The Practice of Wearing Skin

This week’s practice in Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World is the “Practice of Wearing Skin.” This is the idea that we need to be aware of the fact that God’s design for us includes a physical body, and we need to be thankful for it and cognizant of the ways that it can connect us with God and with others who also have bodies.  

I have to say this chapter was pretty well-timed for me this morning. My body turned one year older yesterday. I can feel a sinus infection starting to develop because of my allergies, so I can’t smell, taste, or breathe well right now, which led to difficulty sleeping. My body is larger than I want it to be, and because of that I went back to the gym (for the first time all summer) yesterday, so now I also can’t sit or stand or stretch my arms too far without soreness. While I know in my head I have much to be thankful for about the health and physical condition of this body, I did not begin this morning with an overwhelming sense of joy about this luggage where my soul resides.

Taylor writes about how so many of us are “insensible to the ways in which every spiritual practice begins with the body,” but it is so true. She mentions how those whom God has called us to love also have bodies, and so having and living in bodies is something we automatically have in common with those we meet. Our stomachs growl and gurgle when we are hungry, we sweat when we work hard, we get tired, we get sick—“Wearing my skin is not a solitary practice but one that brings me into communion with all those other embodied souls,” she writes.

We also need to come to the understanding that God has entrusted our bodies to our souls, and that God loves the body that was chosen for us. “God loved all bodies everywhere, “says Taylor. She suggests that if we are in a place where we don’t love or appreciate our bodies, that we spent some time in prayer (in front of a full-length mirror) really looking and observing and talking to God about that body. As we stop to think about all of the amazing things that our bodies do, and the ways God has intricately designed each body to protect the life inside, she suggests that we may decide we have much for which to be grateful.

The most interesting part of this chapter to me was the connection that Jesus—God wearing skin—used very physical, body-related practices on His last night on Earth with his disciples. He used eating, drinking, and washing, some of the most basic practices in which a body can engage, and gave them new meaning. He gave us new practices which would require tasting and smelling and feeling, as a reminder that “Word was going to need some new flesh.” Jesus left us with things to physically “do in remembrance,” not only thoughts to think, but actions that required a body to perform.

While we don’t always receive the message that flesh is good, we can rest assured that God takes pleasure in the body that God has given. “This is the central claim of the incarnation- that God trusted flesh and blood to bring divine love to earth.” May we live as people who appreciate our bodies, committed to using our flesh and blood to furthering the kingdom of God on Earth.