Fearfully and wonderfully made...

Yesterday I was Celeste for a moment. Celeste had the wonderful gift of connecting people to one another, helping strangers become friends. Two of my favorite women needed to “come to know one another” (Brother Kannon’s favorite phrase) so I set up a lunch. One has had knee replacement surgery and the other will be having the same surgery this month. I knew they would like each other because they are both educated uppity Southern women who remember where they come from. When I left the restaurant to drive to the car repair shop, they were still at the table, talking.
As I sat waiting for the car to be fixed, I closed my eyes and began to do the breathing meditation our yoga teacher had given us for homework. Bible verses were my mind graffiti as I tried to wipe the slate clean to focus on breaths. Finally I gave up counting breaths and used a phrase that kept floating to the top… breathe in…fearfully…breathe out… and wonderfully made. My breathing slowed. The frustration of the long wait eased and I relaxed into my body and soul.
At the end of the day, I soaked in a bubble bath in my old cast iron claw foot tub and read from a book given to me by a friend, The Gift of Years by Joan Chittister, subtitled “Growing Old Gracefully”. It is a thoughtful book and one I will read as she suggests, slowly with time to soak in (nice play on words, Thad, for you). The subtitle, however, is a phrase that is beginning to grate on my one remaining nerve. My friends and I decided at lunch yesterday that graceful is not how we are feeling about aging. Knees are giving out. Arthritis is distorting supple joints. Bodies that have been beautiful and useful are now needing medicine and artificial parts in order to maintain some basic abilities. We are grateful for modern medicine and its gifts but this process of bodies wearing out is anything but graceful.
So, I return to my meditation on “fearfully and wonderfully made”. For every body part we can treat and replace, there are so many parts we can neither maintain nor repair. The fearful complexity of our creation inspires awe and wonder. As this body of mine shrinks literally and becomes distorted and old, courage is required for the facing of these days. Courage is a virtue found over and over in the Bible. Remember Little David and Goliath? Noah and the Ark? Rachael and the spies? Peter who lost his courage and then found it again? The women who came to Jesus’ tomb early in the morning? Naomi leaving her adopted land to return home widowed and childless?
Today I am praying for courage to face the limitations of my aging body, courage to understand and make peace with my death, courage to celebrate the gifts of life and death in my fearfully and wonderfully made body. Thanks be to God for our bodies.