Hospitals are often sites of spiritual epiphanies that come in the course of attending to ills of the flesh. In recent months our family spent many hours in hospitals, witnessing the slow decline of a very sick and much beloved child. I was humbled by the simple kindness of nurses and aides who emptied bedpans, bathed sweating bodies, measured urine output, and held those who couldn’t keep food down while they retched. Especially hospice workers, whose specific task is to care for the dying, impressed me with their tenderness as they turned inert patients, smoothed back their hair, held the hands of the comatose, and spoke words of encouragement into ears that might or might not still be hearing. Their attentions to the body affirmed the gift, the character, and the sacredness of this one very physical, very mortal life. That the life of the spirit continues, immortal, invisible, in another dimension seemed perfectly evident to us who framed those days of transition with our faith in the promise of resurrection.
Every death that touches us challenges us to reclaim the mystery whose truth we insist on in the creed: “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” But both for us and for professional caregivers, the call of the moment before that mysterious passing over lay in close attention to the mortal life of one particular body. Touch and hearing are the last things to go, they told us repeatedly. Touch her. Speak to her.
As in sickness, so in health, attention to the body can ground and foster the life of the spirit. As Baby Suggs preaches, if we are to use our own bodies—our hands, our voices, our eyes, our feet—as instruments of love, we have to love them first. The volume of page space and film footage in popular media devoted to body “improvement” conditions us to focus almost obsessively on our bodies—not always, however, with the loving kindness they deserve. Even articles that urge us to lower our sugar intake, exercise for heart health, cut back on red meat, and practice deep breathing may neglect to inspire us with the life-giving reassurance that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
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04.
Wonder of Cells and Systems
The lovely book of that title and its sequel, In His Image, by Paul Brand and Philip Yancey, provide a much-needed faith foundation for care of the body by redirecting our attention from measurements to miracles. Both books are organized by body parts: cells, bone, skin, head, and blood, then motion and, ultimately, spirit frame a succession of reflections on the meaning and rich metaphorical implications of every aspect of bodily life. Both works emphasize how the complexity of every intricate body part manifests the complexity and intricacy of the Creator, who imagined and loved us into being. Like Oliver Sacks, Brand draws from a life in medicine—in the study and treatment of pain—for insight into the sources of bodily resilience, adaptiveness, and versatility. That insight comes from encounter: every patient is a teacher. Every individual claims and releases life in different ways and on different terms. The very facts that no medicine works for everyone, that typical cases have limited predictive value, and that every healing trajectory varies from the “norm” reassert the wonder in what we like to think of as scientific medicine.
In a chapter called “Cleansing,” for instance, Brand marvels at the precision and aptness of the idea of blood as a cleansing agent. That we are “washed in the blood of the Lamb” may seem a strange and grotesque metaphor to those who have washed bloodstains out of garments and changed bandages, but in a simple biology lesson Brand reminds us of the literal fact that blood cleanses, continually and efficiently, in ways we rely on for life itself. “No cell lies more than a hair’s breadth from a blood capillary,” he writes, “lest poisonous by-products pile up. . . . Through a basic chemical process of gas diffusion and transfer, individual red blood cells drifting along inside narrow capillaries simultaneously release their cargoes of fresh oxygen and absorb waste products . . . from these cells. The red cells then deliver the hazardous waste chemicals to organs that can dump them outside the body.”Philip Yancey and Paul Brand, In His Image (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1997), 75. In a similar way he explores other anatomical metaphors as a source of wisdom and revelation. How organs rely upon each other, how systems are interrelated, how hormones transfer messages, how contaminants are identified and released, all may deepen our appreciation of the rich and shocking metaphor Paul invoked to teach early Christians how to be the church: “You are the body of Christ.”
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05.
In the Body Every Day
Most of us have somewhere heard the admonition to remember that we are “ Christ’s hands and feet” in the world. What better incentive is there to care for our bodies than to recognize them as instruments in God’s hands, to be trained to God’s purposes? If we listen with the ears of the heart to the language of aerobics instructors or Pilates trainers or coaches, we may find in them new invitations to spiritual reflection: they draw our attention to the physical “core” upon which all peripheral strength depends. They teach us to attend to our breath—that gift of life we receive like manna and receive again moment by moment. They teach us to pay attention to the subtle ways we may lose proper balance and alignment, and how to deepen the kinesthetic sense that enables us to come back to center.
Trainers also bring mind and body into dialogue—and occasionally they bring the language of the spirit to bear upon that good work. “When you stand, lift up your heart,” one trainer told me, “and when you walk, lead with it.” Another, a tennis coach, gave me a line that has helped me with much more than tennis: “When you’ve watched the ball, positioned yourself, and hit it, finish your swing with your whole body and enjoy the moment of release. You can’t control the outcome—just your stroke, so when that’s completed, let go completely. Then get ready for the next shot.” Paul’s words about “running the good race,” in addition to their spiritual implications, have wide application to the activities of life in this very physical world. Dancing, stretching, lifting, swimming, hitting with precision, passing to a teammate, coming back to center, resting in readiness—all have important implications for how we move through the days given us.
Even at a microscopic level the work of the body is a work of “infinite majesty,” beauty, and testimony to the orderly and intricate imagination of the Creator, for whom “good” covered a vast array of forms and processes. Biology students now have access to exquisite images in colorful three-dimensional animation that map and demonstrate such delicate processes as DNA replication, cell division, and enzyme reactions. From gross anatomy to processes visible only under an electron microscope, we may now witness the work of the body in ways that invoke not only scientific satisfaction or curiosity, but—even for the most clinical—amazement. As one biologist put it, “Every discovery unveils another mystery.”
The life of the body is paradoxical—vulnerable and resilient, fragile and sturdy, reliable and most surprising. We get the strength we need for this moment, not the next. If we train our bodies to the work we are given, we can rely on them to meet the requirements of the task at hand. So, too, in the life of the spirit. The wisdom we need is available and will not fail us. We don’t need to “take thought for the morrow.” We wake into the day equipped by the sleep that restores strength for that one day. With every breath, every slumber, every meal, we are renewed for a time. With every prayer uttered, breathed, remembered, we receive just the grace we need. Know that your body is animated by a force you cannot control, that even as you sleep, your cells do their intricate, quiet work, and you who have been fearfully and wonderfully made are rooted, grounded, and sustained in a love made visible in bodies, fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous among God’s works, and worthy of thoughtful care and faithful stewardship.
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06.
A Poem & Prayer
Marilyn Chandler McEntyre
This is my body
given for you.
Take and eat.
And this is your body
given to you.
Take and enter
the world on feet made
strong for the journey.
Breathe deep, and rest
when you are tired.
Honor the Sabbath.
Pluck the corn you need
and share it. Embrace
the sorrowful in arms
made strong by lifting
a faltering neighbor’s
load, or carrying a child.
You are equipped
for the work you are given.
Reach out. Dig deep.
Dance before the altar.
Receive what you need—
each bite, each breath.
Let your ears hear
and your eyes see.
Plunge your hands
into soil and running water
and lift them,
dirty and dripping,
to join the
great thanksgiving
of all who are made of dust
and water and
wind and light.
After thirty years of teaching, the last twelve at Westmont College, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre has moved to the Bay area to write, lead retreats, and continue teaching in new contexts. her books include three volumes of poetry on Dutch painters (Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh); Christ, My Companion: Meditations on the Prayer of St. Patrick; and most recently, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. She has written for Weavings, The Christian Century, Sojourners, Christianity Today, and Lectionary Homiletics. She has edited and authored other books on literature, literary history, and medical themes in literature. her teaching of writing is grounded in the conviction that writing can be a spiritual discipline, and, at its best, can leave the writer as well as the reader “surprised by joy.”