Sunday, October 25, 2020                 (today’s lectionary)
Body parts
Jack and I started a puzzle, one hundred pieces of the human body. He left before we finished it, and yesterday I got tied up in knots, working out the pieces and thinking about my place in the Body of Christ.
Not that I’m worried about it, exactly. I just don’t have a name. I voted for a coroner, and an auditor, and a treasurer, and a senator, and a president. Who am I? What’s my role in the doing (or undoing) or our society? I’m semi-retired, so does that mean I’ve semi-completed my contribution to human culture? I don’t think so. My spirit mostly says “No, that’s not true.”
Nevertheless I’m tied up in knots. I’m caught in my head and it’s starting to hurt. Jack and I talked about bladders and large intestines (you can guess why). Now I’m remembering many friends who have had a problem with one small part of their body and it caused them great pain or fear or consternation. Sometimes that small part was the cause of their death. It doesn’t take much to get an ugly “pain-body” rhythm beating back on healthy life. No wonder medical doctors have always been revered and in great demand. No wonder Jack is already thinking about that as a career.
I’m glad to have had 71 years to get to know the nature of things. The natures of my body and yours, the power of honor and respect and ways to communicate honor and respect, right uses of power and humility, the foolishness but seductive whisper of violence – physical, mental, moral, emotional, spiritual violence, the joy of hope and free salvation.
You shall not molest or oppress an alien.
If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry.
Our friend Peg left Mahomet, Illinois for the southern border of Texas. She bought a mobile home and spends most of her time working with people there who have crossed over from Mexico and have no idea what to do next. I haven’t talked to her lately, but when she left she was excited and happy to have someone to live for, something to give.
You were once aliens yourselves. Once your cloak was the only covering you had to sleep in. Be careful when you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge. Return it to him before sunset.
Daily US Co-vid 19 cases have reached record highs and might soon cross into six daily digits. The virus works on different parts of the jigsaw puzzle. When I cough, I wonder about my lungs. When I feel a chest pain, I wonder about my heart. When I have a headache, I wonder about my brain. When I eat sugar, I wonder about my pancreas. Do I have a fever? Should I get a test?
Oh Lord, transform my fearful doubt into awe-filled curiosity and wonder. Let the joy of my breathing body, AS IT IS, WHAT I HAVE, send rushes of delight and gratitude through me now and tomorrow too. I am not some thrown-together chunk of junkyard scrap, I never have been and never will be. I am my body and my life, fearfully and wonderfully made just as it is, one small but integral part of the eternal Body of Christ.
Every day Margaret writes meditations on the Lord’s Prayer. Today too, she wrote.
We have no words worthy of your praise. My head bows as my humbled hands reach out for your gift of bread to sustain me. May I savor the eating and the process.
Forty one years, we’ve been getting to know each other’s body and soul. You know, the ones God knows like the back of his hand? This is our precious gift, this time to learn loving God’s way, relaxing to enjoy everything we are given.
(Exodus 22, Psalm 18, 1 Thessalonians 1, John 14, Matthew 22)
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