Joe had two cats, brothers that he found in the woods.  He treated them like people, loved them as part of our family, spoiled them like children.  As a result, they were trusting.  How do I know that?  They didn't protect their bellies.  Instead, even in front of strangers, they would stretch out, revealing their vulnerable underside.  Only a well-loved animal trusts enough to expose his or her vulnerable underside.  

So it is with cats... so it is with people.  We don't let just anybody touch our bellies.  And the inverse is true - we don't touch just anybody's bellies.  We're either intimately involved with them or they are pregnant.  Other than that, bellies are mostly off limits.  

In yoga, I've learned that my middle section is somewhat sacred.  Our gut is important.  We feel things where?  In our gut.  We know things how?  by our gut.  Our quickest responses come from where? Our gut.  In Hebrew, the seat our emotions resides in our gut not our heart.  Heart is the same as mind in Hebrew... we know things with our heart and mind but we feel them with our gut.  This sacred middle is the place where we were once connected to another living being.  Our life was sustained by nutrients delivered to us by a cord through our Bee Bo! 

Yep, that's what we call the belly button in our family - a Bee Bo!  And yes, it always has an exclamation point after it.  One of Julia's favorite books is the Belly Button Book by Sandra Boynton. 

"You might not know what BEE BO! means. 
Or maybe you've forgotten. 
It's just the tiny hippo way of saying...
BELLY BUTTON!...

BEE BO!" 

This has changed a bit of our natural tendency to hide our Bee Bo!'s.  Julia likes them and if she catches a glimpse, she giggles and points and tries to muster the word "Bee Bo!"  She's discovering that everyone has one.  I know it seems so simple... but everyone has one.  Everyone has a gut.  Everyone has a vulnerable middle, protecting its insides, interpreting our emotions.  Everyone's got a belly - and yet we're so quick to protect and even hide it from others.  Of course now I'm not really talking about our literal belly, the skin and soft tissue that covers our internal organs.  I'm speaking about our "vulnerable underside."  We're so quick to protect and even hide it from others. 

When you're chronically ill, you often don't have a choice but to reveal your vulnerable underside.  Physicians poke and prod you; friends and strangers ask questions about your health.   Conversations occur around you, about you, and because of your vulnerable underside.  And sometimes we overt our eyes, actually ignoring or overlooking those whose undersides are exposed.   

The week between Christmas and New Year's was filled with fun and friends and family and stress and food and wine.  By January 2, as we were leaving church, Pete needed help moving his legs into the car.  I asked Dan to meet us at the house where we carried Pete from the kitchen to the couch, hoping that after a little rest, he could make the trip upstairs to bed. 

As Dan was leaving to go home, he cried.  I tried to "catch" him as he apologized for his vulnerability.  I held him tightly as his arms were lodged between my belly and his as if protecting us both. 

Our plan didn't work out the way we hoped - Pete wasn't able to make the trip upstairs and so both Dan and Joe came home.  Together, they carried their father upstairs, taking a rest at the top.  Pete lay in Joe's lap;  Joe's arms wrapped around his father.   Dan rested his dad's legs and reached to adjust his dad's shirt that was exposing his vulnerable underside.  It was then that Pete touched his middle and said, "Bee Bo!" 

Comic relief?  Yes.  Poignant?  You bet.  

As we chuckled, I was captivated by the long history of love that these three men share.  While Pete's illness is awkward and frightening at times, they show their vulnerable undersides to one another with more ease than most.  As we stood around Pete's exposed Bee Bo! I was enamored with three men who deeply trust one another.  How do I know that?  Only well loved people expose their vulnerable underside.