The head, the heart, the gut, and the feet. Stacked on top of one another, this spiritual axis functions as the meaning-making apparatus which allows us human beings to change, to grow, and to transcend the seeming limits of our personalities. Just like the angels ascending and descending Jacob’s ladder—or, more aptly, the Father sending down the Son, raising him on the third day, then sending the Spirit back down fifty days later—the pattern of our salvation is the constant drama of rising and falling. Our feet, indeed, step into the wide open spaces of life where we consume, through our senses, experiences, which are then processed at the levels of feeling in our guts, emotion in our hearts, and cognition in our brains. But as we have learned from our spiritual ancestors, we cannot just linger in the Upper Room! We must, instead, be willing to part from these dazzling abstractions, back down the mountain, to ground level where we can literally move in the direction that leads to life. Let’s therefore get comfortable with the ups and downs of our interior life this Lenten season and start practicing an obedience of the feet. We shall learn to feel at home in our bodies, in this life and the next.Â
Ave Crux, Spes Unica.
