God Made our Bodies, and God Called them Good? By Melinda Sparks-Renner
Bryan Holmes shared with us this past Sunday how we can be spiritually formed through our bodies - and whether we realize it or not or whether our experience with our body is less than ideal - we are, nonetheless, being spiritually formed through them.
I’ve said before how much I love Cole Arthur Riley and her Instagram posts (which all of you should follow!), Black Liturgies. Libby shared a prayer from her on Sunday, which was beautiful.
Riley shared a post a couple of days ago that shed even more light for me on the idea of being spiritually formed in my body, and I would like to share that with you this week.
“If you aren’t in your body, someone else is. The systems of this world have everything to gain from your disembodiment. Stay near to yourself. Listen to your body.”
“I believed, and I still do, that our bodies are ourselves, that my soul is the voltage conducted through neurons and nerves, and that my spirit is my flesh.” - Ta-Nehisi Coates
“resurrection
Climb back inside your body. No more split selves.
Minds without skulls. Thirst without tongues-flail and shake like a haunting.
You are alive. - Black Litgurgies”
“Divine Protector,
Remind us that our bodies are sacred. The stories we’ve inherited, both beauty and trauma, rest on our bones. We have known what it is to have our physical agency stolen from us. We have known what it is to have our bodies more used than loved. And each day, capitalism demands that we sacrifice blood and muscle at its altar. We betray our physical selfhood to survive, yet leaving it behind is a greater death still. As we long for justice and deeper liberation, train us to listen well to our flesh, that we would make, eat, drink, rest, stretch, and move in freedom, knowing that our bodies are not enemy but sacred guardians of our glory. May it be so.”
INHALE: This body is good
EXHALE: I will not abandon it
My friends, I invite you to read through this liturgy many times, slowly, prayerfully. Allow the tears to fall if they need to. Bow in prayer if you feel like it. Meditate on it. Think about it throughout your day.
I also invite you to copy and paste this liturgy. Print it out and put it somewhere where you will see it regularly, even on your bathroom mirror.
My relationship with my body is adversarial. It’s always been this way for me- I know it’s unhealthy, but now I feel powerless to change.
I know where that adversary comes from, yet I feel powerless to kick that adversary in the ass and develop a healthy relationship with my body.
I am stuck in this muck of not believing that God made my body and that God said that my body is good. Hence, the question mark on the title of this essay is for me. I know it intellectually. But deep down, I treat my body as if I do not.
Maybe you feel like me and need to be reassured that you are not alone. Maybe you and I can walk through this.
This is a much-needed Word about my body, and I need it to sink deep into my soul, and maybe you do, too.
You are so loved.
Pastor Melinda
PS - Thank you so much for my surprise birthday party:)