Part 2: What Is a Body For?
The miracles of being human.
A few months ago, in the thick of an intense recovery from a back injury, I eeked out a post that was quite different from anything I’d written before. It was a bit stream-of-consciousness prose and may or may not be maybe heavily inspired by Andy Squyres and his Instagram poems that are about nothing and everything. My post was titled “What Is a Body For?” I didn’t expect to write a part 2, but I did, and it’s below.
What is a body for?
Is your body a project or an object, your friend or your foe?
When you feel like a stranger in the body you have been given, do you follow the golden rule for yourself? Can you speak words of kindness and empathy or does your inner monologue sound like an amalgamation of every Instagram influencer peddling a masterclass that helps you become a Better You by Thanksgiving™️? When something feels off, does shame pile up, higher and higher? Do the should’ves, would’ves, could’ves bounce through your brain like a game of pinball and is the high score always zero?
Have you considered that the things that make you embarrassed about yourself are often the things others find so endearing? The weird snort that your nose makes when you found something funny, the cowlick on your head when you’ve just woken up, how your cheeks flush rosy pink when you’re flirting with someone? What an endearing thing it is to be an uncontrolled force of laughter and joy and affection! What a great thing is to change and grow and become someone you weren’t before—someone with a warm smile and welcoming arms and toenails that got sorta wonky from that one hiking trip. What a miracle it is to be a human at all—to be a complicated system of cells and uncertainties and memories and predispositions to love or not love the taste of mint chocolate chip ice cream.
To be human is to exist in a body that is awkward and messy and what an incredible experience it all is. Our bodies get sick and they get better. Our brains and eyes can learn to read and write and make croissants. Our sacrums can break and they can get better, and it as it turns out, the size of one’s pants isn’t the purpose of life. We can fall in love and grow babies in our bodies and teach those babies to swim at the 5pm Kent State Rec center class.
It’s incredible, all of it: birth to death and everything in between.
Did you know that God did not design your body to be an enemy to fight but a vessel “set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work”? He did. I believe it my heart and down to my bones, and I hope you can, too.