Christ has no body

I've come across this poem/song a number of times over the last few years, and each time it causes me to pause and ponder. Thought I'd share it. 

Christ Has No Body

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

-Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)

Born in Spain, Teresa entered a Carmelite convent when she was eighteen, and later earned a reputation as a mystic, reformer, and writer who experienced divine visions. She founded a convent, and wrote the book The Way of Perfection for her nuns. Other important books by her include her Autobiography and The Interior Castle.

It would be tragic to sit and contemplate the theology of the poem, to analyze, knit-pick, deconstruct and/or challenge St. Teresa with your own minute over-dramatized theological propositions. Instead, let the ideas proposed wash over you and imagine if your hands were Jesus' hands, your feet and mouth were Jesus,' how might that change you? How, then, might you approach the world? 

By what are you saved?

A colleague introduced me to this short poem by Lynn Unger, a Unitarian Universalist minister. And though I am not a member of the UU church myself, I believe we can all benefit from the resources of other faith traditions. I hope you enjoy, as I do, how Unger paints a simple and elegant picture of God's gently radical salvation.

Enjoy.

By what are you saved? And how?
Saved like a bit of string,
tucked away in a drawer?
Saved like a child rushed from
a burneing building, already
singed and coughing smoke?
Or are you salvaged
like a car part--the one good door
when the rest is wrecked?


Do you believe me when I say
you are neigher salvaged nor saved,
but salved, anointed by gentle hands
where you are most tender.
Haven't you seen the way the snow curls down
like a fresh sheet, how it
covers everything, makes everything
beautiful without exception.

Rev. Lynn Unger

I Asked God...

Here's a poem I came across just the other day, which I enjoyed. It contains a lot of life's practical wisdom. I'm a little weary of some of the theology from which it stems, but I very much like the point. I hope you enjoy it too.

I asked God to take away my habit.
God said, No.
It is not for me to take away,
but for you to give it up.    

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole.
God said, No.
His spirit is whole, his body is only temporary.  

I asked God to grant me patience.  
God said, No. Patience is a byproduct of tribulations;
it isn't granted, it is learned.

I asked God  to give me happiness.
God said, No.
I give you blessings;
Happiness is up to you.

I  asked God to spare me pain.
God  said, No.
Suffering draws you apart from
worldly cares
and brings you closer to me.  

I asked God to make my spirit grow.
God said, No.  
You must grow on your own,
but I will prune you to make you fruitful.

I asked God for all things  
that I might enjoy life.
God said, No.
I will give you life,
so that you may enjoy all things.

I asked God to help me  LOVE others, as much as He loves me.
God  said... Ahhhh,
finally you have the idea.  

Outside

Here's a poem that I authored a while back when we spent some time outside and were asked to reflect on it. Where is God when you're sitting with the trees, the grass, water and the sky? The picture is from the interweb, though it does resemble a place I visited which served as poetic inspiration.

Enjoy.

I see trees with green
blades of grass
bushes and leaves.
I see God’s favorite colors.

I see blue sky when I look at the water,
silhouetting my own distorted reflection
dancing in the pond of nature’s lowest common denominator.
I see God’s caricature of me hanging in the sky.

I feel the wind with a tinge of warmth
engulfing everything ubiquitously tight
like Ol’ Mother’s sponge holds water.
I feel we are all connected.

I hear the percussive plinking sound of water on rock
and then again on water
orchestrated with the overture of a breeze.
I hear the Divine’s symphony.

I like this poem because I see God as both the creature of nature, but perhaps also as nature itself. Whatever the case, I experience God as I experience God's creation.

Be blessed.

God says "yes" to me

Here's a little poem I heard today which will make you're theological mind smile. A warning, if you think on this one too much, it's quite likely it will mess with your theology, so be careful.

Enjoy.

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure it
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exacly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph my letters
Sweet cakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

Are you smiling? I am.

Thanks Vicki for this one.

--Kaylin Haught, “God Says Yes to Me,”
From The Palm of Your Hand (1995)

Backwards

You will enjoy this poem I came across from a book called Dangerous Wonder: The Adventure of Childlike Faith, by Michael Yaconelli. The poem's author is anonymous, but it will warm your heart and put a grin on your face. I love it.

Enjoy.

Life is tough. It takes up much of your time,

all your weekends, and what do you get in the end of it?

I think that the life cycle is all backward.

You should die first, get that out of the way. Then you live twenty

years in an old-age home. You get kicked out when you're too

young. You get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty

years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement.

You go to college, you party until you're

ready for high school, you go to grade school, you become a

little kid, you play. You have no responsibilities.

You become a little baby, you go back into the womb,

you spend your last nine months floating, and you

finish up as a gleam in somebody's eye.

Getting Older

I came across this poem, by Billy Collins, in something I read recently. It's an poetic telling of what it's like to finally turn 10, to move from the innocence of our childhood to adolescence. It's also sad as it points out (I think) the death of part of our imagination.


The whold idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chickenpox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I would shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.


I especially love the images of wizards and princes that we can all probably identify with. Something happened to our imagination along the way. For some reason we're no longer able to suspend reality for adverture's sake save when we're watching a movie or reading a novel. What a disservice to our inner child, to our primal, playful imagination, to those formative parts of us that continually impact who we are today.

Perhaps, today, when you're driving home in your car you can take those minutes to imagine you're racing down a track for your life in a battle against your arch nemesis! Or maybe you'll be embarking on a quest (people don't go on enough quests anymore) to save the one you love from mortal danger and great peril! Maybe you can let your mind engage in a bit of play for a few minutes.

Give it a try, I'd love to hear about it on the comments section. Go have some fun.

Tired of Speaking Sweetly

This is the title of a poem/prayer I heard recently. I hope you'll enjoy this alternate picture of God.


Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
Break all our teacup talk of God.


If you had courage and
Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
He would just drag you around the room
By your hair,
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
That bring you no joy.


Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
And wants to rip to shreds
All your erroneous notions of truth


That make you fight within yourself, dear one,
And with others,
Causing the world to weep
On too many fine days.


God wants to manhandle us,
Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
And practice His dropkick.


The Beloved sometimes wants
To do us a great favor:


Hold us upside down
And shake all the nonsense out.


But when we hear
He is in such a "playful drunken mood"


Most everyone I know
Quickly packs their bags and hightails it
Out of town.

-Hafiz, "Tired of Speaking Sweetly"
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky


My favorite part is this idea that God needs to practice His divine dropkick on us! I hope this short poem helps slightly to expand your tightly held perhaps narrow picture of God, just as it did mine.