The body is a nation I have not known.
The pure joy of air: the moment between leaping
from a cliff into the wall of blue below. Like that.
Or to feel the rub of tired lungs against skin
covered bone, like a hand against the rough of bark.
Like that. The body is a savage, I said.
For years I said that, the body is a savage.
As if this safety of the mind were virtue
not cowardice. For years I have snubbed
the dark rub of it, said, I am better, lord,
I am better, but sometimes, in an unguarded
moment of sun I remember the cow-dung-scent
of my childhood skin thick with dirt and sweat
and the screaming grass.
But this distance I keep is not divine
for what was Christ if not God’s desire
to smell his own armpit? And when I
see him, I know he will smile,
fingers glued to his nose and say, next time
I will send you down as a dog
to taste this pure hunger.
reprinted by permission from the PEN American Center website
“for what was Christ if not God’s desire
to smell his own armpit?”
I loved that line. When I was a teenager, struggling with certain kinds of carnal sins (which I never did defeat), I thought the body was a thing to be overcome, and the source of a lot of trouble. It took a long time to realize that the body is part of God’s plan, and part of how we’re made in His image – though that’s impossible to understand. And if Christ had a body, and we believe he truly did, and yet was without evil, and we believe that too, then the body can’t be intrinsically evil. But it’s still a struggle, and it’s easier to think that mental and spiritual things are somehow of a higher order.
And getting our understanding adjusted is more of the surprise awaiting us all, I believe, when we die and meet Him face to face. He’s not going to be as we expect. Frankly I think He’s going to shock most of us. I’m looking forward to it. I hope I can put my head back and laugh with delight. Sometimes I feel that my devotion and spiritual life right now is aimed at preparing myself for that one bold and open hearted gesture of joy and acceptance.
Perhaps the limitations of the body are more immediately obvious to us than those of the mind, so in fear of our mortality we dream of putting asunder what God has joined, thinking that we could avoid sin and failure if only our imaginations were free of the flesh. But our brains are just as partial and flawed as our bodies, and just as much a part of God’s good creation that we insist on trying to “improve”! As you said so well, Steve, if Jesus took on this body without sin, then sin is not from the body.
Good point! I always seem to overlook that the mind can be just as much a source of trouble as I imagine the body being. Why did I used to think a mind liberated from the body would be more pure?! An introverted and introspective bias? Sometimes now I imagine a mind unfettered by the need for sleep every day, or no longer grounded in the ordinary needs and pleasures of food – what a monstrosity it could become without those touchstones! I’ve long understood Adam’s Curse to be a blessing, as God weighted our prematurely powerful souls with some everyday concerns to keep us grounded.