“[The body is] a marvelous machine … a chemical laboratory, a powerhouse. Every movement, voluntary or involuntary, full of secrets and marvels!” ~ Theodor Herzl
I’ve been thinking about bodies today – not really a surprise given what we do around here…
Our bodies are amazing… really, truly, awesomely, stunning… and we take them for granted every single day.
Think about the millions of processes that go into something as simple as taking a bite of food… first, you have to see where the plate is; then you have to use an astonishing amount of eye hand coordination to actually get a bite on the fork. Next, all kinds of muscles have to work in congress to lift the fork while muscle memory helps you unerringly find your mouth without the benefit of sight. Finally, there’s the whole startling miracle of transforming a foreign substance into fuel for this unbelievably sophisticated machine.
And it all works so well that most three year olds have this sequence down pat… don’t get me started on the miracles that are throwing and catching a ball, driving a car, climbing the stairs, never mind breathing, growing, and thinking or, for that matter, tasting, smelling, touching, seeing, hearing, and sensing!
We do all these things unconsciously every single day… we actually physically experience the truly miraculous on an ongoing basis, and it’s so common place we never stop to wonder at the blessing of it all.
There’s a lot of talk in some religions – or, more truthfully, in the practice of some religions – about the evils of the body. To be physical is to sin, while to be disassociated from the corporeal is holy…
I wonder about the logic of this.
If it is true that there is some all knowing force in the Universe who is not only the embodiment of good as many claim, but is also incapable of making mistakes then doesn’t it follow that we, as this Force’s creations, have bodies for a reason?
That it is part of the divine plan that we should experience the world from an embodied view point?
That we feel pleasure – yes, ALL kinds of pleasure – because we’re supposed to?
Otherwise, wouldn’t we be blowing around in the breeze, like so many spiritual jelly fish??
We have been given such a gift; we have been blessed with so much… it’s humbling and breathtaking when you stop to think about it.
“If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred” ~Walt Whitman
(* “I sing the body electric” ~ Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass)