Our Bodies

“How tempting it is to disdain what God has created, and to retreat into a comfortable gnosticism. The members of the Heaven’s Gate cult regarded their bodies as obstacles to perfection, mere ‘containers’ to be discarded on their way to what they called ‘a level beyond human.’ The Christian perspective could not be more different; it views the human body as our God-given means to salvation, for beyond the cross God has effected resurrection. We want life to have meaning, we want fulfillment, healing and even ecstasy, but the human paradox is that we find these things by starting where we are, not where we wish we were. We must look for blessings to come from unlikely, everyday places—out of Galilee, as it were—and not in spectacular events, such as the coming of a comet.”

– Kathleen Norris, The Quotidian Mysteries