I’ve decided to declare today “Love Your Body Day” here in my little realm (which extends about as far as the door to my office). “Why today?” you ask? Well, I’m feeling good because a) the sun is shining and temps will get all the way up to 60 degrees today b) I’m going to Boston to see David tomorrow, and c) I’m wearing a hot outfit. I’m going to a random work dinner at which the higher-ups in PresbyLand are supposed to make an appearance, and I preferred not to look like a total scrub. So I put on my new camel-colored wool blazer and my dress shirt. I also wore my three-inch-heel boots today, but that had more to do with the fact that I’m completely out of black trouser socks than anything else.

I remember going on some sort of women’s retreat at college where the speaker said that she got up every morning, looked at her naked body in the mirror, and said, “Dang, sister, you look good!!” Now, this woman did not have the perfect body, I can assure you. But she didn’t care. Maybe it was because she had other things to occupy her time—a great job serving college students, hobbies and interests, friends who cared about her. She could wake up in the mirror, see herself in her totality, and be thankful for God’s gifts.

How empty are our lives when all we do is sit and obsess over how we look? Of course, I’m guilty of this all the time. For instance, I’ve had a particularly bad (okay, I’m just going to put it out there) zit breakout this week. I chalk it up to stress on a variety of levels. Every time I went to the bathroom yesterday, I would look in the mirror and see those zits that I had tried in vain to hide with layers of foundation and concealer. I totally missed all the parts of my body that I like, from my dark almond-shaped eyes to my long hands.

Traditional scriptural interpretation has often reinforced this negative way of looking at our bodies, and by extension, ourselves. From men who have associated Eve with sin and temptation, to the constant theological divide between the “flesh” and the “spirit” to describe sin and holiness, we’ve been taught that our bodies are bad. Perhaps that is why so many women take this masochistic view toward the way that they look. Maybe we believe that we’ll be better people by criticizing our appearance and denying what we like.

Of course, society doesn’t help with this problem. Take a look at any magazine today and you’ll see unrealistic expectations of women’s appearance, combined with the commodifying of our bodies. As NNPCW’s discussion resource puts it, “The mind is taken out of the woman, and her body is made into a sales pitch and an accessory” (57).

Yet God did create our bodies good. Why else do our two main Protestant sacraments, baptism and communion, both intricately involve the human body? Why do we teach that Christ was resurrected in the body? And why do we hold to the belief that our own bodies will one day be raised from the dead? If the body really is such a bad thing, such a thing to escape, then why is it so woven into Christian theology?

You know, I think Jesus was a “body” guy, anyway. When I say that, I mean that Jesus wasn’t some academic sitting around revising the religion from his ivory tower, or chilling safely in the synagogue with all his buddies. On the contrary, Jesus seemed to like getting a little dirty once in a while. There’s something significant in our belief that Jesus’ miracles physically happened—that the woman with the flow of blood really did stop bleeding, that the lepers did receive cleansing, that the blind did receive sight. It acknowledges that our bodies are good, beloved by God, and that our physical needs are of concern to God. What happens in the immediacy of this world, in our physical conditions and situations, is important.

There are some great study aids in the NNPCW discussion resource, if you’re interested in learning more. But today, on my self-declared “Love Your Body” day, stop seeing only the nasty zits in the mirror. Look at yourself and say, “Dang, sister, you look good!!” And remember that God created you and loves you, body and soul.

“So God created humankind in God’s image, in the image of God the Lord created them; male and female God created them.” --Genesis 1:27

Kelsey

Great idea, Kelsey. I think I'll love my body everyday.