A Lenten Note to the Lover in You
As the Lenten season begins, I am once again letting the beautiful words of the poet Mary Oliver be my way finder.
“You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only need to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.”
What is it that the soft animal of your body loves to love?
And what if it is true, that what you love is the cure? What courage might that kindle in your heart?
Lent has so often been used as a means to control, discipline, and starve the body into submission. The church has historically perpetuated a harmful narrative that the body is bad and separate from the realm of spirit.
But the truth is that the body, your body, is the temple of the Spirit.
To be is to be a body.
You are holy matter.
You body matters.
Love cannot be reduced to any tidy doctrine or memorized creed. The story of the incarnation of Jesus reminds us that love is a physical, embodied reality.
And to be in a body is to be in the wild, messy, erotic dance of life.
Erotic, you say? Oh yes!
Eco-philosopher, Andres Weber writes:
“Being in the world is primarily an erotic encounter, an encounter of meaning through contact, an encounter of being oneself through the significance of others.”
Don't you just love that idea!?
I know I do, because separation is the illusion from which we suffer. The cherished myth of the individual prevents us from fully participating in the erotic dance that is life.
I love the fact that before Jesus enters the wilderness, he is baptized as the Beloved. And he calls himself the Bridegroom.
He is the Lover, wooed by the world, sensual and enlivened by the tastes, smells, sights, textures, and sounds of this generous earth.
“Arise, my Beloved, come with me.”
What if Jesus’ 40 days of wandering in the wilderness wasn’t some ascetic performance, but a sensual encounter with the wild earth?
What if he wasn’t escaping into some individual solitude, but participating in the wild love-song of creation? Belonging himself to an erotic ecology?
The gospel of Mark says that Jesus, “was with the wild animals.” What if these more-than-human ones were gifting him their own love stories and medicine songs to bring back to the human community?
And what might happen if we did likewise?
Love asks us to be entered, to blur the boundaries and exchange ourselves with the world around us.
Our very bodies are a constellation of connections. An interchange between the world outside and the world within.
We breathe the gift of the trees into our lungs.
We consume the flesh of another to give us life.
I eat the strawberry, and her body becomes my own.
We have more bacteria cells inside the temple of our bodies than human ones.
We are a riot of relationships.
We are not separate. We are part of a larger story.
How might you show up this day to the wild dance of love?
How might you become the Lover participating in an erotic exchange with the unfolding love story of life?
The Lover in me honors the Lover in you, dear heart! May we be bold in love!
Pssst….know someone who might like this post? Pass it on!
Connecting to the body’s wisdom and the longings of our souls are important aspect of the work I do as a 1:1 Soul Companion. Click to learn more.
Hi, I’m Stephanie!
As a Soul Companion, educator, and sacred space holder, I am passionate about deepening our connection to the earth, our bodies, and the Divine Mystery that dances in all that is.
Let’s journey together into the sacred wild!
