Of Bears and Penguins

Advent 7:

Just yesterday, friend Andrew, the lovely Ann and I were talking faith, and Andrew said,

“We’re spiritual beings having a physical experience not physical beings having a spiritual experience.”

He was making the point that a lot of times all the noise of the world around us can distract us from the spiritual matter at hand, which can be true.

But it sure got me thinking about this season when we reflect and celebrate the physical incarnation of the Divine in Jesus, the Christ.

There are fat, wet snowflakes falling outside this morning. While I was at the farmer’s market, they hit my hat and rolled down the back of my neck with icy winter cat licks. The air swirled about and tickled my ears, the cold made my fingers slow and tingly.

Then the pumpkin pancake batter had this wonderful squelchiness of a texture as it went into the skillet where the butter popped. The smell came up from the stove warm and ready as the pancakes became themselves.

So wherever one stands on the physical-spiritual spectrum, we do have these wonderful bodies, held up bones and muscles and ligaments that allow us to take in this amazingly physical world we inhabit. We can run over smooth prairies and let the tall grass tickle our bended knees, we can climb up rough rock walls, and our delicate fingers can find impossible places to hold on.

Sometimes, I feel like I forget just how physical life is, of how close to dust I really am, but what extraordinary dust it is.

Imagine a summer’s night, in the country, maybe by a lake – up to you, it’s you’re imagination, but don’t forget the cicadas. The air practically shimmers with life, the bugs are chirping, and somewhere an owl is whooing through dark. There is the plop of a frog launching itself from its haunches into the warm water and the ripples shake the lilies so that they look like an undulating green carpet. The lightning bugs are dancing like they just realized what a great party this world is, and somewhere there’s a warm cow lowing, and a horse knickering, and the earth smells warm in your nose, and you pick up some dust in your hand and it’s got some heft, it’s got grit that you roll between your fingers, and you take a deep breath from your gut, and let your lungs feel up with all those things, all those wonderful earthy physical things and you laugh with the sheer joy, the merriment of it all.

And Jesus left the glory of heaven to don our mortal veil, He inhabited a body just like ours – prone to hunger, to pain, to astounding joy, to tears wet down his face, to sweat warm on His back as He walked, to the crunch of a kernel of wheat between His teeth, the waters of the Jordan over His body as He went down in His cousin’s arms, and rose to find the dove of heaven on His shoulder. The smell of fish in his nose, and the feeling of broken bread under the blessing of His voice and the strength of His hands.

So way back in the Garden, when the Divine One spoke into being with sweetness this good world around us, by His action he spoke His love for all of creation – for the physical, and the spiritual and for whatever comes between – I guess for me, it’s all too wrapped together to think of two separate experiences – my physical or my spiritual, it’s one journey together, and the one informs the other.

There are moments when the physical is hard, when it’s messy, scary even, a birth in particular can be all those things, and yet, the King of Heaven entered this earth in the same messy, scary way that you and I did, and what a gift that is, for truly there is a Savior who has born in His body our experience.

What grace, what gift, how deep and wide the love with which the Holy One pursues us for His own.