Your body is not an end in itself; rather, it offers the gift of tangible connection to the spiritual world. As a human, you experience God in and through your physical body. Perhaps this looks like kneeling and standing through your worship service. Perhaps it looks like singing or dancing. Perhaps for you it is hiking through the woods or meditating in the grass. The way you reach out for God might differ from the way of the next person, but you can be sure that if your heart desires divine encounters, then your body will put itself to good use to make them happen. Have you ever thanked your body for this gift?
For the fact that your limbs and senses help you organize your spiritual experience in a way that you can understand and recognize? When you consistently honor your body for this holy gift, it becomes harder to criticize and despise it. When you can feel the very life of God flowing in and through your body, connecting you to transcendence itself, it becomes easier to accept whatever shape it happens to take.
—from the book Luminous: A 30-Day Journal for Accepting Your Body,
Honoring Your Soul, and Finding Your Joy, by Shannon K. Evans
//Franciscan Media//