A temple has historically been a place that cultures have set apart as sacred. A place to go to commune with the Divine. A place to meditate, to rest, to lay down burdens and to worship the source of life, to listen to words of peace and love, a place to heal and to restore the soul.
In the New Testament book of Corinthians, embedded in a paragraph about sexual immorality is this:
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
When I was growing up in church, that verse was always used to shame me into right behavior. Don’t do bad things with your body or you will pollute the temple of God.
Blah, blah.
When I did a google search for a picture or a meme for this post, I typed in “your body is a temple”, almost all of the results that came up were about purity, or taking care of the body:
“your body is a temple, not a visitor’s center”
“your body is a temple, keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside in”
“your body is a temple, take good care of it”
“your body is a temple, honor it”
Maybe there’s something more interesting here than just the enforcement of purity or the promotion of clean living.
Maybe there are things that are in sacred writings that are profound in ways that the author had little idea of. Not just the author, but people in general. It’s easy for religion to get so caught up in the business of fear, control or self improvement that they don’t dig any deeper.
Religion communicated to me that the mind and soul were the way to god and were separate from the body. The body would get me (and others) into trouble if it were not tamed, suppressed and silenced.
But what if the body as the temple of god is about understanding that our BODIES are the very place where we will find truth, healing and connection with the Divine.
What if we thought of our BODIES as:
Sacred.
A place to go to commune with God.
A place to meditate.
A place to lay down burdens and to worship the source of life.
A place to listen for words of peace and love.
A place to heal and to restore the soul.
For me, the focus was on using the mind to commune with the sacred. Thinking the right way and believing the right things. Prayer was about talking to God and thinking about God. Worship was about thinking about the majesty of God. Meditation was about thinking about scripture, or some other sacred thought. There was bible study, and reading the right books, and having the right beliefs. Church was about good songs and good sermons and the right theology and the correct practices.
I’ve used my body as a tool and a workhorse to accomplish things. I have pushed it hard. I have tried forcing it into a box that society has created for it. I’ve ignored it when it wanted to sleep. I have punished it when it ate too much. I have ignored its voice when it said “no” because I lacked the courage to speak on its behalf and use my voice to say “no”. I have said hateful things to it because it wasn’t as lean or as beautiful as I wanted it to be. I have hidden it away as it has gotten older and lumpier. I have used it as an object of consumption, commerce, and production.
I was taught to control the body but not how to connect to god through my body.
I’ve not used my body as a temple or a sacred space.
Is it possible that in the story about Jesus clearing the temple, there is a lesson about not using the body as a means of production and consumption and commerce? Is it possible to imagine that clearing the temple can teach us to reclaim our bodies as places of spirit rather than simply machines for the making of money and the building of empires? Or even worse, as objects to be feared, subdued and shamed?
I’ve been renewing my meditation practice these past couple of years. I don’t find rest in my mind or thoughts, on the contrary, I find rest through the body. Through the breath, the senses, the feel of the cushion beneath me, or the hum of the fan in the room.
Is it possible that when the Bible says “your body is the temple of the holy spirit”, it is not saying that we should leave, suppress, and repress the body and find holiness in the mind; but rather go INTO the body to find god. Walk into the temple and sit awhile. Rest with your beating heart, your breath going in and out and feel of your pulse.
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