MICAH creates, supports, and develops programs and environments for the practice and study of spiritual formation
and leadership,
healing and the arts.
As a contemplative Christian undertaking, MICAH provides a sacred space within which we seek to create a life with God.
Pioneer 90.1 FM Radio – Aired on Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Trey’s local radio interview on the artistc process, his influences, and Community Supported Art.
Listen below or download the mp3 file.
June 2013
Health Center Closing
June 25, 2013
After 9 years of providing wonderful Integrative Medicine Services, our partnership with RiverView Health is coming to an end. MICAH's Family Practice and Integrative Medicine Center will be closing as of July 31, 2013. Since 2004, the Center not only provided primary care integrative medicine and consultative services to the region but also helped to expose health care professionals in the area to the value and need for Integrative Medicine. We want to thank RiverView for this outstanding partnership and especially the vision of Deb Boardman who helped us launch this unique clinic.
Dr. Debra Bell will be joining the staff at Penny George Institute of Health and Healing located at 28th and Chicago in Minneapolis. She will be offering Integrative Medicine services there and will be part of a team of integrative medicine experts.
For appointments call (612) 863-3333.
MICAH's most recent cooking class took a field trip to the farmers' market, where they learned about eating seasonally available produce and the benefits of shopping from local farmers, before returning to the MICAH rural center for a beautiful meal and introductory cooking demonstrations. Participants in the class not only spoke with farmers about their produce and growing techniques, but also learned how to steam, sauté and roast vegetables. The "Grocery Godmother" also visited (via video) to help participants look for healthy options while shopping in the grocery store.
This just isn’t fair!
from Trey Everett
We are very familiar with Jesus’ parables. They have become part of our culture, ingrained in our church artwork, liturgy, and expected in sermons. Not only do we instantly recognize when someone starts to read a parable but we even have them some-what memorized, sing songs about them, and unconsciously allude to them in everyday conversation with phrases like, “She’s a good Samaritan,” or “Oh yes, he’s the prodigal child!”
But there are some parables that are not just uncomfortable, they make us downright angry! The parable that probably causes the most agitation and discomfort is the parable about the landowner found in Matthew 20. You may remember that this is the one about the landowner who hires works early in the day and offers to pay them a fair day’s wage. They agree and go out to work a full day. A few hours later the landowner then finds others who need work and hires them as well, he then comes back a few hours later and finds more. This continues until the last of the works are hired just a couple of hours before the work day is over. What happens next is curious and then maddening. The landowner pays the last worker first and he pays them not two-hours pay but a full day’s wage! How wonderful and generous we might think, that is until we realize that all the workers get the same wage, a full day’s pay. And when those worn out, hard-working, industrious workers who started at the crack and dawn walk up to receive their wage what they get is what they agreed to, a full day’s wage, the exact amount all the other part-time, quarter-time, eighth-time workers got. How can this be? What kind of work ethic is that? I know what’s going to happen the next day, everyone will wait until the last two hours and then they’ll agree to help! What is Jesus doing? This just isn’t fair!
Well, that’s the point, this parable isn’t about “fairness.” In our American Christian culture we focus on what’s fair, and keeping score, making check lists, and we demand quantifiable standards so we can know exactly where we stand as well as where our neighbors stand. We do our best to keep track of who is right and wrong, in and out, good and bad. This is how the kingdom of the world works but it’s not how the Kingdom of God operates. Only when we see that what the owner does is just fine are we beginning to see from the Kingdom of God vantage point. Jesus is helping us to see from the perspective of fullness, that there is enough for all, that the good of all the workers has been taken care of. This parable is like a zen koan, turing out mind upside down in order so shake loose our habitual patters of seeing and being in the world. Maybe we could use this parable as a sort of transformational mile marker on our spiritual journey. When we get to the point where we can see the good in it it may be an indication that we are putting on the mind of Christ. Why not take some time this week to meditate on this parable and see if you can notice some of the judging and score keeping in your heart, and then gently, ever so gently, see if you can let go of some of that “keeping score” mentality we are all living in.
Human beings seem to run on the energy of desire. We have a desire to do something and so we do it. We like the taste of chocolate ice cream so we drive to DQ. We want some red socks so we go buy some. We want to avoid our grumpy neighbor so we quickly duck behind our garage. Our hair looks like it does because we desire a certain style. But these are little things, what about more important acts that involve compassion, morals, and being a good citizen? It’s argued that even so called "selfless" acts of love are desire driven. When we do something that seems altruistic deep down we’re doing it because we desire to feel better, or get to heaven, or please God, or to appear altruistic. Even when we keep doing something over and over that brings us pain we are doing it because of a desire to avoid something else that we think would be more painful. The desires we have are not wrong in themselves and we certainly can’t make them vanish. They make up the oceans of our lives and mostly we’re not aware that we’re swimming in them. This is just the way we live.
But there seems to be another way to function as we live out our lives on this earth. Scripture talks about being in the world but not of it. Rather than being tossed around by the waves of desire we can begin to live out of a deeper place and make decisions from a divine perspective. I think this involves primarily two very difficult tasks. The first is paying attention to what we are doing and why we are doing it. As we begin to manicure our lawn to perfection it’s a good practice to consider what is the motivation behind this. We may painfully realize we’re working for the perfect yard because we desire control and power and our yard makes us feel like we have it all together or the perfect yard relieves guilt feelings from our childhood. Whatever the true motivation may be the point is not to judge it but to notice it. The second difficult task is to be kind to ourselves as we begin to realize some of our motivations. We are not noticing good and bad in ourselves but simply seeing what is truly going on and not beating ourselves up and then moving along with greater insight and compassion. By practicing being attentive and being kind to ourselves we can gradually grow beyond our ego driven desires and begin to live and act in a way that is in greater harmony with the heart of God. As modern psychologist Gerald May puts it, "As attachment ceases to be your motivation, your actions become expressions of divine love."
As I thought about the Healing through Art class I noticed that in particular spaciousness and creativity stood out to me.
Spaciousness. It is easy to think that if you want a quality event you have to have every moment planned out in detail. All nooks and crannies should be filled will things for the participants to do. Because, if you don’t have everything filled people won’t know what to do, they might feel cheated like they didn’t get their money’s worth, or even worse they might get bored! Gasp! But I have found the opposite to be true. Yes, there was a fair amount of preplanning and organizing to take care of for the eight sessions of the class, however when it came time for each of the class sessions simplicity and space were the keys for success. For each session I gave a short opening instruction and then we had a sharing time at the end which lasted maybe 20 minutes. The rest of the hour and a half was unstructured creative time. Sometimes as we began a session I heard statements of trepidation that the 90 minutes may be too long to work on a particular project. However at the end of each session when I announced "10 more minutes" you could hear groans of unbelief. People began scrambling to finish. Where did all that time go? Time sees to slow down, even stop, when we get into "the zone." That’s that miraculous space of uninterrupted living where we effortless connect with what is happening right before our eyes. We’re paying full attention to the present moment when we’re in "the zone". The silence and spaciousness can seem scary and uncomfortable but God does far more wonderful work in silence and unstructured time than in the noisy preplanned agendas we usually construct.
Creativity. The artwork produced during these eight weeks was nothing short of incredible. The details in the clay work, the balance with the mobiles, the imagination with the ink blots, the creative dreaming with the dream boards, the transformation of the monsters into heroes, it was all inspiring. You could see on each of our faces and hear in our voices the surprise and satisfaction with our artwork. Each piece of artwork became manifest by deep, personal, inner searching. Each person paid attention to and reflected on what was already within them. Truths about ourselves that are too difficult or complex or even unknown can be expressed through creativity. It was wonderful to see all the artwork displayed the last session. It was a reminder of the truth that within all of us is a creative person. God is creative and has created us in his image. We all have the ability to create inspiring beauty in a variety of ways. If we would just believe this truth image how our lives and communities might be transformed.
