a shower, brought myself to the sanctuary of my little yoga class.

I am the teacher of this class. It is my responsibility to set a table for us to receive one another together, to be sanctuary for one another. Today, my students reminded me (not for the first time) how very much I learn from them, how community is sanctuary.

In the presence of each other’s witnessing, we were kind to each other’s stories, kind to our bodies, kind to each other’s fears. We were able to take refuge at this table together. It was like each of us was there to just be held by a sense of love that for that hour became sanctuary.

How do we find sanctuary, refuge inside ourselves, that allows us to firm up our foundation rather than swinging rapidly between flight, fight or freeze response? There’s an old teaching about this that reminds the student, who is all of us, that refuge is found in 3 places: in the teacher, in the teachings, and in the community.

In this case, the teacher is not the one at the front of a classroom, but is the one who lives and breathes the peace of God into the soul of creation. The teachings are those ways we might walk in to embody the teacher. The community are the ones who come to the table to be nourished in these ways together, to be fed, and to feed by shoring one another up with kindness and reminders of love. We need the community because we are apt to forget to look toward the teacher and the teachings when we are caught in our own self-serving mind. Together, we might remember.