As I walked the riverbank, I was thinking about the water
versus the stones. Stones look a lot stronger than water. Water is so
changeable, shimmering and glimmering around all over the place. A baby can
shove it aside. A bug can walk on it. Fish even breathe it. Water is weak,
right?
Stone, on the other hand, seems eternal. There it stands,
holding firm, immovable. Big boulders and earth form the banks and boundaries
of the water. Layer upon layer of smaller stones make up its bed, hold it on
its way, keep it from sinking back down under the strata. Stone is strong.
The problem, of course, is time. The river, like all water,
“seeks the path of least resistance,” but while it merrily chuckles on its way,
it patiently and oh so constantly wears away at its banks, polishes the stones,
grinds small ones smaller, and smallest ones into sand.
Once, people maintained this river. Among other
things, they kept a channel dug, so salmon could get through easily. Now, the
Crown doesn’t allow any modifications at all. So the river was taking out large
chunks of pasture every year. The owners of the cabin got special permission to
dump 90 square metres of big stone along the bank on the curve. So that’s how
the big stones that hold the bank got here in the first place. Otherwise, the
river would have changed its course again, as it has so many times.
Water is stronger than stone, after all.
Thou shalt love the
Lord with all thy. . . strength. . . and thy neighbor as thyself.
In my analogy du jour,
the water represents my mind. We’ll talk more of that next week. The earth and
stone represent my body. And so it is, that the mind can wear away the body, if
you let it. If you don’t maintain the body.
It seems to me that the first piece of loving God with one’s
body—first in order, not in importance—is loving the body itself—taking care of
it, nourishing it, feeding it, keeping a clear channel within it that leads to
the ocean of God’s love. (Which of course means that love from and to God came
first, after all. Can’t love this body unless I recognize that it’s God’s
treasure, made by, and yes, loved by the Creator of all.)
Lately, rather to my own surprise, I’ve realized that
morning grooming, and breakfast, and so on, are a real part of morning worship.
I am loving God with my body when I take care of it. Or, more properly put
perhaps, I am making my body strong and healthy, ready for use in loving.
The next piece is loving others as we love ourselves, which can’t mean in the same exact ways
(unless the other in question is a baby or child or ill person whom we do
actually feed, groom, and dress) but means loving others as much as we love
ourselves. It’s been a hard lesson for me and many others to learn that the
limit to our ability to love others lies, in part, in the limits we set on
loving ourselves. Those limits can be set at either end of the spectrum, of
course—true love is neither neglect nor overindulging.
I can use my body to love others by hugging them, listening
to them, helping them, cooking for them, making things for them, and many other
ways. May I have eyes to see the opportunities.
First, last, and always, comes love of God. In the ways in
which we choose to show love to ourselves, we are loving God. In the ways in
which we choose to show love to others, we are loving God. But we must also
express our love direct to God, not through others. Do we use our bodies enough
to do that?
I can use my body to show love to God by singing, using
different positions in prayer, even dancing. I remember a story—you’ve probably
heard it—about a child dancing and twirling around her back yard. Her mother
asked what she was doing, and she replied happily, “I’m dancing with God!”
When was the last time you danced with God?
What are some of the ways you use your body to love God,
others, and yourself?
What are some of the ways you maintain your body in good
shape for that work of loving?
