Marilu Thomas, “The Twisties”
My birthday is next week, so every four years of my life, my big day coincides with the Summer Olympics. As a child, I loved watching diving, swimming, and gymnastics. These days, I get a subliminal urge to stick all my landings—but now it’s because I’m falling, not jumping. When I was 14, my coach told me she was tired of resetting the parallel bars because I was too tall. I wasn’t heartbroken because I wasn’t very good. But gymnastics has been heartbreaking for many, especially Simone Biles.
The documentary Simone Rising looks at the GOAT—the Greatest of All Time—of gymnastics, with six world championship titles and 37 Olympic medals so far. Simone talks about the Religion of Sports, where you are taught to be silent, without rest or encouragement. She says, “Intensity, pain, anger, and negativity were the ways to be dominant. But to do that, I had to keep myself shoved down in a box- you can function like that only so long before your fuses blow out.” Simone’s fuses blew out on the world stage in Tokyo 2020 when she got what’s called ‘the twisties.’ “You can feel it in your head, it’s the rarest air. I felt like I was in jail in my mind and body,” she says. She missed the vault. She missed again. Simone dropped out and got it from all sides. Loser, quitter, lazy, spoiled, full of excuses. Everyone had an opinion. “I felt so ashamed. I was crying and asking God, ‘Why did this happen to me? Why now?”
‘The twisties’ is a brain-body disconnect caused by stress, perfectionism, fixating on a mistake or self-doubt. You get twisted up in human limitations and need to do something else. We are not machines. We are loathe to admit need. It’s fine for others but feels like a weakness to us. Who wants to be needy? We soldier on—muttering, “Suck it up, buttercup!” as we go. Like Simone, we lock our minds and bodies in a jail of the law. “I must, I should, I need to, I will, I have to.”
I hear this a lot in my practice as a therapist, especially from Christians. We think God will be disappointed with us if we aren’t handling everything—meeting our own needs. As if God wants us to be God! To pretend we don’t have any needs or to push those needs into a box inside us deprives us of knowing the freedom of Christ’s provision. Our needs were given to us to remind us that we are creaturely and need God and others. How can Jesus help you if you think you don’t need any help? We are not self-sufficient, no matter how much we want to be.
Patrick Bringley knew he had a need but no idea how to meet it. When his brother Tom died, he was working at The New Yorker and knew he couldn’t go back. So, Patrick took a job as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In his book, All the Beauty in the World, he wrote, “I arrive at the Met with no thought of moving forward. My heart is full, my heart is breaking, and I badly want to stand still for a while.” He is almost hibernating from life, his need for solitude is so great. Slowly, the art surrounds him with the history of human need, and his fellow guards become friends. He doesn’t feel so alone in the shadows. When he quits at the end of a decade, he looks for the picture he would carry out of the museum in his mind and heart. “I decide the picture I need the most is a Crucifixion by Fra Angelico…I like that the picture makes me think of Tom, however painful that may be. Christ’s body looks like it’s been nailed to the mast of some storm-tossed ship. It’s the center around which the rest of the world seems to rock and wheel. A graceful, broken body, it reminds us again of the obvious: that we’re mortal, that we suffer, that bravery in suffering is beautiful…”
Our needs are never too much for Jesus. We are not meant to stoically suffer alone and in silence, locked in the jail of our minds and bodies.
In the gospel today, Jesus looks up, sees the people coming toward him, and knows their need before they do. The miracle of the bread and fish is a direct sign for the Jewish people that the God of the Exodus, the God of Moses, is standing before them. Moses could not produce food, so God sent manna from heaven to feed them. Jesus is the manna from heaven, the bread of life.
And just like the Israelites in Exodus, people need more than food for their bodies. They need saving from the law. St. John tells us, “It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing.”
Paul Zahl commented about this passage that each and every one of us has a strong wind blowing against us that exposes our need. What are the hard winds blowing against you? Your marriage, job, kids, school, illness, money, family, addiction, parents, friends, love life? The seas can get rough, and the dark can set in.
In the middle of the strong wind and darkness, Jesus walked on the rough sea and says to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Do not be afraid because I will find you in the darkness. Do not be afraid because I will feed you when you are hungry. I will speak grace to you through those around you so that you may know I am. He comes into your life when you have blown the fuse box, need to stand still or have lost your compass.
You know, after Simone Biles missed her vault twice in 2020, she called her mom who said, “They will do their best without you. You don’t need to go out there and hurt yourself. You need to take care of yourself. I love you. Take some deep breaths and know we are praying for you.” Grace in the middle of the twisties. Grace in the middle of the Religion of Sports. Grace in the middle of judgment and fear. Jesus walking on water.
When Patrick Bringley stood in the Met, he was befriended by his fellow guards standing in the shadows with him, and it brought him comfort. Grace in the quiet beauty of art. Jesus walking on water.
Maybe being here today is what you need. You can never be too much for Jesus. You can never be too needy for Grace. As in Fra Angelico’s painting, Christ's body was nailed to the mast of a storm-tossed boat. Your storm-tossed boat. He tells you over the sound of the wind and waves, “It is I; Do not be afraid.” Amen
