X Marks the Spot

In the front room of my second floor apartment there is a turret overlooking the busy street below. Through the curved glass, I survey a world in motion—a sea of skateboarders and runners and stroller-pushers and bicyclists. In summer, the sidewalk is a second home for many.

A few weeks ago, in the early hours, a man ran by. Without a shirt, you could see his perfectly shaped torso and well-balanced shoulders. His face was like that of a god and his stride was flawless.

As I watched him disappear around the corner, I wondered what he was thinking. What do beautiful-bodied people imagine as they move through the world?

There is a photo of me and my siblings standing in a row on a diving board at some pool somewhere. My twelve-year old self is positioned in the exact middle of the frame. The picture captures me in my childhood obesity stage. There I stand, arms crossed over chest, trying to hide my large breasts and stomach—the too much of me.

What was I thinking in that moment?

My arms seem to tell all—the way they form an exact “X” over my body like someone had taken a Sharpie to strike me from the picture. And that someone was me. I remember wanting to disappear like Marty McFly almost did in that photo in Back to the Future.

But I did.

I made a silent resolution to become an intellect—a mind floating adrift in the world engaging ideas sans body. I found that deep ideas and thoughtful words please parents and pastors. Bodies, though, were suspect. Thank goodness I didn’t have one.

When people ask me what it was like growing up as a gay kid, I always respond that it was a lot easier than growing up as a fat kid. I could hide my attractions, but as hard as I tried to ex myself out, I couldn’t hide my body. There I was for the entire world to snicker at and wonder aloud why I didn’t move my fat butt more.

But truth has a way of finding us out.

Truthfully, God put me in a body. Not just any body, the very body I inhabit. Augustine describes our bodies as “the earth we carry”. Put differently, our bodies are the weights we lift each day. And the manner of our lifting forms us for good or ill. Like in a weight room, if we have bad technique we will injury ourselves or mis-form our bodies as we curl the dumbbells and push the sled.

How, then, do we rightly inhabit our bodies?

First, we accept them as gifts. Whether fat or gay or with white hair spots, we must learn to receive our bodies as God’s unique and individual blessing to each of us. That may be easier or harder for some, and as our bodies change over time we all will have to stretch and learn new ways of receiving bodies that can’t do what they once could. Bodies that are, in fact, dying.

Second, these gifts from God are not solitary. Our bodies belong to each other and to all of creation. Not something to be taken violently by another, but as a gift we offer to others. The Bible calls this the body of Christ—the self-giving of our bodies to feed and abide with and wrestle with and make love with others in God-honoring ways. In so doing, we show the world what our good God is like and invite other bodies to join us in God’s life-giving adventure.

This suggests a third posture of rightly inhabiting our bodies. First, we belong to ourselves. Second, we belong to all creation. Third, we belong to the Creator. We are a gift back to God when we praise God and accept with grace and joy our role as embodied ones who give up their bodies for God’s glory. This means something different for the martyr than for the one who dies peacefully in her bed. But for all of us it means not holding too tightly to the gift of the body, but looking for ways to give it away for the sake of the One who gave up his body for us.

Of course, all of this sounds terribly intellectual for a reflection on the body. Alas, the limitation of words! I think one hug with you would say everything I wrote here, and more.

I guess I mean to say, in spite of the foregoing, I’m still not sure how to receive my body as a gift.

I do wish I was as physically beautiful as that shirtless man running by my window. That seems like an easier earth to carry (although, it may not be).

When I dated someone and he kissed me and held me, I felt beautiful. I learned through him how I might begin to accept my misshapen and broken body as the gift it is. This is not the only way to learn, but it was one way I did. I don’t know if it was a wrong way of lifting my weight. I just ran out of ideas.

In the Looney Tunes cartoons, Yosemite Sam sometimes finds a map with a big “X” on it. He’s headed toward that destination when he invariably has a run in with Bugs Bunny.

Looking again at that picture of me on the diving board, I realize I’ve misread it.

God has given me a treasure map.

Reduced by heat and time, we are deserts of concentrated hope awaiting the spring rains which bring forth primroses—a gleaming white bursting from the broken soil. ~ AJ Saur