He Set My Feet on a Rock
I had a peculiar, yet remarkable experience the other day performing the most simple of actions – shifting my body weight from resting on my heels to the balls of my feet. Modern culture tells us the way to stand is stomach (and rear) in, chest out, shoulders back. This normally happens with locked knees and the weight resting on the heels of the feet. One notable observation of this posture is that while seeming dignified it is absolutely rigid and quite lifeless. That is because when one stands like that the body actually naturally slumps and a tense rigidity is required to hold the body upright. Spontaneous action and true gracefulness are near impossible with stiffness. It’s inherent inflexibility may do well at achieving marked out goals, but at what cost?
Oddly enough, the with the opposite posture (stomach out, pelvis back, knees slightly bent, weight on balls of feet), one stands up straight naturally, without tensing the body. The other day, as I was doing a couple of stretching exercises, getting my weight to rest on the balls of my feet, I suddenly had a strange stronger-than-usual sense that my feet were firmly on the ground. I began to sob as the following quote from C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra ran through my head: “Be comforted…It is no doing of yours…Be comforted small one, in your smallness. He [God] lays no merit on you. Receive and be glad. Have no fear, lest your shoulders be bearing the weight of the world. Look! It is beneath your head and carries you.”
The first posture of rigidity is that of holding one’s self up, of bearing the weight of the world on one’s own shoulders. The latter posture is that of being grounded, standing securely on terra firma, allowing it to hold you. Being a historical over-achiever (which is by no means undiluted joy I assure you) I know the pressure of bearing the weight of the world on my shoulders. This self-sufficiency, rooted in a lack of trust (of God and others), draws enormous affirmation and acclaim from others because of the apparent achievements. Yet at what cost are these achievements made? Can one ever feel secure when holding themselves up? Can one ever give and receive love while burdened with the weight of the world? Remember that the posture of self-sufficiency naturally slumps without a counter-active stringent stiffness to hold the body up. One reason why the self-sufficient person is full of anxiety is because they are intuitively aware that if they fail to hold firm, they will slump and their true (natural) state of indignity will be revealed, in other words, if they fail to maintain an unyielding high level of performance continually, all will crash: the internal barrenness, fear, loneliness and uncertainty will be revealed. The slump that their posture naturally produces will be seen as it is.
Scripture seems at least metaphorically to refer to this “grounding:”
Ps. 27:5 – For in the day of trouble
he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle
and set me high upon a rock.
Ps. 40:2 – He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
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