I have little ridges on the beds of my finger nails; lines, divots from top to bottom. It’s yet another thing to either alter or just let be, like the gray hairs that sprout defiantly straight in the midst of my black coils, or the refusal of my eyes to see anything close up.
Evidence of mortality abounds in my body. It’s a witness of survival, suspicion, strength, and scars. My body is a map of decisions, telling the story when my mind and mouth are too shy to speak. Yes, I carried and birthed two children in two different ways; yes, I still reflexively wince while bending over the tub to scrub because I cleaned before my body healed from childbirth. Yes, my skin has been drenched with the mist of Mosi Oa Tunya, the spray of the Pacific, the Caribbean Sea. No, I don’t wear as much sunscreen as I ought. Yes, I have a secret love for toe rings. Yes, oboes and xylophones make me dream. No, I cannot do squats without my knees cracking.
Yes, I am dying. Yes, I am living.
I marvel and pity the conversations of peers who balance angels on pinheads, and, with audacious certainty, assign roles and worth to people, placing themselves in, of course, the inner sanctum of God’s love, guarding their position with the cluelessness of a disciple in the gospels. I know that they selectively notice me. In the hallowed halls of theological learning, pious men and women ignored my body except to condemn its inherent sinfulness, its ability to ontologically tempt men, its refusal to conform to narrow beauty standards, and its singular calling to bring pleasure and babies (to somebody, God knows who, because “Christian” men are called to marry pure women and pure women are never Black).
I wonder if they notice their crow’s feet and balding heads, the scent of their deodorant or their feces. Do they contemplate or ignore the sermons their bodies are preaching? I wonder what is “Good News” for them because I so seldom hear it articulated. Are they frightened? Is that why they avoid the mirror of self-examination? Does it prevent them from self-scrutiny? Will they wither if they acknowledge that they are passing away, that they are not powerful, just greedy, that they are holy before they do a thing, and that they can know freedom through letting go? Lord, grant folks the knowledge of their mortality and wondrousness. And help them to mind the business that pays them. Help me to do the same.
My prayers to my Creator come through shea butter and cuticle oil as much as utterances and bended knees. It’s the offering of caring for a body that is dying (as all bodies are), and cultivating praise for the life I am yet living, in defiance of theologies devoid of any actual good news. It’s acknowledging, through the breaking of bread and enjoyment of wine with loved ones, that I am here, creating and loving, receiving strength and offering it, a witness. Take, care, this is my body. Breaking. Whole again one day, by faith, because of You.
That Jesus kept his crucifixion scars and broiled fish for his friends after resurrection is not lost on me. It’s Good News. Jesus creates kinship with the accused and oppressed through his skin forever, his scars a testimony of the mortal violence inflicted on his innocent body: yes, I died. Yes, I live.
Jesus knows that we get hungry. Jesus knows that serving food with love is a ministry. (Notice he doesn’t relegate this to “women’s work.”) It is as elemental as fruit trees, as holy as roasted goat and yeast-less bread, and as joy-filled as a wedding feast.
Our mortality, our corporeality, is vibrant and beautiful. Remember this today. Let the boundary lines of life keep us in a place of delight and humility, so we drink water and mind our business, so that our worship is sincere, so that our bodies are a witness of God’s love.
This piece reads how slow melting shea butter under the palm of my hands feels. Oh. My. Goodness.
And oh yours.
Kurt and I often mention that aging is not for the timid. Time takes its toll on our bodies. They are indeed wondrous. And failing. That tension leaves me thankful for all that my body can still do, and longing for a day when those little pains, creaks and noises, scars, etc. - when all those things will fall to the inevitability of everything sad becoming untrue.
Thank you for your beautiful words. And your laments. I pray that I will always appreciate the tensions that this life presents (in almost every moment) - not seeking to deny the beauty because of the ashes, nor the inverse.