In a world of the body

Elrena Evans writes the following in a column that appeared in Episcopal Life,

Ten minutes before the service starts, a priest is pounding down the aisle in full stride. As my one-year-old daughter spots him, she squeals in recognition and holds out her hand. He whirls around to face her.

"Shhh!" he hisses. "Be quiet."

And with a swoosh of his robes, he is gone.

My daughter drops the hand she was holding out to him, confused. She doesn't understand why this man she was so happy to see wasn't happy to see her. And I don't understand why I am sitting here in the pew where I sit every Sunday with my extended family, allowing a man in clerical garb to rebuke my daughter.

I look over my shoulder at the retreating priest. He is safely ensconced in a world of candles, prayer books and vestments—a spiritual world, a world of the mind.

I shift in my pew. I live in a world of the body. My spirituality is twined with flesh, with bodies that birth and nurse their young. That is the high calling of motherhood: a demand that we learn to negotiate the spirit world while remaining firmly rooted in our earthly humanity.

The full text of her essay is online here: The Church Incarnate: Flesh and spirituality intertwined on the path of faith and motherhood.

Home for Christmas
For those looking to make their faith real, one opportunity this week is the Habitat for Humanity of Camden County house coming together at 301 Mason in Kingsland. Volunteers will be working to get the family in by Christmas and this coming week is crucial with work going on daily from today through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Tools, instruction and even lunch are provided. Come and work if you can. It will be the best gift you can give yourself this Advent and the some of our neighbors will be able to be in a new home to celebrate Jesus' birth.