How's your body image? Ever worked at building that perfect shape? Strived for something "better"? Obsessed about physical looks? Embarrassed to show yourself on the beach? Or perhaps you think you've achieved the status of "God's gift to humankind"?
I once got surrounded by naked bodies. I was walking the streets and it happened to also be the London Naked Bike Ride; the bodies on display were, shall we say, "interesting". In this strange experience two things stood out: the fact that 99% of the naked bodies were a long, long way from the media's ideal, and that these thousands of naked people were so comfortable in their skin that they felt free to simply be - no façades, it was just "me in my skin".
Why can't Christians be comfortable in the spiritual equivalent of a naked bike ride? Good body image applies as much to the spiritual body as it does to the physical body - for both the collective and the individual. Yet more often than not we either ignore the shape of our spiritual body (hoping no one will notice), or else out of embarrassment dress ourselves up in yesteryear's spiritual fashion, after which we look like time travellers from the 18th century - a body oddity. What spiritual body image do you think was held by the early church? They were unashamedly spiritually naked for all to see, and confident in their spiritual skin. What spiritual body image does the church carry today, what do individual Christians carry today? SBNR anyone? Here's to finding a good spiritual body image: let's undress the church and take a good long look in the mirror, see the sags, the misshapen curves, and the skin blemishes. Let's say "in that God finds the beauty, so perhaps we should stop dressing it up in the hope people will not see what's really underneath". Instead, how about if the church could simply stand naked in our community and let people look at what is under the coverings? And then perhaps we could find the courage to do the same with our own spiritual body, and then we can all go on a spiritual naked bike, comfortable in our skin, and let people see.
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Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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