A Spa for the Soul

The sun was just settling into a bank of clouds over the sea as I tapped this on my keyboard from a balcony of that funky old village house perched on the rocky hillside. That dream we purchased three years ago. Mid-November. At last, renovation had begun.*

The five story tower was not much more than a shell after two weeks of cement saws and sledge hammers. A shell filled with hope. New openings to the outdoors will be enclosed with French doors to welcome the clear Mediterranean light and air. New openings and closings inside mean guest rooms with private baths, a private floor for Curt and me to rest and work, a working kitchen, and a garden studio to create, experiment and play. Each space opens onto a balcony or terrace. Olive trees and scattered tile roofs in the foreground below with islands, sea and sky spreading huge beyond.

Peaceful. Quiet-but-not-really, for birds chatter and the voices of children at play echo up from the village. That day I watched the tiniest of hummingbirds, not more than three centimeters from beak to tail, feed on the bougainvillea.

We work to create a spa for the soul. Prayer by prayer, brick by brick, worker by worker. “Spa”—a place to be pampered, massaged (to work out the kinks), scrubbed (to get rid of the dead stuff and bring on a glow), and anointed with oil (for softness and renewal). Fragrant with life. “For the soul”—a place to be still, to let the competing voices of daily life or work or technology fall silent, to pray, and write or paint or cook, and to dream. A meld of ancient Christian disciplines of communal solitude, listening prayer and spiritual accompaniment with more contemporary ideas of hospitable spaces for fellowship, exploration and play. We hope.

Today we watch from faraway Abu Dhabi as carpenters build 26 windows, 19 doors, shutters for the ground floor, the wood-and-glass studio and a rooftop pergola. Electricians and plumbers lay the hidden things necessary to the magic of water and light, guided by marks we drew on the walls and my pencil drawings covered with Őzer’s notes in Turkish. The tile layer arrives today. Next week I rejoin the workers for a few days—armed with sketches and ideas for the carpenter who will build cabinets, tables, bookshelves and dining chairs. And more for the ironmonger who will make bed and sofa frames. Everything home-designed and hand-crafted.

This place, this “spa”--we prepare an offering. Not a business, or a “ministry.” Just a couple of cracked old pots, retired folks, who want to share their mix of good food, listening, quiet, beautiful private spaces and hospitality with whoever wants to come and partake—from wherever they may come.

*Check out www.curtbidinger.phanfare.com for photos of the breaking, the deconstruction necessary to any real transformation.

Hammam

I lie naked, enfolded in water-sound and mist. The polished stone is warm beneath me, and I am surprised to notice how my aging body rests without pain on its hard flatness. The room is small, secluded and secure.

Firm hands scrub hard every inch of me, then anoint tender skin with oil. Scents born on steam permeate the intimate space and minister calm to my deep inside. Warm water sprays away detritus of dirt and death. Strong fingers entangle long hair to massage my scalp, and more water is poured, again and again, until the suds of cleansing swirl down the drain and all residue is gone.

I think of You, Jesus. You are always here, but today I am conscious of Your presence.

I am awash in the stories of Your naked body removed gently from the cross, of the ministry of loving hands to enfold Your death in oily spices and herbs of preparation. Doing unto You as Your Father looked on.

I wonder how the extravagant anointing of that sinful woman, and later of Your dear friend Mary, felt to you. The fragrance, their tears that understood some small part of all that Your love could mean to them. You experienced their touch, and I wonder today if it was balm to Your soul? You, Lord of All, in frail human body. Incarnate. Physical. Sensual. Did you, too, love the flow of fragrance and salt tears, the warm spread of cleansing water and nourishing oil?

And how about that day when you bent to wash their feet? To scrub with water and the towel. Perhaps to massage away the tight aches of long walking, the bruises of hard ground and stone? The sure touch of quiet ministry to body in a way that penetrated their frightened, weary souls.

I recall the stories. I muse whether the hammam, this ancient Roman bathing tradition, was a way of life for You. But there is more. You are today present here, indwelling my frail tent. As I receive this ministry with gratitude, You also receive. As I dwell in the grace of this moment, we share the pleasure.

You are Lord of the Universe. I am frail child in aging body lying on warm, smooth stone. Somehow invested with Your glory. Full of praise, deeply grateful, a tad mystified.

Blessed be Your Name. Amen.

Twelve days of Christmas...

Tonight is Twelfth Night, the eve of Epiphany when the arrival of the magi is celebrated. It's the end of the Christmas season. As the years pass I am ever more delighted that there are twelve days of Christmas. For no matter how hard I try, the rush to Christmas Eve, with the decorations, celebrations, gifts and their wrappings, letters and greetings, guest lists and cooking always overtakes quieter contemplation of Advent.

But on Christmas Day the myriad details of “must do,” “I hope I can find,” and “oh please, don’t forget” resolve as gifts shed their wrappings and the feast is consumed. Then come twelve glorious days of early morning solitude aglow with tree lights and a dozen candles. With the wonder of the incarnation and its gospel stories still fresh, my inner self comes, coffee in hand, to rest and to revel in the joyous relationship at the heart of it all.

I watch Joseph. Mary, his betrothed, turns up pregnant. “Do not be afraid," cries the angel, "to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 1:20.)

I turn over some fear-filled “pregnancies” in my life: the birthing of my book, or our house of prayer in Turkey. Joseph shows me that to embrace a holy calling one must reject fear to embrace the mystery. For Joseph, the mystery that Mary’s child was of the Holy Spirit. For all of us, that the human can reside in the divine, and the divine in the human in a totally physical, yet totally spiritual unity.

I watch Mary. Gabriel visits her, too, and again, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. … The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” (Luke 1:26-38.) “Mary,” says Gabriel, “turn your face full TOWARDS the shekinah glory, a place of terror to be embraced!” “Here I am, the Lord’s servant,” she replies. “Let it be according to your word.”

And then the angel left.

How did that feel, Mary? Relief? “Did this really happen?” It seems a lonely place the angel left you in, bereft of testimony, witness and support. But there would be Elizabeth. Gabriel would also visit Joseph. The shepherds would turn up against a backdrop of angel song. The magi would follow a star to your door.

Finally, I watch Elizabeth and Zechariah as she bears John the Baptist. (Luke 1:57-66.) Luke tells us that when the neighbors and relatives heard she bore a healthy baby in her old age they rejoiced with her.

Just the neighbors, family and friends. Simple people related to her in simple ways.

God had closed Zechariah’s mouth for a season. As soon as He opened it, Zechariah poured out praise and mystery—to those same village neighbors, just family and friends. But now they were filled with fearful awe, and the word spread. Zechariah turned his face full to the shekinah radiance of the Living God, and his hearers moved from human joy at the good fortune of a barren couple to an encounter with divine mystery—a powerful Presence right in their midst.

Epiphany!

Neither hot not cold...

We have this place in Kas, Turkey, a whimsical, quirky 5-story villa perched overlooking the Mediterranean, that we dream of opening as a quiet space for retreat and refreshment. All those balconies and rocky nooks in the garden turned into places of prayer and solitude, a kitchen equipped to turn the region’s local produce into celebrations of God’s creative goodness, and community areas on main floor and rooftop for nourishing community.

Though today 99% of Turks are Muslim, the nation is rich in biblical images--the geographic backdrop of much of the New Testament. Paul put in at Patara, a few miles up the coast from our place. Not so far inland, he planted churches at Colossae and Laodicea. Later John took Jesus’ mother, Mary, and settled in Ephesus—or so goes the tradition. Before he died, he wrote Revelation, which includes seven prophetic letters to seven Turkish churches.

“I know your deeds,” says Jesus in the letter to the church at Laodicea, “that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” Rev 3:15-16.

Words to make one squirm—a challenge to one's passion for Jesus and His gospel.

But recently I learned something fascinating about the geography and history of the ancient spa-towns of Laodicea and nearby Colossae and Hierapolis. These places were spa-towns famous for their springs! Hot geo-thermal mineral baths at Hierapolis drew people from all over to soak up their restorative properties and experience healing. Colossae’s cold mineral water provided invigorating refreshment from summer’s heat. In Laodicea itself, though, tepid springs turned the stomach and made people nauseous.

Any Laodicean would easily catch the implications of John’s imagery. The letter to Laodicea speaks not of a failure of passion for the gospel, but a failure to generously, consciously serve up its life-giving properties so that we spill out refreshment and healing on the world He brings to our door. The quirky village house on the rocky hillside becomes a spiritual spa where people drink in refreshment; or splash, float, and immerse themselves in healing restoration. Stopping for awhile to leave invigorated for the onward, upward journey.

Likewise, your place and mine right today. For it’s not about the great location, or all the balconies--the beauty of the vessel, but about what God puts in it to be served up and poured out. We just have to be generous enough, prayerfully dependent and outward-facing enough to do it!