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Touching Spirit

A new way of ministering

By MIRKA KNASTER

When you think of getting a massage, more than likely you don't envision a priest, nun, minister, or rabbi as the body therapist who will soothe away your tensions. If you've ever signed up for a spiritual retreat, you probably didn't expect massage or energy balancing as part of the program. Yet during the last 20 years, a growing vanguard of North American clergy has not only openly supported working with the body but also become directly involved in hands-on treatment.

They've discovered that such work has a lot to do with spirituality. It helps deepen contemplation and prayer. It can heal psychic wounds and promote integration of mind, body, and spirit. They've noticed that providing nurturing, non-threatening touch, as well as accepting and respecting the body, may encourage a loving relationship with one's self. As feelings of separation and fragmentation transform into a sense of wholeness, there also emerges the possibility of feeling more connected to others, to one’s God, and to the universe.

The journey to share the gift of touch and to serve as a conduit for healing wasn't necessarily easy for these religious figures. But once they experienced the power of touch themselves, they decided to make it an integral part of their life and ministry. Sister Rosalind Gefre, a member of the Order of St. Joseph of Carondelet, recalls, "The first time I had a massage, I knew in my heart that's where God had called me to." She pursued it even when there were no sisters "doing such things." Her decision was tolerated but never encouraged. Even worse, when she passed out her massage fliers at a Twin Cities street fair in 1983, some people actually threw them back and laughed at her. "They looked at me like 'you dirty woman, don't you dare touch me.'" Within five years, people were standing in line to be massaged. Sister Rosalind went on to establish a series of massage centers for personal sessions, as well as instruction, in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area.

Easing tension and relaxing retreatants physically quiets them down at every level and puts them in a really good place for prayer.

A Protestant interim pastor in Maryland found that ministers would laugh awkwardly when he told them that he also worked as a massage therapist. He thought several things were probably running through their minds: "What kind of a kook is this? What's a preacher doing massaging? Maybe he's a pinko." Sometimes they asked him whether he worked on women, too. They figured that if he did, he massaged through clothing. When he told them he worked on them naked, they were horrified. For such conservative Christians, he says, "The body and the spirit are always at war with one another. They are afraid of their bodies and touch of any kind because they have never come to terms with their own sexuality." He sees massage as a way for people to break down that barrier, redeem the body, and praise God for it.

Other male clergy have reported that it was enlightening to learn that they could touch and be touched by people of the opposite gender without sexual implications. One of them is Zach Thomas, a Presbyterian minister who, while serving as a hospital chaplain, became a massage therapist and now, along with his wife, is a volunteer for the Godchild Project in Guatemala. For most of his life, he had associated spiritual growth only with retreats, Bible study, and churchgoing. Then, in 1983, while attending a conference in Switzerland, a Belgian therapist offered him a massage. He misunderstood and responded that it wasn't appropriate because he was married. She made it clear that she wasn't proposing sex. The way she touched him opened him to an entirely new experience of his body. "I felt subtle energies that were sensual, but they were integrated with the other energies," Thomas recalls. "I realized that my body had many more messages than just sexual ones."

In the case of some individuals with an abusive sexual history, massage has led to healing. A Claretian priest who had been raped discovered a new appreciation of life following massage therapy sessions. His newfound acceptance of his body enabled him to experience Mass and liturgy not as disembodied phrases repeated routinely but as alive and joyful prayer with personal significance.

Because a pastoral counselor who'd been sexually abused felt split off from part of herself, her psychotherapist recommended body therapy. After receiving massages from a graduate of the Baptist Theological Seminary in her city, she realized that the more she got to know herself through the sessions, the more she was able to embrace all of who she is.

"The awareness I have felt can best be stated by the Psalmist's exclamation, 'O God, we are fearfully and wonderfully made!'" she says. "The more at peace with myself I can be, the more graciously I can relate to other people. I feel more love now." By befriending her body in massage, the counselor also learned to accept blessing and grace just for being. Grace was no longer an abstract concept, but a concrete experience.

"The mystical experience is not flashing lights, clouds descending and so forth," said Jerome Perlinski, who was, before his death, director of East West College, a massage school in Portland, Ore. "It's simply the experience of being at one with the universe, that what is happening now is perfectly right. You can get that from a good massage. If I'm being touched by a centered or spiritual person, then that massage both helps me to be more centered and is an activity of centeredness."

Such centeredness is crucial during spiritual retreats. A Franciscan sister, trained in acupressure who used to direct spiritual retreats in upstate New York, comments that easing the tension and relaxing retreatants physically "quiets them down at every level and puts them in a really good place for prayer." And according to a priest who has directed retreats and administered massage at a Jesuit Renewal Center, moving out of a state of distraction and into a prayerful place is a matter of finding balance between the mind and body by using "the most spiritual of our senses"--touch.

All of the religious dedicated to ministering to the spirit through the body would agree with the late French paleontologist and Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin, who said: "Nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see. On the contrary, everything is sacred." I would add: including the body. Through it we can experience how sacred physicality is and how spiritual conscious touch can be.

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Massage, Aromatherapy, Oils and a Root Canal

By ELLEN RAPP

You don't usually see people smiling in the dentist's chair, but the woman at the Madison Avenue office of Dr. Paul Tanners looked, well, happy. The dentist had just completed the last of a full reconstruction on her upper and lower teeth, and the patient was enjoying a foot rub from the massage therapist on his staff.

In a city where healthy competition is a given in most professions, some dental practices are now offering previously unheard-of services and other perks, from massages to DVD screenings, as a way to build up business.

"There are currently more dentists in Manhattan than there are in 40 other states," said Robert Raibur, president of the New York County Dental Society, which counts 2,500 members. Yet demand for their services, especially cosmetic treatments like tooth whitening, bonding and dental implants, has softened in the bumpy economy of the last couple of years, according to Leslie Seldin, a consumer advisory spokesman for the American Dental Association.

What to do? According to Mr. Raibur, an increasing number of Manhattan dentists are providing additional services, like digital photography to show patients how they will look after cosmetic improvements. And some practitioners are doing more than that.

Two years ago, Jay Neuhaus decided to give his 25-year-old practice, Gramercy Dental Arts on Park Avenue South, a nudge by hiring Laura Norman, a foot reflexologist, and two members of her staff, who are at his office two days a week to give foot massages to patients who want them.

About half of Dr. Neuhaus's patients opt for the free massages, which take place during treatment and also include aromatherapy, with fragrant essential oils like lavender, citrus and mint rubbed onto bare feet.

"People come in nervous, even about having their teeth cleaned," says Ms. Norman, who also has a private practice on Park Avenue. "This is a great way to reduce their stress. I've had patients tell me they sleep much better after having reflexology that day."

While having their foot rub, patients can also dip their hands in a skin-smoothing warm paraffin bath that Dr. Neuhaus provides. And the dental chair itself has built-in rolling massagers for the back and legs, so that even when Ms. Norman or her assistants aren't there, patients can use a control panel to get a mechanical rubdown.

Also on hand: a video collection for patients who want a film as background while undergoing lengthy procedures and a selection of teas and cookies baked on the premises each morning. "As you approach the office, it smells like a bakery," Dr. Neuhaus boasted. "So instead of being anxious and afraid about seeing the dentist, people walk in smiling and feeling good."

As word spread of the massages and cookies, business boomed. "It's the `wow!' factor," he said. "About 99 percent of new patients come to us through referrals, rather than advertising."

At Marvin Fiedler's office on East 86th Street, technology reigns. Each treatment room has a flat-screen TV attached to the dental chair. There is a wireless mouse that patients can use to channel surf or even go on the Internet (wireless keyboards are available for those who want to cruise the Web or check their e-mail).

"People like to see updated modern technology," said Dr. Fiedler, whose office also offers digital X-rays ("90 percent less radiation than the regular kind," he avers) that patients can see on the flat screen and print out. Special software allows for color photo enlargements that show every cavity in vivid detail.

For 23 years, Dr. Fiedler practiced dentistry in a traditional office, on 96th Street. When he made the move 10 blocks south last June, he had the office decorated in soft lavenders and grays "designed to soothe," he said, and had the digital systems installed.

"It's made a world of difference," he said. "At the previous office, we had fewer than 500 patients. Now there are close to 700, and that number is growing. Every week we get seven or more new patients. People hear about us, and they're intrigued."

Dr. Tanners, who specializes in reconstructive dentistry, says he has given his 35-year practice a boost by bringing in not only a massage therapist, but a plastic surgeon as well.

The surgeon, Michelle Zweifler, who joined the staff last year, divides her time among Dr. Tanners's practice, hospital work and her own private practice in Manhattan. Dr. Tanners's patients are informed by mailings that Dr. Zweifler is in the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays to offer free consultations.

For a fee, Dr. Zweifler also performs simple, noninvasive procedures in the office, usually injections of Botox (which reduces facial wrinkles by temporarily paralyzing underlying muscles) or collagen (which fills in facial creases). As many as eight patients a week opt for one of these treatments. Those who want cosmetic surgery need to book an appointment with Dr. Zweifler at her Upper East Side office.

Why a plastic surgeon? "Patients used to complain to me about their wrinkles," Dr. Tanners said. "Once people's mouths were fixed, they became more aware of other imperfections, and they wanted to look better."

He recounts the case of a patient who came in one morning with a cracked front tooth from a fall she had had the previous night. After Dr. Tanners made her a temporary crown, Dr. Zweifler examined her swollen nose to see if there was any fracture.

Another patient, concerned about her "gummy smile," has booked an appointment with Dr. Zweifler to have her upper lip surgically lowered.

Dr. Tanners's massage therapist, Izamar Everett, joined the practice two years ago, and "the response has been phenomenal," Dr. Tanners said. About 80 percent of his patients opt for the free hand, foot and calf massages she offers.

"It's so relaxing that some patients don't even want nitrous," he said. "I've seen patients fall asleep during treatment."

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