Posts Tagged ‘touch’

Remember- Jesus’ resurrection body

April 26, 2025

Easter 2 – 2025

John 20:19-31

Marian Free

In the name of God who in Jesus touched and was touched. Amen.

During Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem, his last week of being physically present on earth, his friend Mary anointed his feet with expensive ointment and wiped them with her hair – an act of touch so intimate that it is almost embarrassing to contemplate. A few days later the tables are reversed when (in the middle of a meal) Jesus gets up and washes and dries the feet of his disciples (another intimate, boundary breaking act). Having one’s feet cradled and smoothed by another creates a strong contrast with the way in which Jesus’ body was brutally flogged, cruelly crowned and horrifically nailed to the cross.  

These accounts, gentile and loving, cruel and hateful, tell us that Jesus inhabited a real body, that he had a physical, earthly presence that could be fed and starved, alone and pressed in upon, gently wiped andpitilessly hammered.  

It is interesting to note that many of the resurrection accounts continue this theme of Jesus’ physical presence.  Not only could Jesus be seen by the disciples, but he could eat, and he could touch and be touched. Apart from Mark whose ending is very abrupt, each gospel includes an account which emphasises the physicality of the risen Jesus. According to Matthew, the women hold Jesus’ feet, likewise in John, Magdalene reaches out to touch Jesus. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus sits down to a meal and breaks bread in front of the unsuspecting disciples. When Jesus returns to Jerusalem and appears to the disciples he not only invites them to touch (to prove that he is not a ghost), but he asks for something to eat and is given fish which he eats in their presence (Lk 24:42,3).  Here, in John, when Jesus breaks in to the locked room, he demands that the disciples look at the scars in his hands and feet. When Jesus appears a second time to appease Thomas, he not only shows scars, but invites JThomas to touch.

Of course, we have no idea of the nature of Jesus’ resurrection body. Even though it is reported that he could be touched and that he could eat, he could apparently appear out of nowhere and transport himself through time and space (Luke 24). Given that the stories were retold many times before the evangelists committed them to paper, we cannot be sure how much (or how little the stories) were embellished. However, we can be absolutely certain that in some way that is impossible to explain or even understand, Jesus, who was declared dead on a Friday afternoon, was very much alive from early Sunday morning.

The nature of Jesus’ resurrection body has been a matter for much scholarly debate, but I don’t want to focus on that today. This morning, I would like to reflect on the evangelists’ emphasis on Jesus’ physicality and the possibility that means something other than a need to prove that Jesus really did rise.

As I pondered on the texts that we have read over the past few weeks and as I considered the importance of the fleshly physical nature of Jesus’ earthly body, I wondered if one of the reasons for emphasising this in the post-resurrection appearances was to make sure that we didn’t forget, that we didn’t/don’t allow ourselves to spiritualise Jesus, that we don’t somehow put the earthly Jesus at one remove from us, that we don’t diminish his humanity and focus instead on his divinity. 

Do the gospels focus on touch in the week leading up to the resurrection and in the post-resurrection accounts to make sure that in the centuries following these events that we would never lose sight of the fleshly, physicality of Jesus’ earthly body? Is their emphasis on touch a way of ensuring that we do not make the risen Jesus remote and untouchable, unable to relate to our experiences of hunger and being fed, exhaustion and being rested, sorrow and joyfulness?

Is it even possible that Jesus himself emphasised the physical so that we would remember that he knew what it was like to suffer, to fear and to be abandoned. Did Jesus appear in a physical body to ensure that we would remember that he was once one of us and that just as he was real, so too we should be real. Jesus’ fleshly, physicality resurrection presence is a constant reminder that being human, having human needs and responding with human emotions is not something of which to be ashamed.

If we spiritualise Jesus, deny the physicality of his resurrection body, we are in danger of making him into someone with whom we cannot identify, someone other than us. We face the real danger that by spiritualising him we create a divine figure whose standards of perfection we can never reach.

Maybe, just maybe, Jesus’ resurrected body could touch and was touched, so that we would never lose sight of his earthly body.

Maybe Jesus is saying: “I was real, I was here, I was just like you.  Remember, remember, remember.”

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A matter of touch (or not) – Christ is risen

April 19, 2025

Easter Day – 2025

Luke 24:1-12

Marian Free

In the name of God whom death could not defeat and whom the tomb could not contain. Amen.

There is a beautiful movie made in Japan titled “Departures”. It is not, as I imagined, about a travel agency, but about a funeral company. A cellist, Daigo, is forced to take a job with a funeral company when his contract with an orchestra is terminated. At first he will not even share the news of his new job with his wife because those who handle the dead were considered “unclean” and by virtue of their “uncleanness” were prevented from mixing with other people. By association, the Daigo’s wife would also have been treated as a pariah. What Daigo learns by observation and practice, is that it is a privilege to prepare the bodies of the dead for burial. Through the film, we are given an insight into the gentleness, care and reverence that it taken with the deceased and with Daigo (and then his wife) understand that really it is an honourable profession – a gift to the provider of the service as well as to the beneficiary.

The practice of preparing bodies for death has become the province of funeral directors in Western nations, but there are still people who insist on performing this last intimate, and personal ritual for a loved one.

Our readings for the past week have highlighted intimacy and touch. We began two weeks ago with the account of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with costly oil and then wiping his feet with her hair. Maundy Thursday recounts Jesus’ kneeling before the disciples and washing and drying their feet. Then in contrast to the gentle intimacy of these acts, Good Friday reminds us how Jesus’ body was handled roughly, and brutally by men who did not know him, whose touch was not a sign of intimacy, but of domination and indifference. Finally, the feet that were anointed by Mary and the hands that washed the feet of the disciples were fixed to a cross with nails. To add insult to injury Jesus’ broken, bloodied body was hurried wrapped and placed in a tomb – denied the reverent washing and anointing that was the custom[1].

In a culture in which the body is washed, anointed and wrapped shortly following death – a final act of love – it must have been awful for the women to watch Jesus’ torn and shattered body placed in a tomb without ceremony and to have known that it would be at least thirty-six hours before the ritual cleansing and anointing could begin – by which time the blood would have dried and the bones forever out of shape. For the women, women who had followed him all the way from Galilee and who had supported him from their own pockets, the grief experienced by Jesus’ death would have been compounded by the abruptness of his burial, a burial with no ceremony and little preparation. As he was torn away from them by his arrest and crucifixion, so now he is quickly removed from their reach.

It is no surprise that, at early dawn, as soon as the day of rest had ended, the women found themselves at the tomb, ready to say their final ‘goodbyes”, to do what had been denied them two nights ago. They have come to wash his body, to massage it with oils, and to touch Jesus one last time.

BUT in this week in which touch has been so important, touch is now denied the women who followed him to the cross and stood by while he died. The tomb is open and the body, the precious body gone; gone. The tomb is empty because Jesus is not dead, and not being dead, does not require the ministration of the women. Were they still bereft? Were they further traumatised? We do not know. We do not even know if the women ever see Jesus, let alone touch him again. Their part in the story ends here. 

The emphasis on touch in the weeks leading up to Jesus’ resurrection warns us not to lose sight of the fact that Jesus fully embodied our physical, fleshly form, that he was able to touch and be touched in ways that demonstrated his love for and his desire to be close to us. As we rejoice in the resurrection, and in the imperishability of Jesus’ risen body, let us not abandon the earthly reality of the Jesus that sought (and seeks) intimacy with us. The tension between the physical Jesus and the risen Christ reminds us that the risen Christ is not aloof and remote, but that the risen, ascended Jesus is the Jesus who was totally present, totally engaged and who wants to be in relationship with us.

We cannot touch, but we can remember that once he was touched and that he could touch.

Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed!

[1] At least Jesus’ body was claimed for burial. Most victims of crucifixion were unceremoniously tossed into a pit.

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Wild, extravagant love – Mary anoints Jesus

April 7, 2025

Lent 5 – 2025

John 12:1-8

Marian Free

In the name of God who draws us into relationship and who does not pull back when we demonstrate affection wildly, extravagantly and passionately. Amen.

In the 1960’s Harry Harlow carried out a number of experiments in to determine if the mother-child relationship was solely a consequence of the role a mother played in providing food and protection or whether affection and touch played a role.  Of these the most well-known (if unethical) experiment involved removing young monkeys from their mothers just a few hours after birth. The young monkeys were placed in cages with two “mothers” one of which was made of wire and dispensed milk through a baby bottle. The other was made of soft cloth but provided no food. What Harlow discovered was that the monkeys spent a majority of their time clinging to the relative comfort of the cloth mother and went to the wire “mother’ only for food.  In other words, the babies drew more comfort from physical contact than nourishment.  

Thank goodness experiments such as this could not be carried out today but this, and other research demonstrates how important touch is to human development and well-being.  

We don’t need experiments with monkeys to prove this. In recent decades we have come face-to-face with the long-term trauma experienced by those who were removed from their families and placed into orphanages, group homes or foster care in which many experienced abuse and neglect. Many victims of such actions will tell of their continuing inability to feel secure, to form relationships and to trust anyone. 

We live in a society in which touch is carefully regulated – by law, but also by social norms. Touch can be used to demonstrate care, support and intimacy, but it can also be used to abuse, to control and to isolate. Touch is important but it can be misused and misunderstood. The appropriate use of touch differs from country to country and changes over time.  It is only recently (in my lifetime) that it has become widely acceptable for women to shake hands. And it is important to note that while many people welcome a comforting hand on the arm, but there are some who will recoil from physical contact.

While it has proven necessary to legally regulate the use of touch, this in itself has problems. Children and the elderly can often be starved of physical signs of affection. Children who experience neglect at home, can no longer hope for a quick hug from a teacher or sports coach. Older persons in aged care facilities likewise miss out on daily, or even occasional hugs.

Social norms around touch is one of the things that makes today’s reading so extraordinary. In the culture of Jesus’ time and place, the behaviour of women and men was tightly regulated. Women were the property of their father and then their husband. In public a woman would have been forbidden from speaking to a male who was not a member of her family. A woman who physically touched a man to whom she was not related would not only have been seriously castigated, but her behaviour would have sent shock waves through her community. In any other circumstance she would have been labelled as a harlot, as a woman with no morals and no self-respect.

Yet here, as if it were something completely ordinary, we have a scene in which Mary does a number of things which are socially inappropriate – she lets down her hair, she places herself at Jesus’ feet, and using extravagantly costly ointment, proceeds to wipe Jesus’ feet with her hair. It is a wonder that it is only Judas who expresses horror at the events unfolding before him.  In a room which is presumably filled with men, in which Mary’s role would have been to join Martha in serving the meal, Mary breaks not one but several social conventions and Jesus instead of condemning her, commends her!

This scene tells us a great deal about Mary’s relationship with Jesus. She obviously felt a very deep affection for him, but it is perhaps more significant to note that she had complete trust in him. She did not feel that she had to stint in her outpouring of love or to keep a distance (physical or emotional) between them. She had no fear that Jesus would reject her expression of the depth of her care and affection. She was confident not only that he would not recoil from her or from her outpouring of love, but that he would protect her from the censure and negativity that her actions would almost certainly engender.

It is too easy to focus on the extravagance of Mary’s gesture (and the meanness of Judas’ response) and to avoid focussing on an action that might make us feel deeply uncomfortable. But Mary’s action is clearly a description of intimacy, service and abundant and extravagant love, the love of a woman for one whom her sister only days before had identified as the Christ. It is an account of intimacy between a believer and God.

By weeks end, Jesus will have been touched by strange and cruel hands. He will have been arrested, roughly handled, whipped and crucified. During these moments of humiliation and torment, will he have remembered the gentle hands of Mary, the caress of her hair and the smoothness of the ointment? Will her wild and extravagant outpouring of love be one of the things that sustains him?

Mary’s actions throw into sharp relief our own elationship with God. How many of us respond to God’s love for us with such wild, extravagant abandon? How many of us truly believe that all God seeks from us is not – as we would believe – mindless obedience, but a selfless, humbling outpouring of our love for God, a love that reveals our understanding of how much God loves us, a love that is utterly confident that God will accept our expression of love, no matter how wild, extravagant and unconventional it may be? God’s love for us is boundless, and unconditional, yet many of us find it hard to trust that God loves us that much, and equally as hard to love God in kind. Many of us portion out our love, tentatively offering God some but not all of us, anxious perhaps that God may not welcome our gift. 

Mary has no such hesitation but throws herself (literally) at God’s (Jesus’) feet, lavishly and liberally covering them with an ointment worth a year’s wages and wiping up the excess with her own hair.

What proof do we need of God’s love for us? What will it take for us to love God in return?

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Blessed are YOU

November 5, 2022

All Saints – 2022
Luke 6:20-25
Marian Free

In the name of God, Creator of the Universe, Sharer of our earthly existence, and Giver of life and love. Amen.

Some decades ago, in experiments that would now be considered to be unethical, infant rhesus monkeys were removed from their mothers at birth and put in cages. with so-called “surrogate mothers”. These “surrogates” were very basic inanimate structures. One consisted of wire and wood and the second was covered in foam over which was a soft cloth. There were two experimental conditions. In one the wire structure had a milk bottle and the cloth one did not and in the other the situation was reversed. In both cases, the infants spent more time with the cloth mother. In both cases the infants were, needless to say, traumatised by the experience.

Touch is an essential component of human well-being, the sense we missed most during COVID. It not only indicates love and compassion, but it is essential to a child’s development – the growth of physical activities, of language and cognitive skills and of social-emotional competency. In adults, touch signifies safety and trust, reduces stress, and allows the immune system to function effectively. Without touch a person can become stressed, depressed, or anxious.

Indeed, the power of touch is such that it is seen to have the ability to heal or to transfer energy from one person to another. Physical touch gives a sense of connection, as if by association, the essence or charism of the other passes to the recipient and they share, for a moment at least, something of the other. (We see this when crowds reach out to touch, albeit briefly – a member of royalty, a rock-star, or say the Dalai Lama. Their desperation to touch suggests that they believe that the contact will mean that something of the status of the other will brush off on them and that their lives will be changed as a result.)

When Jesus begins his “Sermon on the Plain”, he is surrounded by a “great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. All in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.”

“Power came out of him and healed all of them.” Everyone wants something from Jesus – they want to touch him, or to be touched by him. They want to be healed by him or they want to feel distinguished from the crowd by virtue of association with him. In other words, they want what Jesus has to give them – whether it is wholeness or a sense of importance.

When we read the Beatitudes in this context, we can see that they are not so much a comforting set of sayings but much more a form of rebuff, a corrective to the crowds’ way of thinking. Jesus is not commending the poor etc as much as he is challenging the crowds to consider what he really means to be one of his disciples and whether they are truly prepared to follow where discipleship will lead.

Luke tells us that the crowds have come to Jesus to hear his teaching and to be healed. They are drawn to him for what they can get out of the relationship. Jesus needs them to know that it is not so simple –something of him may rub off on them – but it will not be what they expect.

Perhaps this is why, when Jesus begins to speak, he focuses his attention his attention on his disciples – those in the crowd who identify themselves as his followers. What he has to say relates directly to them. When Jesus says: “Blessed are you who are poor”, he is not referring to the poor and hungry in general, but to those who are in right front of him – “you”.

His words then are a stark description of what it means to be a disciple, to be one of his followers. Jesus is saying that if some of his charism has flowed from him to them, it is a charism that leads not to glory, but to the cross, not to wealth and distinction, but to deprivation and obscurity. Being a disciple of Jesus will not spare them poverty, hunger, grief, or persecution. It will require resilience, fortitude, being willing to follow Jesus wherever that takes them, and understanding that the fate of the master will be the fate of the follower. But – and this is important – it is this dependence on God, this trusting in God to see one through, that will lead to the blessedness of being able to take life as it comes, to being content with one’s current situation and being able to cope with grief and loss.

In contrast, Jesus warns, those would-be disciples who are seeking notoriety, wealth, or entertainment will not, in the end, be satisfied. They will always be striving for what they do not have, and such striving will, in fact, take them away from the satisfaction, joy, and security that they are seeking. They will be cursed by dissatisfaction, discontent, and disappointment.

Jesus is telling his would-be disciples, and by inference us, that if we want to touch and be touched by him and if we want to share his charism and to be made whole, then we must understand that blessings will be found in suffering as well as joy, in emptiness as well as in satiation, in deprivation as well as in richness and that seeking to escape poverty, sorrow and obscurity will only lead to the very things that we seek to avoid.

Blessed are you if you seek Jesus above all else, for then you will know that you already have all that you need.

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Loving our bodies – Maundy Thursday

March 29, 2018

Maundy Thursday – 2018

Some thoughts and prayers

Marian Free

In the name of God who loved us enough to take on human form. Amen.

Bodies are interesting things – they come in a myriad of shapes and sizes. They can be strong and straight or twisted and misshapen. They can function as we hope and expect or they can rebel and resist. They can be well and whole or they can be eaten away by age, cancer or degenerative disease. They can attract or repel. They are extraordinarily resilient and yet easily broken.

By and large our bodies serve us well, yet many of us have an ambivalent attitude towards them – they are not thin enough, muscular enough, pretty enough. We wish that one bit or another were smaller or larger, smoother or prettier.

Our ambivalence towards our bodies is demonstrated in the way we respond to those whose bodies are damaged, disfigured or aged. We turn our heads away. We are reluctant to touch or to hold those whose skin is not smooth and unblemished, whose limbs are not straight and strong.

God has no such problem with the human form or its functioning. None of the considerations that cause us anxiety or dismay, held any fear for God when God in Jesus chose to inhabit our human form. The one who created us, showed absolute confidence in God’s creation – risking everything to be born and to live as and with us.

Nor did Jesus show any dismay or distaste for the bodies of others. He was not afraid to touch and be touched– touching the blind, the lame and the leper, allowing himself to be touched by the woman with a hemorrhage, the women who anointed him, and ultimately those who flogged him and nailed him to the cross.

At the Last Supper, Jesus did what no self-respecting person would do – he took on a role reserved for a slave. Kneeling before his friends, he took in his hands their dirty, calloused and cracked feet, tenderly touching, washing and wiping them.

The Incarnation is all about bodies – our bodies and God’s body.

Imagine God in human form. Imagine your body as God’s body. Imagine God stooping to wash your feet, touching you caressing you, loving you in all your physicality.

 

Maundy Thursday Intercessions

Loving God, who in Jesus was not afraid to take for Godself human form, open our eyes to see you in the wounded and dispossessed, in the despised and ill-treated, the refugee and the prisoner. Seeing you in others may we reach out in love and strive to build with you a world of justice and peace.

Word made flesh.

Hear our prayer.

 Servant God, may we as your church reach out to the marginalised and distressed in our own communities. May we never seek to meet our own needs, but only the needs of others.

Word made flesh.

Hear our prayer.

Jesus our friend and companion, help us to reach out to those who never experience the gentle, loving touch of another – children abandoned by parents, children, the disabled and the aged cared for in institutions in which there is often not enough love to go around, those whose damaged or deformed bodies cause us to turn our gaze away, and all whose age, frailty or disability confine them to a life of loneliness.

Word made flesh.

Hear our prayer.

Wounded God, bind up the broken hearted, support those who struggle, comfort those who mourn, heal those who are stricken in body, mind or spirit and hold in your loving arms, those who are dying.

Word made flesh.

Hear our prayer.

Jesus, who faced death with fortitude if not courage, give us the grace to accept our own frailty and mortality and to understand that death is the gateway to something so much more.

 

 

 

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Body beautiful

March 16, 2013

Lent 5

John 12:1-10

Marian Free

In the name of God who formed us and called us God’s own. Amen.

There is a beautiful Japanese movie called “Departures”. It tells the tale of a cellist whose orchestra disbands and of his subsequent struggle to find work. Daigo has no qualifications or talents apart from his music and he becomes increasingly desperate to earn an income. Eventually he returns to his hometown and answers a job advertisement for a company called “Departures”. He is shocked and dismayed to discover that the company is not a travel agency as he had expected, but the Japanese equivalent of a funeral company. In Japan, a Nokanashi or undertaker is the most despised of professions. Those who practice the art of preparing people for cremation are shunned by society and excluded from all social activities. Daigo has no choice, so he takes the job but tells no one – not even his wife.

His first days on the job are shocking. The company are called to a home in which the occupant has been dead for sometime and the sight and the smells are more than Daigo can bear. He is called out at all hours which makes his secret hard to keep. Over time however, he begins to appreciate the privilege and responsibility of preparing the bodies for cremation and caring for the families of the deceased. With the family in the room, the Nokanashi gently wash and dress the dead and lay them out in a bed with beautiful white linen before placing them in a coffin and taking them away. (Like many aspects of Japanese life – tea making, flower arranging – preparing a body after death is highly ritualised and full of grace. It is beautiful to watch.)

While Daigo is learning to love his work, his wife becomes increasingly suspicious of his activity. Finally he has to tell her about the job and to confront her anger and dismay for by association she shares the taint that the job brings with it. However, when Daigo’s estranged Father dies, Mika accompanies Daigo as he attends to his Father’s body. When she sees for herself the care and respect that is given to the dead, and the love and compassion that is shown to the family and understands that despite societal attitudes the job is not something that contaminates the encoffenier, she too appreciates how important the job is. Instead of despising her husband’s decision and feeling anxious for herself and their child, she embraces and supports his choice.

Departures is a lovely, gentle and respectful movie, which has the effect of de-mystifying death and giving us a different appreciation of the human body.

Different cultures have different attitudes to death. People of the Muslim faith believe that a person should be buried as soon after death as possible. The body is wrapped in cloth rather than placed in a coffin and it is laid in the ground such that it is facing Mecca. In Ireland and perhaps other parts of Great Britain a body may be kept in an open coffin in the family home for long enough for family and friends to come and pay their respects. Some ancient cultures had elaborate processes of mummification and the wealthy could build expensive tombs like the pyramids which could be filled with food and possessions to accompany them on their journey to the next life. I could go on, the Indians (or some of them) have the tradition of the funeral pyre and many Chinese burn money for the deceased to spend in the next life.

In Jesus’ time it appears that the dead were anointed with spices before being wrapped in cloth and entombed. The women among Jesus’ friends discovered that the tomb was empty because they had been going to anoint Jesus’ body which, when taken from the cross, had been hurriedly dealt with because of the approach of the Sabbath. According to John, Nicodemus provided about 100 lbs of spices for that task. In today’s gospel however, Jesus is not yet dead so the anointing tells us something different.

There are four different accounts of the woman who anoints Jesus. John’s account has a number of unique features – the timing is very specific, the characters in the story – Martha, Mary, Lazarus and Judas are all named and the woman (Mary) wipes Jesus’ feet with her hair. Jesus is with friends which makes Mary’s action less shocking and inappropriate. While the timing in John’s gospel is precise – six days before Passover – other aspects of time are confused in this period of Jesus’ life. For example, John alludes to this event before he reports the raising of Lazarus and in this passage we read: “Leave her alone, she kept it for the day of my burial.” As Jesus is not yet dead, that he should be anointed for burial is confusing. Alternately, if Mary was going to keep the ointment for Jesus’ death, why is she using it now?

These questions cannot be resolved but the stories tell us about a respect and care for the body which Western Christianity (based, in part, on a misinterpretation of Paul’s use of the word “flesh”) seems to have lost. Many of us have, deep in our psyche, a belief that our physical bodies are something of a hindrance, that they have uncontrollable urges which are shameful and have to be subdued and tamed. Not quite so extreme is our concern with normal bodily functions. We deodorise our sweat, listerine our breath, shave off hair that grows where we do not want it. Our hatred of (or ambivalence towards) the body is demonstrated today by extreme dieting or an obsession with body building or sculpting. Bodies are so dangerous or so unpleasant that many people in our culture have a difficulty with touch.

The reverence, extravagance and intimacy with which Mary handles Jesus’ body and Jesus’ willing acceptance of her ministrations tell a different story. Neither of them are embarrassed or ashamed of their bodies, they have no fear of what another might see or feel, no self-consciousness about touch. Their physical presence is a very real part of who they are. Jesus’ feet may have been rough and calloused from all the walking, Mary’s hair may not have been recently washed. Neither will have spent time with the beauty therapist to ensure that they looked and smelt their best for this moment. They were two friends who accepted each other and each other’s bodies just as they were.

Whatever this account tells us about the foreboding of Jesus’ death, the avarice in Judas’ nature or the careless abandon of Mary’s love, it is also a telling insight into the value of our physical selves. God gave us physical bodies to house our emotion, our intellect and even our souls and God took on that human body for himself when he entered our existence. Our bodies may not be all that we wish and they may express needs that we are not always happy to admit or indulge but in the end they are God’s creation and the body God chose to inhabit. They are not to be despised and subdued but celebrated and enjoyed. They are not to be bullied and re-shaped, but treasured and cared for. They are not a burden or embarrassment, but a gift from God our creator who thought that they were a suitable vessel for God’s very self. Our bodies are a precious gift. There is no need to deny them affection and touch, reverence and respect. If the human body was good enough for God, surely it is good enough for us.

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