The revered Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh has written
a book about fear.[1]
In it he speaks of a universal transition trauma – the moment of birth. He
describes how the nine months preceding birth are a time of simple existence, of
equilibrium and, above all, of acceptance. All that is needed for basic
survival is supplied through the body of another. Whether or not that ‘other’
wills it, the unborn infant simply receives. Then, the teacher argues, comes
birth, and with it fear.
Most of us have not experienced the kind of therapy which
takes you back to the birth moment, but we have all experienced fear, to a
greater or lesser extent, at certain times in our lives. The moment of birth is
a moment of primal fear. It is primal because it is the first moment in our
lives when we are forced to come to terms with need. This need is massive and,
for the newborn child, wholly incomprehensible. In the moment of birth it makes
itself felt as an urgent need for immediate survival – air, nourishment and the
closeness of another human body, the latter two being of a piece.
The need for tactile relationship endures. Long after we
are able to breathe independently, and feed and clothe ourselves, there remains
a deep need for the ‘other’. As emotionally healthy adults this need is fully
met when we can recognise, and perhaps meet, another person’s need as well.
Those who have experienced emotional abuse in childhood (and all abuse is
emotional), will go on through life trying to have their emotional needs met,
either by repeating the pattern learned through their parents or, perhaps, by
trying to prevent or make up for the neglect they experienced by making
themselves indispensible to others, both of these coping strategies leading to
further toxic relationships and thwarted lives.
This is why I find the story of the risen Christ meeting
a grieving friend in the garden so significant. It is a moment of healing in
which the friend is not only restored to herself but ‘given permission’ to use her giftedness.
She is tasked with announcing the good news of the Resurrection to others. But
first, Jesus asks her why she is weeping and who she is seeking.
I think her tears
and his questions speak of the human condition itself. We are all, at times,
weeping for what has been lost or never fully realised in our lives. Even so,
there is a paradox in the conversation between Christ and Mary, as it is
recorded in St. John’s gospel. Mary, on realising who is speaking to her,
reaches out to grasp him. She needs him. But he tells her not to touch him
because he is not yet risen to the Father. Later, though, he will invite
Thomas, the one who needs empirical proof before he can believe in the ‘hallucinations’
of someone as distraught as Mary (we are always a bit hard on Thomas) will be
invited to touch him.
This seems a little unfair. It should have been the other
way round, Mary being allowed to hold him, rather than Thomas the sceptic. Unless,
of course, we think more deeply about the need being expressed by Mary. It is a
quite different need from Thomas’s. Mary’s need represents what we are all
seeking in that deep hidden part of ourselves. It takes us back to our first
breath, our first cry of need for someone. Mary’s need is more than a need for
reassurance that what she is seeing and longing for is in fact happening, as
was promised. It implies hope fulfilled in a moment of deep need.
She recognises Christ as ‘Rabboni’, the beloved Teacher,
as he says her name. Part of the reason for our chronic loneliness as a
society, or as members of a particular church, is that we seldom hear our name
being called – our name being the person we really are. It may even be necessary to hide who we are, or to deny
our giftedness, because there are some who fear us. Their fear will translate
as envy and could destroy us.
The same thing can happen in families. Abusive parents
fear, and want to suppress or control, the real person in their child, because
that person challenges them. In being who and what they are, they show their
parents the truth about themselves. Truth spoken through another person’s
integrity can remind others that they are not who they imagine themselves to
be, or would like others to believe they are. Truth spoken through another’s
integrity, or giftedness, can make another person feel undermined or
threatened. No wonder, then, that the women who brought the news of the
resurrection to Christ’s closest friends were dismissed as ‘foolish’.
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