Mortal Musing

It was Wednesday night at the baptist church and the heater was working properly. I sat near the back listening to one of the pastors lead the Bible lesson--a challenging one, for me, about the abundant power God gives His church because His Spirit dwells within us. At one point the pastor described how, no matter what happened to him physically, his soul--the real him--had everything he needed through Christ. The point, though true and praiseworthy, left me uneasy.

You see, I find a poignant comfort in the truth that God takes our human frailties into account--caring for the needs and limitations of our bodies as well as our souls. Psalm 103:13-14 tells us, "As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust" (ESV). I admire the humility of Agur, who asks God to "feed me with the food that is needful for me [. . .] lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God" (Prov. 30:8-9, ESV).

I am a daughter of the oft maligned Puritans (though not a scholar of them), a direct descendant of a man who served under John Winthrop as the first lieutenant governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. My sister and I less than half jokingly attribute our family's introspective tendencies and sometimes hyperactive consciences to this fact. Perhaps unfairly, I wonder if the protestant traditions I am steeped in lean toward a restless striving to transcend our humanity, instead of recognizing the interconnectedness of body and soul, and the weird and wonderful reality that God is here with us, as we are now.

One of my favorite detectives is G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown, the dumpy little catholic priest with a delightfully holistic approach toward the crimes and criminals he runs up against. Once, when trying to dissuade a criminal from stealing valuable fish-shaped silverware, Father Brown finds the criminal trying to intimidate him.

"Stand still," warns the criminal, "I don't want to threaten you but--"

"'I do want to threaten you' [says] Father Brown, in a voice like a rolling drum, 'I want to threaten you with the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched.'"

Describing the encounter later, Father Brown says of the criminal, "I don't know his real name, but I do know something of his fighting weight, and a great deal about his spiritual difficulties. I formed the physical estimate when he was trying to throttle me, and the moral estimate when he repented."

I love the way the physical and the spiritual run together in these stories. For we are both; we are meant to be both.

As Christians, our minds, our hearts, and our treasures ought to be firmly placed in the kingdom of heaven. Faith, "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen," is a most precious gift. Yet, God has given us more than ethereal knowledge and assurances. After all, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." People experienced Christ with their physical senses. And now, in a different kind of way, people can do the same. Aren't we who believe in Him the body of Christ? Gerard Manley Hopkins expresses this idea: "For Christ plays in ten thousand places / Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his / to the Father through the features of men's faces." Our bodies and spirits acting together to offer physical acts of service in Christ name--the cup of cold water, the prison visit, the handmade garment--bless Christ personally and demonstrate a bit of His character to a world that needs to know that He is here.

Troubled by my own frailty, I am encouraged that Jesus taught us a prayer that touches on the need of dust and spirit: to be fed and forgiven and not led into temptation.