Let’s talk about bodies. I was reflecting this weekend with a colleague of mine on this issue via Twitter; I stated to my friend that I wanted to focus my lenten discipline on honoring my body as the temple of the Holy Spirit this year. In that moment something struck me: the Christian story has at its core the salvation of humanity through work done in a human body, and the human bodies through which we spend our days are the means by which we work out our salvation.

And so I want to spend the next few weeks writing about my body. And your body. And all the bodies with and through which we touch, feel, weep, dance, ache, make love, and pray. Through all of this I want to keep in focus the idea that I stated above: that salvation is ultimately an embodied experience, and that our bodily movements through the dance of life are enfleshed theology–or rather, that we can read our bodies with an eye to the way God works with them and in them to bring about God’s demesne.

Body positivity is something that I’ve struggled with throughout my life. I grew up as a fat kid and, while childhood obesity is in some spheres a thing to be laughed at and treated as adorable and endearing (Chunk and Honey Boo Boo come to mind immediately), the reality is that for many kids the issue of body negativity is a spectre that rises at too young of an age. Yes, there are systemic issues that keep young bodies addicted to processed sugar and fat, extreme portion sizes, and a sedentary life. I look back on my own childhood and realize that I would have smacked myself had I known what I was doing to my body.

But the reality is that my body is what I have made it, imperfections and all. And I am all for taking care of myself by the time-tested means of eating right and exercising, and to be sure this is self care that we can and should all be engaging in. However, the issue is that those of us who have subpar bodies are told that our bodies are subpar by a culture that idealizes one particular type of body with some bizarre narrative that suggests that we can have a different body. Even if I did eat flawlessly and exercise every day, I will never have the body of Ryan Reynolds because I am not Ryan Reynolds. I am Nate Craddock, and the only body I will ever have–regardless of its composition–is that of Nate Craddock. We can change our body composition but we cannot change our body, because we have been given this one incredible gift through which to experience the wonders of creation.

Furthermore, when we begin to work on our bodies, we subtly begin to treat our bodies as our enemies–this is especially prevalent in the gay male culture with which I’m familiar, but I’m aware of this issue across social distinctions. We seem to dissociate our idealized future bodies, the bodies which those so inclined among us can craft after a long season of hard work and perseverance, from the bodies in which we must do that hard work–almost as if we get to turn our old body in for a new one when we’ve worked hard enough. And we fight with our present body, continually beating it down and treating it with disdain, when in reality it is this same body that we are cultivating. When we run into the difficulties of living an enfleshed existence as we work on getting healthy (and the struggle is real, believe you me), we begin to blame our bodies for their own inefficiencies.

Body positivity doesn’t mean baptizing unhealthy lifestyle habits and dietary choices as good, because mistreating our bodies by such means seems antithetical treating the temple of the Spirit with its requisite dignity. For me, body positivity means loving the body I have in this present moment. As I sit on my couch writing this I notice everything I hate about my body–my chest, my knock knees, my gut. But I also realize I am using this body with all its imperfections to process and to write about itself, and I accept the body that I have as a beautiful creation, one which can be disciplined and changed through hard work and attention but nevertheless the one body in which my soul will ever dwell.

Are there things I would change about it given the opportunity? Absolutely. But before I can begin to change anything about it in good conscience I must first recognize that my body as it is in this moment is a holy icon of the presence of God, a God who exists not in the future or the past but in the present moment expanded to eternity. Because this flesh is the flesh through which I have been given the opportunity to work out my salvation; this body is what was baptized, this body is what consumes the Mysteries, this body is what will bless and pray and weep and dance, and this body is what will be raised on the eighth day.

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Postscript: I admit that I am writing from a cis-male perspective, and I know that my experience is not going to be the same as the experiences of my trans and genderqueer friends. For those who don’t share my experience, I want to know: what does body positivity mean for you?