SPIRITUAL WORSHIP – IN A GYM
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A clergy guy who works out at our gym walked by my machine as he was leaving.
I had asked if the New Year was off to a good start. We don’t talk often.
He remembers me as one of the long-ago, infamous “liberal Art’s” of Corvallis.
The other Art is a retired Unitarian minister.
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Our banter led to church talk, as it often does with those in the trade.
I asked him about attendance at the first Sunday service of the year. Always
a low blow question, because the first service in January is like losing
the Rose Bowl after an undefeated season. Christmas fills the church. New
Year’s Sunday empties it. In fact, lots of preachers take that Sunday off…”to
recover from Christmas.”
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Here we were at the gym, along with a bunch of other people. The paper reported
a surge in gym memberships after the New Year. Exercise machines sold well.
We see more people on the road walking and jogging.
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Let’s face it: the first
thing people think of after New Years is personal survival, health, and
living. Spiritual issues don’t come to mind as first priority. There’s no
rush to church.
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I think there’s room
for compromise. For those who still appreciate a good Bible verse, a good
one for a New Year’s resolution could be found in Romans 12:
“Present
your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your
spiritual worship.”
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(Do I need to warn any
of those who have read me for the last half century about using any single
text as authority for anything, without concern for its context?)
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Disclaimer aside, that text has come to mind at various times. It works in
a dental chair, for instance. Or when having a colonoscopy. Or getting a
biopsy. You can probably think of other times when you were presenting your
body as a living sacrifice.
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The “holy and acceptable”
part moves from meddling to preaching. Try standing on the scales or viewing
your shape in a full length mirror and thinking that what you see is holy
and acceptable to anyone, including God, and would qualify as “spiritual
worship,” (whatever that means).
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We’d just as soon separate
spirituality from our bodies. The theological statement of Christmas takes
that option away. Think about “the Word became flesh…”
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It’s a heavy idea for
God-believers and anyone to think about. What is sacred and spiritual and
holy, by whatever name, is part of us. Flesh. The theological word is “incarnation.”
So holy moments invite themselves to consciousness in work in the garden,
watching a sunrise, changing a diaper, making love, sailing, eating with
friends, sharing wine with a loved one, walking by the river, reading, listening
to music, singing a hymn ─ or anything. I just thumbed through a hymnal
reading hymn words written by Brian Wren. It was a spiritual journey of
sorts. Barbara Brown Taylor found these words in one of his hymns (not in
my collection, alas) as she thumbed through a hymnal waiting for a sermon
to end. It was surprise to see such earthy words in church.
Good is the flesh that the Word has
become,
good is the birthing, the milk in the breast,
good is the feeding, caressing and rest,
good is the body for knowing the world,
Good is
the flesh that the Word has become.
Good is the
body for knowing the world,
sensing the sunlight, the tug of the ground,
feeling, perceiving, within and around,
good is the body, from cradle to grave,
Good is
the flesh that the Word has become.
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I went back to my workout
─ I mean back to my spiritual worship ─ attempting to make my body a bit
more acceptable. If not to God, at least to me.
─ Art Morgan, January 7, 2010
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