In praise of flesh

For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. (Mark 12:25)

Tell me, Lord, what is the first sacramental moment of the morning? Is it when I inhale my first conscious breath of the day? Or maybe when I see the pale, gray light of predawn through the sheers on the bedroom window?

Perhaps it is when my feet feel the coolness of the floor as I stumble to the kitchen to make coffee, or when I open the balcony door and the sweet breath of a new day embraces my face and wakes my heart.

Or, just maybe, it is when I hear Dixie open the bedroom door and shuffle down the hall, half awake, eyes mere slits, not yet ready for the light of day. Meeting her half way, I take her face in my hands, one on each cheek, as she looks up and wearily smiles, our silent eyes joined in a love for which I will never find words.

For a moment, we stand there, kiss, and she folds herself into my arms, body-to-body, flesh-to-flesh, knowing this is the only way we ever want to start the day, vaguely aware of what we cannot stomach to say, knowing …  this is not forever despite our fondest desires.

Love, yearning, loss, joy and wonder in an unspoken moment starts the day once more, our souls aligned with a current of love that precedes us not by light years but eternity.

All this—the breeze, the morning light, love’s embrace—all if it is ours through the wonder of being flesh, bodies, through which something more than physical sensation touches our souls, stirring awareness that knowing and being this love is the very thing for which we are made.

We are children of the Love who is and was and will always be, even though we won’t be, at least not in this bodily state. Beyond this life? I have no crystal ball, no mystic vision except of the Love for whom all my attempts at naming are but an infant’s babble.

But I think, no, I’m sure, Christ smiles on my babbling, not with indulgence but delight, which is why I still keep trying, however vainly, to put words to what the heart feels and knows beyond knowing. I think God is amused, which, all in all, is a pretty good reason to keep writing, keep trying.

But I wonder about Jesus’ words concerning those who rise from the dead. I’m not sure I want to be like an angel in heaven when my time here is done. I like being a body and feeling all those things that speak love to my heart, all those moments that awaken a love beyond any I thought I’d ever feel. They fill me with the assurance of love’s holy eternity.

Putting the best construction on Jesus’ words, maybe the angels live in rapture, feeling everywhere, in everything and every moment what I know when I hold my beloved’s face in my hands. Maybe their angelic bodies feel this love not just for this one or that, but for everyone and every blessed thing God has made.

If that’s what Jesus has in mind, I guess that’s okay with me, but I never want to lose the soul-to-soul connection that happens in the hallway every morning. Body-to body, flesh-to-flesh, it’s an intimation of eternity.

David L. Miller

 

 

Broken open

While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body.’ (Mark 14:26)

Sunday morning dawns and longing stirs my soul, an emptiness and desire to do the thing I most miss about being a parish pastor: the soul-satisfying sweetness of breaking a piece of bread from a loaf and placing it in the empty hands of people I knew and for whom I greatly cared.

The script for this was written long ago. ‘The body of Christ,’ I would say. Over and over again, ‘The body of Christ broken for you,’ repeating the words until the last person in line was fed and the remnants of the loaf returned to the table.

Some looked me in the eye as I spoke; others looked at the floor or their empty hands, avoiding the intimacy others craved. All were fed, and I … most of all (or so my heart seemed to say). For, I was privileged to speak the words of the Heart whose greatest joy is to be broken open and given away to the likes of us—no matter who we are, what we have done, how far we have fallen or how our lives are going.

I was giving away the Love who doesn’t ask those questions. God only knows, we all need it. And I felt immense joy because the words opened my heart.

Even on days when my heart felt dry and emotions failed to flow, even when I was putting the bread in the hands of someone I knew didn’t much like me, just saying the words and breaking bread opened my heart to love in spite of myself. All of us together were sharing a great and holy mystery that is true whether you happen to believe in it or not.

The mystery? Just this: Like Jesus whose joy it is to give himself away, our joy and fulfillment of heart is found (or finds us) exactly when our hearts are broken open and we love without asking questions—loving the person across the breakfast table, loving the hurting souls we see on the evening news, loving the hum of a billion cicadas serenading our every waking hour, loving the lives we are given and even the lives of those we don’t like.

In recent days, my heart has felt dry, my morning prayer distracted, my meditation empty and my petitions half-hearted. God has seemed far off and my soul devoid of warmth and consolation.

It happens. It happens to great saints and mystics and to relative lowlifes, like me. And every time it does, our distressed hearts, hungry to feel one, enclosed in the heart of Jesus, begin to doubt or even despair of knowing the love we crave, the consolation that allows our hearts to breathe free and sing.

But we need not despair. Consolation returns. We need only to stay open, to let life touch and move us.

Over morning coffee, I told my beloved, Dixie, about a digital message I’d received from someone I met once, nearly 25 years ago, while leading a retreat. I described what she was doing, nearly 80 now, but still riding her bike and getting pledges to fund a world hunger ministry.

Before I knew it, tears of joy were in my eyes, my heart broken open because I loved telling the story about the Love who lives in her heart for hungry people. Telling the story, that same Love cracked the hard crust around my heart so I could feel, once more, the Mystery of the One who loves and lives in us.

My heart awakened, I felt again what it means to be truly alive, one with the joy of Jesus.

David L. Miller