Body to Live, Body to Love

"It is in moments of illness that we are compelled to recognize that we live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom, whole worlds apart, who has no knowledge of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood:  our body."

 (Marcel Proust)

Have you ever felt shame or embarrassment about your body? Have you looked in the mirror and been disappointed by the reflection?

 

Somewhere along the road I was told that I was too skinny. From a family of thick-boned people I am an abnormality with unusually light bones, something for which I learned shame at an early age. I distinctly remember an older boy referring to me as a runt - a technically appropriate and emotionally disabling label as runt animals are considered undesirable. Through the years subtle reminders of my unacceptably scrawny status were reinforced by comments and the "last chosen" position on sports teams in gym.

 

Skinny was bad enough; add scaly. My genetic makeup gifted the males in my family with a condition called ichthyosis, in which our skin cells grow and multiply at an accelerated rate. Where the average person sheds their epidermis about once a month I get to do it once every two days. A rigorous scrub in the shower and some specialized lotion keep my skin in check so that I do not spend my life flaking and itching. As a child and youth, however, the rigorous scrub and lotion routine were unknown. Consequently, I wore long-sleeved shirts as much as possible and rarely wore shorts in an effort to hide the body for which I was embarrassed. Children and youth, like chickens, have a tendency to peck and pick at perceived weaknesses. I grew up afraid that someone would notice my dry skin, resulting in a very-much-anticipated ostracism.

 

It's an odd thing, the body. We do not (as far as I know) get to pick the body into which we incarnate, and yet we judge each other for perceived limitations, for physical aspects that stand out and are not the norm. "Physically challenged" means we get stared at, and heaven help us if we have a blotch on our face - it might be contagious. We forget that all of us are in these bodies for a very short time, and that what they look like, how they operate, and whatever features they have or lack do not in any way reflect our heart and soul. They are bodies - beautiful, smelly, hairy, wrinkly, muscled, diseased... just bodies. 

After thirty, a body has a mind of its own.

(Bette Midler)

I am slowly coming to terms with this cracked vessel that my soul has rented. It certainly does not fit the artificially imposed North American ideal, but it serves me well enough so that I can smile at a stranger, cry tears, laugh, run, shovel, sing and yes, even preach :-) It's a bit itchier than I'd like at times, and in middle age it has betrayed me by adding a few pounds in the waist and the warranty on my vision is starting to go. But all-in-all it's a pretty good rental. 

Sometimes now, when I look in the mirror at my thin-boned bod I smile and give thanks for the miles it has taken me and the experience this soul has gained by being en-fleshed. And sometimes the mirror's reflection reveals a boy ashamed by not being good enough - fearful that he will be noticed and dismissed. Life's like that eh? Good days and hard days and one day at a time. 

"Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?"

 (1 Corinthians 3.16)

At the end of the day I am grateful for the reminders from Scripture that my body is not my identity, that neither cultural beauty nor infirmity determine who I am. Rather, it is God's love that made and defines me, and you, and consequently, at the core you and I are a gift of love to this world; we have these bodies for a while so that we may enact that love.

I will leave the last word to Jesus:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink;

or about your body, what you will wear. 

Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” 

Matthew 6.25

Pastor Bill

Hug

you

smile

you

are

beautiful

Thank

God

for gifts

and

challenges

Breathe

Amen

[First published August 29, 2012]