Making Peace With Our Bodies

 

“The body never lies.”            --Martha Graham, dancer, and choreographer

I used to be able to leapfrog over parking meters in a single bound.

I’m not kidding. Hope it doesn’t sound like I’m boasting. It’s just a weird physical ability I once had when I was young, and my body was too. When I was sixteen and playing high school football the coach had us do something called the “six-inch ab exercise.” Lie flat on your back. Arms at your side. Keep your legs together, then raise them up six inches off the ground and hold. HOLD! I could do that for a full minute then, even longer! When I was forty, I rode my bike 545 miles in seven days, from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Now?

I just found out last week from my orthopedic doctor that I need a second hip replacement. I already had one hip “done” in June of 2020. So, if I tried to repeat that youthful leapfrog trick these days, I could do some serious damage and certainly embarrass myself. “Who’s the old guy lying on the ground writhing in pain next to the parking meter?” And six inches? Maybe one inch and I could hold that for about six seconds.

I think at 63 I’m just trying to make peace with my body. That’s something all humans go through as we age.  Because the truth is that Martha Graham is spot on--a body does not lie. A body always tells us the truth whether we like it or not. We wake up one morning to a new twinge or ache and think…Well, I’ve never felt that pain before!

Even so a body is a such a grace filled and generous gift from God, from the moment we were conceived. The author of Psalm 139 tells us that God knit us together in our mother’s womb and the author of Genesis tells us that each of us is created in God’s image.  You, me, everyone: when we look at one another we see the face of God. Which means that God’s face is seen in all human colors and all human shapes and God lives in the wrinkle and blemish free skin of a child and the spotted and wrinkled and mottled skin of a senior like me.     

I could try to hide or camouflage the fact that this body of mine is very much now a well-used model, no longer brand new and shiny, right off the lot! I guess I could dye my hair or beard. Maybe purchase stretch pants that hide those extra pounds or wear contacts, so folks think I’m still 20/20 in my vision.  Botox perhaps, to smooth out the bags under my eyes or tighten the loose skin on my neck and arms.

I don’t know….

I’ve got a lot of miles on my body, this container made up of chemicals and water and flesh and bone. By this point in life, I’ve taken in something like 530 million breaths. Walked about 170 million steps. Eaten 35 tons of food. (YIKES!) The miracle of the body is that at least for now, mine keeps going. Keeps breathing and walking and living and laughing and moving and riding.

Like many folks, I’ve put my body through the ringer, in some ways. Not taken very good care of this temple God gave to me. I don’t drink or smoke anymore, but I certainly did my fair share of consuming copious amounts of alcohol and puffing away on butts for decades. That was not good for the body. The spirit either. I’ve been able to stay away from both habits now for a while, and I’m praying that this abstinence will help me live longer. I can’t ride 500 miles, but I will try and cycle 100 hundred miles next August in the Pan Mass Challenge Bike Ride, a charity ride across Massachusetts.

Perhaps that will help me live past my life expectancy of 78 years as an American male.  In 1950 that number was just 68 and so we should celebrate that this trajectory is upward, but if you really want to age well and age long, move. To Japan. They live to 85 on average. I’d like an extra seven years.

Finally, the body is what the body is. We can be in denial about aging and getting older, but nothing can stem the passage of time and its slow but sure effect on the bodies we inhabit, these soul containers if you will. What we can do is take loving care of our bodies.  Try and eat well and get enough sleep. Stress less. Pray more. Absolutely laugh more and play more. Spend time with people whom you love and love you right back. Give hugs and get hugs. Helping others helps too. Being a part of some cause or community or belief system bigger than self alone. And move every day.  Off the couch. Into life.

A new hip? Alright. It’s time to schedule the surgery.  And thank you, God, for this “under construction” body of mine. It isn’t perfect. And that’s ok. 

The body doesn’t lie.      

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.