Wonderful: On Bodies

Bodies are strange things, and I’m not always happy with mine. This has been true recently, because my body used to be able to run the length of a basketball court for ninety minutes straight without feeling like my intestines were going to fall out. And now that is not the case. Sometimes my disappointment with my body comes from the way it looks, other times from the way it performs. I have one torn-and-mended meniscus and one dent in my left shin from a fall I took in fifth grade. I have a crescent-moon scar on each of my wrists from someone’s careless fingernails in the middle of a basketball game. I’m all curves and torn cuticles and coppery curls.

In the church, I think sometimes we get bodies mixed up with the abstract concept of The Flesh, which we war against each and every hour. We see the effects of this fallenness on our bodies, in the small details of dirty fingernails and aching joints—let alone chronic pain and illness and disease and mental illness and disability. Sometimes it feels like we think that The Flesh turns our flesh against us, and because of this our bodies are dirty and base. But the word "base" has multiple meanings, and one of those meanings is "foundation." Bodies were collateral damage in the conquest of The Flesh. They are not the seats of sin.

Bodies are beautiful. They hold a lot of things. I read somewhere that crying is caused by an influx of intense emotion and hormones, to the point where the body has to find a way to regain balance. That’s why we cry when we’re angry, when we’re sad, when we’re filled with joy. It’s a reaction to holding too much.

Bodies hold us down. They ground us. As I’m writing this post, I’m thinking about what on earth life would be like if I didn’t have a body-- if I were just some glowing ball of Annalise Essence floating around. How would anyone know what I was saying without vocal inflection or raised eyebrows? But I do have a body, and my long pianist’s fingers can take the thoughts floating half-baked through my brain and type these questions so you can read them:

Isn’t it beautiful that, beyond spoken language, we have facial expressions and body movements that can speak just as loudly?

Isn’t it beautiful that someone’s eyes can light up with joy or with passion?

Isn’t it beautiful that we can hold someone close and tight when words aren’t enough?

This body is a stamp of personhood. This body helps me feel the sunshine. It helps me know when I am in danger of hurting myself. This body lets me squint up at the sky and at the good things our glorious God has made. This body takes my abstract thoughts and feelings and makes them concrete. This body holds me and lets me hold.

[Your works are wonderful; I know that full well.]

I will try to remember these true things I have written and offer to you. I will try to remember them in the dressing rooms of liars and when my legs can carry me no further. There is goodness.