Horse Gentling -- The Center Line

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
August 21, 2010; 13 Pentecost; Proper 16, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

    (Luke 13:10-17) – Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.
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Stanford Addison is an Arapaho Indian living in Wyoming.  Stanford was a rebellious teenager.  He worked as a bronco buster, and he dealt drugs.  When he was twenty years old, Stanford was paralyzed in a car accident. (1)

There followed a decade of despair, during which he began to receive "unwelcome visits from spirits intent on endowing him with unwanted gifts."  Though it took him ten years, eventually he accepted both what he had lost and what he had gained.  He relaxed into a new role.  Instead of busting broncos, he became a horse gentler – some call them horse whisperers.  He also became a traditional healer. 

Stanford lives in a manufactured home and gets around by an electric wheelchair.  It was in the confinement of that chair that he developed the method that earned him the reputation of being a remarkably efficient non-violent horse gentler.  From the confines of his chair, he watched his brothers break horses in the old fashioned, bronc busting way.  He watched what worked and what didn't work. 

Stanford recognized how horses need a strong sense of safety.  They need structure and a dependable predictability in order for them to develop a sense of trust.  Stanford created a method for trust-development, using what he calls a center line.  He calls his method "finding your center." 

Stanford threads a rope through a secure apparatus hanging above the horse.  He clips the rope to a ring on the horse's halter.  Once the horse is clipped to the center line, there is only one place – directly below the ring – where the horse can stand without having its head pulled at an uncomfortable angle.  Stanford sends everyone away from the corral so the horse can learn on its own, without blaming any onlookers, blaming anyone else.

Then the horse will start to test the center line.  The horse will protest the limits – whinnying, fussing, trotting in place, contorting.  Alone in the corral, the horse will try to figure an escape from the confinements of this reality.  Eventually, inevitably, the horse realizes that the center line is something that can't be argued with.  Despite the obstacles, the horse finds a way to be calm – learns to be calm.  The horse accepts the reality of the center line, and relaxes.  That's the key to Stanford's trust-training regime.  Finding your center.  That's also the key to Stanford's entire existence. 

So many of us live like the woman in today's Gospel – chronically weighed down, bent over and burdened.  We may live that way for so long that it seems normal.  Eighteen years and she's still stuck, unable to look up, unable to stand tall and strong.

Jesus comes to her, and without asking whether she wants any help, he frees her.  He liberates her from her bondage.  He lifts her burden and restores her to strength.  He becomes her center, and she is free.

I visit with people who go through terrible times of burden and bondage.  Part of my work is to visit with people when they are going through crippling times.  So often I am amazed at the resilience and peace that I witness in so many people.  It's not unusual for them to give voice to the source of their strength.  "If it weren't for God, I couldn't make it through this.  If it wasn't for Jesus, I don't know how I could stand it."  You can sense that they are connected to some kind of center line, a secure reality that can't be argued with.  There is trust, security, peace, even within very disturbing circumstances. 

Everything we do around here at St. Paul's seeks to connect us with that center line – the experience of our inseparable bond to an infinite love that is also ultimate mystery. 


I heard a report on our public radio KUAF – "Science Friday" on "Talk of the Town."  Host Ira Flatow was interviewing a scientist about experiments showing that students who practice a form of meditation for just eleven hours over a period of weeks experience lower measurements of the stress hormone cortisol, better stress regulation, lower anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue, as well as changes to brain connectivity that last for weeks.  Just five days of practice makes measurable changes.

We could have told them that.  Around here we teach "Centering Prayer," a way of connecting with the source of life, which opens us to the divine presence and healing that liberates us to be able to bear our burden lightly, as Jesus says. 

In Centering Prayer we teach people to let go of their attachment to their thoughts and feelings, and to consent to God's presence and activity in our lives.  We teach them to symbolize that consent through a sacred word, to sit erect, with eyes closed, and very gently to introduce their sacred word as the symbol of their consent to God's presence and activity.  After that, there is no need to do anything at all.  The only time you use the sacred word is when you discover you are distracted by any thought or feeling.  Then, very gently, reintroduce your sacred word as a symbol of your consent, and be present for whatever time you give yourself for the prayer.  Twenty minutes can open you to a deep place of quiet.

Practices like this help connect us to the reality of our center, our eternal, unbroken connectedness with God. 

There are other practices.  We encourage people to read the Daily Office, the Prayer Book services of Morning or Evening Prayer, reconnecting us with our story and identity through scripture and prayers.  We share little practices of mindfulness – the three breaths: one to let go of the past, one to be here and now, one to be open to whatever will be. 

Most of all we share Eucharist.  We gather in a celebration of praise and thanksgiving.  We hear and reflect on scripture.  We pray.  We break bread and drink wine as the sacrament of Christ's death and resurrection made present for us as the food of resurrection life.  We reconnect with our center, our unity with God, ourselves, our neighbors and all creation.

There is something relaxing about these practices.  When we know ourselves connected to the center line of the reality and presence of God, we can accept our reality with enough healthy surrender that we can trust, and experience freedom – release from the crippling burdens of anxiety, fear, depression, anger and fatigue. 

Just like Stanford Addison is a horse gentler who establishes trust by creating an unbreakable connection with a center line that cannot be broken, so Jesus is our human gentler, who establishes trust in us by creating an unbreakable connection with an infinite love that cannot be broken.  We may buck and whinny, fuss and prance in place, rebel and complain for years, but the reality of the God who loves us will not let go of us – even unto death, Jesus teaches us in his cross.

Life blossoms when we just relax – when we accept the fact that we are loved and accepted.  We don't have to buck and prance any more.  God loves us, and that is all.  When we close our eyes and relax into that reality, surrendering into the mystery of reality itself, even the scientists say they can tell we change for the better.  We become less anxious, less burdened with depression, anger and fatigue.

We are here today to renew that connection, that union, that relationship.  Let yourself surrender to the unbreakable connection that is your center line to the sacred.  Let go of your burdens.  Breathe.  Sit up and stand up straight.  Be filled with divine light and love.  Then let light and love flow out through you into the world.  Jesus calls us to share in his work of world-gentling. 
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(1) the story comes from Lisa Jones, "The Heart's Original Position" in "Spirituality and Health" May/June 2010, p. 44f.  Her book about Stanford Addison is "Broken, A Love Story"
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