thesoulpurposedotorg

Years ago, my daughter’s homeroom adopted a family in need for the Christmas season. The class received a list of needed things. They knew the children’s names and their dreams. Each class member chose one gift to bring this family. As each chose, the list of needs became shorter and shorter. There was one gift that was avoided by all. My daughter, being the warm-hearted yet practical girl that she is, bravely agreed to purchase this despised gift.
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This season of Advent reminds me once again of a paradox in my Christian experience. The Christian tradition uniquely celebrates the Divine becoming Human. That means having a physical body with all its attendant challenges: pain and ecstasy, flight or fight stress reactions, embarrassing functions and goose bumps, scars and freckles. Why, then, have the Christian traditions taken such a negative view of our physical bodies? I’ve never understood this.
Watch a baby delight in their fingers and toes. Watch a baby try to walk and giggle when they land on their bum. Watch a two year old run around naked, squealing with delight at the feeling of wind through their hair, dancing and twirling to music only they hear. I wish we didn’t ever have to learn to be ashamed of what we see in the mirror.
Robin Amis reflects on the effect of spiritual energies that effect our physical bodies. He tells us that the word often translated virtue is the Greek word dynamis which means energy . He reflects on a frequent experience of attending church services or spiritual meetings:

You may have realized that some of these events give you a strange kind of energy. People sometimes look different – sometimes younger – when they leave such events from how they looked when they came in through the door. This difference is the direct result of different energies – a different balance of energies within us. Certainly, these energies are little understood today, but although nothing is ever said about them, we experience their effects on us, and if we are honest we must sense that they are important, especially for those with true spiritual aims.

These energies connect directly with the following verse from the Syrian Saint Joseph the Visionary, which spoke of what the tradition calls the “Glorification of the body.”

May my body be sanctified by You,
May my soul shine out for You,
May my body be purified by You,
Of every image and form here on earth,
And may my thoughts be cleansed by You
And my limbs be sanctified by You;
And my understanding shine out,
And may my mind be illumined by You.

(as quoted from A Different Christianity by Robin Amis)

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