The Nature of Embodiment

We've been in a series for the past few weeks called This Is My Body, and it's a series looking at our bodies and its scripture and trying to understand how to think about our bodies.

One of the biggest questions in our society right now is what does it mean to be a human being and what role do our bodies play in our humanness?

And so we're thinking about that and we're looking at scripture to help guide us in that conversation.

And so for those who are Christians who are here, we are essentially trying to help you build a theology of embodiment.

So that you can think biblically and live faithfully in this culture where so many of the issues that we wrestle with have to do with the meaning that we attach to our bodies.

And if you're here and you're not a Christian or if you're listening, joining online and you're not a Christian, the hope is this is one of the ways that we make it evident that the gospel is the best news there is for every aspect of our lives, including and especially our physical bodies.

It may sound weird to say that there is good news for your body, but the gospel is that.

It is good news for your body, and I hope that becomes clearer this morning.

Two weeks ago, we talked about our bodies as being gifts from God, handmade gifts.

And then last week, we talked about our bodies being made in the image of God and what that means.

And this morning, what we're going to do is we're going to focus on the nature of our embodiment, how we think about our embodiment.

And we're going to do that looking at Genesis chapter 2, verses 4 through 6.

Genesis 2:4–6

So first, we're going to spend a little time looking at the most common view of embodiment that you see in our culture, the most common view of embodiment.

And then we're going to look at Scripture and we're going to see what the gospel has to say about our embodiment, how the gospel transforms our view of embodiment.

So let's pray, and then we will get started.

And before I pray, I just want to let the guys in the sound, there's a hissing coming from this monitor.

I don't know if there's anything you can do about that.

But let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word, and we thank you for being a God who dwells in our midst.

And we thank you for the fact that you speak to us in ways that only you can.

This is a room full of people, and we each need probably something a bit different from you.

And you're the kind of God who's able, through the same word, to speak to each of us in the ways that we in particular need to hear.

Lord, that you can apply your word specifically to us.

And so I pray that you would do that, Lord.

I pray that we would all be able to sit under your word and hear what we need to hear from you this morning.

I pray this in your son's holy name.

Amen.

So first of all, a little bit about the common view of embodiment that you might come across in our culture.

A friend of mine, Ann Snyder, wrote this recently in Comment Magazine.

She writes,

In other words, a trend that she observes for centuries now in our society has been the gradual displacement of our bodies.

Now, this has been happening for a very long time.

It's not a new idea.

In fact, there are numerous ancient philosophies and religions that hold a very low view of the physical body.

Plato famously said that the body is a tomb.

That our self, our soul, is trapped in this tomb until hopefully it might be liberated.

The early Gnostic religions held much the same view.

The body is a prison.

Many Eastern religions also say this.

The Bhagavad Gita teaches,

As you put on fresh new clothes and take off those you've worn,

you'll replace your body with a fresh one, newly born.

So you can take off your body like an article of clothing and replace it with a new one.

And then the rise of rationalism during the Enlightenment further solidified this dualism in the Western imagination.

By dualism, I mean the separation of body and spirit or body and mind.

And coming out of the Enlightenment, we see this kind of heightened focus on the mind

and this disregarding of the body as though the body exists merely to serve the mind.

So we see this trend continuing.

And then, not surprisingly, technology has followed along and in many ways exacerbated this.

And often what we see in culture is this interplay between technology and philosophy,

sort of shaping culture.

So inventions such as the telephone, the automobile, the printing press, air travel,

they all radically changed the world.

They're all amazing.

We're not saying these are bad things.

But how did they change the world?

By giving us ways to overcome the limitations of our bodies.

And now that's very significant.

The Internet has done the same thing on steroids.

Our social lives, our work, our entertainment are more and more disembodied as everything goes online.

Now, there is a material infrastructure to the Internet.

It's just not something that we see.

It's giant server data centers in a giant warehouse somewhere.

And miles and miles and miles of cable.

Now, we don't see that.

What we see is a disembodied virtual reality as everything goes online.

Mark Zuckerberg has recently announced his vision for the future of the Internet,

which is actually a virtual world, the metaverse.

Facebook's going all in on this being humanity's future.

And, of course, all of this is exacerbated greatly by COVID.

You know, COVID comes along and all of a sudden other people's bodies are dangerous.

Our bodies are dangerous to one another.

Your physical presence is a threat.

And so we now live in a world where safety means physical isolation.

And we've sort of been pushed headlong into this semi-virtual disembodied way of life

that I think has become the new normal.

A kind of combination of at-home Zoom and public in-person,

but probably a combination that is here to stay.

And the more our bodies are displaced, right?

So these trends are all showing this kind of displacement of the body, as Ann Snyder wrote.

The more our bodies are displaced, the more open we become to our bodies being replaced.

Right?

If our bodies are secondary, if they don't matter, if they're ancillary to our lives,

what do they really matter and why not then replace them or upgrade them

or do away with them if we don't like them?

So think about movies like Freaky Friday or Avatar or The Change-Up, right?

There are dozens and dozens and dozens of movies with the same premise.

They're all films where people exchange one body for another.

My family and I recently watched the movie Soul,

which I have to say I greatly enjoyed.

I mean, it's a wonderful, delightful movie on many levels.

But the premise of the movie Soul is that before we are born,

we all exist as spirits who must at some point descend to Earth to inhabit a physical body.

And so you have all of these sort of proto-souls living in the great before,

sort of waiting to be ready to go down to Earth and inhabit a physical body.

I actually think if you polled many Christians in our country,

they would probably say, yeah, I think that's probably how it works.

You're up there hanging out with God, and then at some point God says,

okay, let's get you in a body, right?

And so this movie is, of course, takes this turn that for a lot of comedic effect

where two spirits end up in the wrong bodies, right?

You have a female spirit in a man's body, and a man's spirit ends up in a cat's body.

And it's a funny film, and in many ways it sort of makes light of the metaphysics.

But I want you to see that underneath this and films like it,

there is a very powerful metaphysical claim being made.

And that is that your real self, your true self, exists apart from your body.

But it's separate.

And if that's the case, then it's entirely possible to end up in the wrong body.

I've heard many people describe their body as kind of luck of the draw.

And I say that this is a metaphysical claim, it's a metaphysical belief,

because, of course, we can't prove any of this with science.

When we begin to try to articulate the relationship between yourself and your body,

we are on the plane of religion.

We're on the plane of metaphysics and ontology.

These are what we would call unfalsifiable claims.

There's no way to scientifically back it, so it's a faith-based belief.

Nevertheless, that is the way many people in our culture imagine things to be,

including, I think, many Christians.

So the most common view of our embodiment is this.

It's to see our bodies as containers.

At best, they contain us.

At worst, they confine us.

They're cages.

They're tombs, as Plato said.

And as a result of this view of the body as a container,

there's a lot of confusion in our culture when it comes to our bodies,

because we live in a culture where instinctively we know that our bodies are probably important,

and yet at the same time we are bombarded with messages that tell us that they're not really that important.

And so we live in a culture that at the same time celebrates and idealizes the human body

and denigrates and displaces the human body.

We live in a culture where, on the one hand, we pour time and energy into making sure our bodies are healthy and attractive,

and we promote body positivity.

We promote greater and greater acceptance of your body regardless of what it looks like

or what standards of beauty it might appeal to.

And yet, on the other hand, right alongside that, we feel more and more disconnected from our bodies,

and we increasingly see them as obstacles to be overcome or problems to be solved.

We live in a culture where people who struggle to accept their bodies receive very mixed messages.

Some people struggle with body dysmorphia,

and a lot of times, along with that, eating disorders like anorexia.

That means seeing your body as being ugly or overweight even when it's not.

It's perceiving that something is wrong with your body even if it's not.

Some people also struggle with gender dysphoria,

which is seeing your body as being the wrong sex.

Right now, these are distinct struggles.

They're distinct struggles, and yet they have a lot in common.

Both involve the way we perceive our body,

perceiving your body as in some way being wrong.

Actually, both tend to occur together.

The need for treatment for body dysmorphia and anorexia

is four times greater among the transgender population

than it is in the general population.

They both cause tremendous suffering.

Often, it's a kind of suffering that people feel a lot of shame attached to.

They feel like they can't talk about it with most people in their lives.

It's a quiet, hidden, isolated form of suffering.

And in both cases, it can lead to self-inflicted harm or death.

So these are very serious struggles, very serious issues.

However, if you're a person who struggles in both of these ways,

and you go to a therapist, you're going to be told two different things.

In the case of your body dysmorphia,

treatment is going to involve bringing your feelings in line with your body.

In the case of gender dysphoria,

treatment is going to involve bringing your body in line with your feelings.

And so it creates an enormous amount of confusion.

There are even many medical professionals

who are very confused as to how to treat these conditions.

As distinct as they are, they're very much related.

So there's a lot of confusion.

And when people are really suffering and struggling,

the last thing you want among people who are trying to help is confusion.

So what does the gospel have to say about our bodies?

And how does the gospel offer hope in some of the ways that we've laid out?

Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 says,

Genesis 2:7

Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground

and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,

and the man became a living creature.

Sam Alberry wrote a wonderful book on embodiment,

and he says of this passage,

God didn't create a soul named Adam

and then look around for a container to put him in

like a piece of Tupperware.

Right?

Which is, I think, what we often think.

Right?

That God, we're hanging out with God,

and God says, let's get to it.

Here's your body.

You know, enjoy your physical life.

But what we need to understand here in Scripture

is there was no Adam that existed before his body.

Adam is matter and spirit combined as one.

God starts with matter and then breathes his spirit into it.

And this is something very important

when it comes to our own understanding of our nature.

We do not merely have a body.

We are a body.

There is no you, there is no me that exists apart from your body.

We are our bodies.

Now, we are more than our bodies,

but we are not other than our bodies.

And so when the Bible uses the word soul,

because people say,

well, doesn't the Bible talk a lot about your soul?

What we need to understand is

if we read that in a dualistic way,

we're really seeing it through the lens of our own culture.

The Bible uses the word soul in a much more holistic way.

And very often,

by far the most common usage of the word soul in the Bible

is referring to the whole person.

Not just the non-physical part of you.

God's vision for creation from the very beginning

was to see matter and spirit joined together.

The heavens and the earth joined together.

God and his people in his world joined together.

That was God's vision when he created all of this.

The reason that matter and spirit are separate now,

the reason that there is a sense of alienation

between matter and spirit is because of sin.

It's because of brokenness.

When Adam and Eve sinned,

as we said a few weeks ago,

what was the very first symptom

that things were not as they should be?

They felt shame over their physical bodies.

The very first sign that all is not well in the garden

is that Adam and Eve are alienated from their own physical bodies.

And then, right then,

they begin to use technology

to try to compensate for that alienation

in the form of fig leaves.

And ever since,

human beings have been using technology

to cover or alter

or even transform

physical bodies we have

into bodies we think we want.

So shame over our bodies is a symptom of the fall.

Disembodiment.

By that, I mean all of the ways

that we feel disconnected

from our own physicality

is a symptom of the fall.

Feeling trapped in the wrong body

or feeling that there is something

profoundly wrong with your body

is a symptom of the fall.

And this is why the gospel

is such good news for our bodies.

Jesus Christ shows us

what human beings were created to be.

This is the season of Advent

and we are often asking during this season,

what does it mean that Jesus came?

What does it mean that the word

became flesh?

One of the things that we've said

it means every week

is that Jesus shows us

what a human being

should be.

And when we look at the essence of Jesus,

Jesus is fully God

and fully man,

fully flesh.

It is not as though there is some

part of him that is God

existing within a kind of fleshly shell.

Right?

Many of the heresies in the early church

concerned the nature of Jesus

and a lot of them tried to say,

well, he only looked like a human

or there was a spirit

but the spirit just put on the body

but then it took the body off again

and various sort of versions of that.

Those were considered heresies

from the very beginning.

What we see in scripture

is that Jesus is fully God

and fully man.

Every cell, right?

Every nucleus,

every proton, right?

Fully God, fully man.

And what we see in Jesus

is the perfect merging

of spirit and matter.

And after his death and resurrection,

he still has a physical body.

And in John chapter 20,

John 20 · chapter mention

our gospel reading for this morning,

when Jesus appears to his disciples

after his resurrection,

they note and they see his physicality.

And then he breathes on them

and they receive the Holy Spirit.

You say, well, that's a really weird way

to do that.

He could have just laid hands.

Breathing feels kind of

like a boundary violation.

But this is a deliberate allusion

to Genesis chapter 2, verse 7,

Genesis 2:7

our Old Testament reading.

There's a deliberate look back.

Jesus is saying,

do you remember that time

when I first created human beings?

And I took matter

and I breathed my spirit into matter

and that matter became a living thing.

Well, I've come back

and I'm now breathing my spirit

into you once more.

And it's a way of saying

to his disciples and to us,

I have come to,

just as I came to create humanity,

I have now come back

to recreate humanity.

This is a new creation

and it's the inauguration

of a new humanity.

And he's bringing us back

to the first time

that God breathes spirit into matter.

And this is a way of saying

that Jesus came to restore

our humanity,

including our bodies.

And Paul picks up on that theme

in 1 Corinthians 15,

where he says,

just like Jesus was physically raised,

one day we will all be physically raised.

And your body will be a glorified body,

but it will be a physical body.

And you say,

well, what about when we die?

And all that the Bible says

about when you die,

you go to heaven.

And what about that?

Well, the truth is,

that is called

a kind of intermediate state.

And it's not good.

Right?

For a time when we die

until Jesus comes again

and everyone is raised,

for a time,

spirit and matter

must be separate.

But the Bible doesn't see

that as a good thing.

It's a necessary thing

because of the fall.

But that's why the Bible

says almost nothing about that.

If you want to know

what the Bible says

about life after death,

it always points

to the hope

of the physical resurrection

because that's God's plan

for dealing with death.

The intermediate state,

we know almost nothing about.

The Bible says

almost nothing about it.

And it's an aspect

of the fallen world.

It's not part of God's plan

for new creation.

And so we need to understand

that all of the hope

in Scripture

points to our resurrection

where our body and spirit

will be one again.

And by the way,

all of salvation history

aims in that same direction.

From the time God created

the heavens and the earth,

the goal was that one day

matter and spirit

would be one,

God and his people

would be one,

Jesus and his bride,

the church,

would be one,

the heavens and the earth

would be one.

And that is the vision

that Jesus enacts

when he comes to earth

to give his life

to make all of this possible.

So then we think about that

and we think,

okay, well,

what does that mean

for how we think

about our embodiment?

And I would say this,

the most popular view

is to see our embodiment

as a form of confinement.

But a gospel-centered view

of embodiment

sees it not as confinement

but as a calling.

Embodiment for the Christian

is a calling.

It's a calling

that we live into.

And you say,

what does that mean?

That's kind of a weird thing to say.

I have to point to

Neve Colbrook

for inspiration here.

She's a Christian

who has struggled for years

with an eating disorder.

And one of the core features

of an eating disorder,

and those of you who have

or are struggling with this,

hopefully this resonates with you.

One of the core features

of an eating disorder,

as I have been told,

is extreme ambivalence

about your embodiment.

Just extreme difficulty

being in your own body.

And so Neve wrote an essay

about her recovery

where she says

that through her relationship

with Jesus,

she has come to realize

that,

and I'm quoting her here,

embodiment is not just a given,

it is also a calling.

There is a difference

between living with our bodies

and really inhabiting them.

And that really captures it

in a nutshell.

If the fall disconnects us

from our bodies

and alienates us

from our bodies,

the gospel seeks to reconcile us

to our bodies,

to move us toward greater

and greater love

and acceptance

and acceptance

of our bodies

so that we don't just

put up with them

or tolerate them,

we inhabit them.

Fully.

Right?

And I think that really needs

to shape how we,

as a church,

view embodiment.

You know,

you don't often think of

inhabiting your body

as an aspect of following Jesus,

but if what we have just seen

is true,

then it very much is a part

of what it means

to follow Jesus.

Jesus intends to restore your body,

and he gave it to you

as a gift

and it bears his image.

Therefore,

as disciples,

we're called to inhabit fully

these bodies

that we've been given.

So what does that look like

practically

for a church like ours

to embrace embodiment

as a calling

and view it as a part

of our life of discipleship?

And I want to give you

four ways

that I think this plays out

in our community.

Number one,

this means that we cultivate

a culture

of healthy,

appropriate touch

in our community.

Now,

I know just even saying that

is probably a bit creepy

for some of you.

You know,

and I'm an introvert,

and you know,

I'm very affectionate,

but I,

you know,

like most people,

I'm like,

I'm okay if we're not

touching each other.

You know what I mean?

But this comes straight

from Sam Albury,

I know this sounds odd

to very many people,

but this is evidence

that I think this is

actually pretty important.

Right?

If me saying that we need

a healthy culture of touch

strikes us as odd,

it's probably a sign

that we don't have

a healthy culture

of touch.

And you know,

he says that many people

associate touch

with being sensual

rather than familial.

And I think that's

very much the case.

As one person put it

that he quotes,

in our culture,

we are sex-obsessed

but touch-deprived.

And I also think

that that's very true.

And there are some people

who,

because they live alone

or for various other reasons,

are forced to go months

or even years

without ever really having

any physical contact

with another human being.

And I think that's another

kind of quiet,

unspoken form of suffering

that is excruciating

and can happen

right under our noses

and we're not even aware

that it's happening.

There are people probably

in this room

who may have gone years

without any real

physical contact,

familial,

loving physical contact

with any other human being.

That is debilitating.

It's dehumanizing.

And so I think

that churches

should be places

where you can find a remedy.

That churches should provide

a kind of remedy for this

by being places

where healthy,

appropriate,

familial touch

is encouraged.

You know,

the Bible talks about

Christians greeting

one another

with a holy kiss.

That is a cultural reference.

I don't want anybody

trying to kiss me.

No offense,

I love you all.

That's not culturally appropriate.

The principle behind that

is you should greet

one another

in a physical,

familial,

appropriate way.

So a hug,

a handshake,

a fist bump.

I know that COVID

makes this

more complicated,

but my hope is that

our fear

of our own physicality

would not permanently

do away

with what I think

is a very valuable thing

that happens here,

which is the casual interactions

of hands on shoulders,

hugs where appropriate,

handshakes,

ways of acknowledging

our physicality

as a family

when we come together.

And I know everybody's

not comfortable with that,

so part of this means

navigating and negotiating

what people are comfortable with.

And I recognize

that this is sort of

awkward ground

for most of us,

but I think naming that

as a value

is very important

if we seek to be a church

that embraces

the calling of embodiment.

Number two,

I think it means

we take a gospel-centered

approach to those

who are suffering

in their embodiment.

I mean,

I know right now

that there are people

in our midst

who suffer because

of body dysmorphia

and eating disorders.

I know that there are

people in our midst

who struggle and suffer

because of gender dysphoria.

I know that there are

people in our midst

who struggle and suffer

because of chronic pain

or chronic illness.

I know that we have people

who, because of trauma,

feel completely alienated

from their bodies.

The church needs to be a place

where people who are suffering

in these ways

are loved and cared for

with no fear of shame

or rejection.

I would love for the church,

our church,

to be a place

where a person

might be able to talk

and share these things

with their immediate community

in the church

with confidence

that they're going to be

embraced and loved

and understood.

I would love for that

to be true of us

and where,

through the gradual,

gentle grace of Christ

and the ongoing ministry

of the Holy Spirit,

people move toward

greater and greater acceptance

and love for their bodies.

Right?

That that is always the goal,

to embrace the calling

of embodiment

and inhabit the bodies

that God has given us.

Number three,

I think that it means

worship has to involve

our whole body

and not just our mind.

And this is something,

this is one of the reasons

that I love

the Anglican tradition,

but I think that,

I think that there's

a whole lot more

that we could do

to embrace this,

right?

Including,

you know,

raising our hands

when we worship,

right?

Responding physically

when we feel the spirit

moving.

the value of the liturgy

and the sacraments

is that they give us

ways to worship

that are embodied

and physical.

You know,

we process,

we kneel,

we bow,

we cross ourselves,

we raise our hands,

some of us do,

we pray,

we confess,

we sing aloud,

we physically receive

and eat the elements

at the table,

right?

We jokingly refer to these

as liturgical calisthenics,

but they're more than that,

right?

These are ways

of involving your body

and when you involve

your body,

you are making

theology physical.

Another way the Bible

might say it is,

you're making words

into flesh.

Engaging our bodies

is a recognition

of our human nature.

We're not just brains

on a stick.

We have bodies,

we are our bodies,

all of our bodies

are meant to be brought

into God's presence

and utilized for his

worship and glory.

And then number four,

I think it means

we adopt practices

in our lives

outside of Sunday worship

that re-embody us.

If we live in a culture

and use technology

that disembodies us,

and by the way,

that's unavoidable.

That's unavoidable,

right?

A lot of this technology

is very mixed

and brings a lot of benefits

as well as challenges,

but most of us now

couldn't do our jobs

if we didn't live

in this culture

and use this technology.

So it's here to stay

and it's continuing

to move in that direction.

So for most of us,

if that is the case,

it simply means

that we need to be

much more intentional

about bringing balance

into our lives

through re-embodying practices

that help us

to re-inhabit

the bodies

that we feel

disconnected from.

You know,

years ago,

I came across

the philosopher

Albert Borgman

and he makes

this distinction.

He was writing,

I think,

back in the 80s,

but he makes

this distinction

between devices

and what he calls

focal things

or focal practices.

And I love,

I think it's very helpful,

it's even more true today.

He says,

here's the difference.

Devices are passive.

They give us something

without asking anything

from us in return.

So they minimize

the involvement

of our bodies

and they are designed

with the assumption

that minimal involvement

equals greater satisfaction.

What I find,

so think of like

scrolling for an hour

on Instagram.

Right?

That is a device

that is designed

to make it as easy

as possible

for you to consume

without any cost.

Right?

And what that,

it makes it profoundly easy

to just veg out,

space out,

lose track of time

and become completely

forgetful of our bodies.

You know,

if you scroll

for an hour on Instagram,

you're not aware

of that time passing

and you become

completely forgetful

about the existence

of your body.

You sort of space out.

That's disembodying.

And he says,

focal things

or focal practices

ask something of you.

They cost something.

They make you work for it.

And the joy

and satisfaction

actually comes

from using your body

to build skills

and capabilities

and produce something tangible.

So think about

baking bread,

for instance.

Baking bread

is profoundly embodying.

I think there's a,

not a surprise

that during COVID

there was a big uptick

in people who started baking.

It's because people

felt so disconnected

in their virtual world

that they needed something

to get them back

in their own bodies.

So people started doing

things like baking.

So device versus

focal thing

or focal practice,

this would be the difference

between listening

to the radio

or listening to streaming

music on Spotify

and playing

a musical instrument.

Right?

One engages you.

One uses your body.

This is one of the reasons

that I love to cook.

I love to fish.

I love to go biking

with my boys.

You know,

I don't love to cook

because I'm necessarily

the best cook out there

or I,

the 99% of the reasons

I love to cook

is because most of what I do

is in my brain.

It's disembodied

and it's something

that gets me out of my head

and into my body

where I'm using my senses

to create something tangible.

So for me,

cooking is a profoundly

spiritual act.

And I think if we take

the calling to embodiment

seriously in our community,

it means we begin

to recognize

all of these things

as spiritual behaviors

and spiritual practices.

We have prayer.

We have reading scripture.

We have worship.

We have the sacraments.

We have solitude.

We have fasting.

We have all of these things

that we do.

But we also have

walking and hiking

and biking

and climbing

and playing musical instruments.

And, you know,

this year,

one of the things

my family's doing

for Advent

is we are putting

a puzzle together.

And I know that sounds

like a very simple thing.

I think it's a great

Advent activity

because you have

this kind of unclear image

that is gradually

becoming clearer.

You know,

it's a kind of great metaphor

for the weighting

of the Christian life.

But for us,

it gets our kids,

it gets us off our devices,

it gets us at the same table,

and it gets us using our bodies,

and it gets us working together.

And it's been awesome.

All of these,

I think,

we see as spiritual practices

that help us

inhabit fully

the bodies

that God has given us.

So during this Advent season,

whether you go for a run

or paint

or bike

or bake some bread

or whatever it might be,

I hope you recognize that

as a spiritual practice

that is reconnecting you

to your body,

which is a good thing.

Because the truth is,

as we said,

you are your body.

You are your body.

So in a way,

becoming reconnected

with your body

is really a way

to become reconnected

with yourself.

Let's pray.

Lord,

we thank you

for your word,

and we thank you

for our bodies,

and we thank you

for your body

that was broken

so that ours

might be healed

and restored.

And we pray

that in a little while

when we come to your table

to receive your body

and your blood,

that in our receiving

of your body,

our bodies

might be made more whole,

that we might be healed

of our alienation

and our disembodied,

that we might experience

our bodies

the way you do,

Lord,

as being intimately

and spiritually

connected to your body.

And I pray

that in your body

we would find

the wholeness

that we see.

And we pray this

in your son's name

and for your glory.

Amen.