I am wrapped in mortality, my flesh is a prison, my bones the bars of death. What is mortality but the things related to the body, which dies. What is immortality but the things related to the spirit, which lives eternally. What is the joy of heaven but improvement of the things of the spirit. What are the pains of hell but ignorance and bodily lust, idleness and devastation of the things of the spirit.
~William Blake (1757-1827)
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us…. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
~ from 2 Corinthians 4
There is a great evil in our world. And each of us would like to point our fingers at another. But we know the old adage is true – three fingers point back at us.
This evil?
We love tents, and in the same way, we sell tents like they are the most important thing ever.
What?
Yeah, this writer is speaking metaphorically of course. i am speaking about human bodies.
Now these these tents are some of the coolest things ever. The are machines that can think and breath and feel and move and work and protect and destroy and reproduce. But they – as beautiful as they are – are simply tents. The body’s value is made manifest through the indwelling soul and spirit.
Now further, the soul and a spirit of a person yearns deeply for connection with the soul spirit of another. Yet, the seeming gateway for this is through the doors of the tent of another. We look at another, and the first thing we see is the shape and form of the tent surrounding the soul and spirit. And this is not a useless endeavor. The beauty and form of a tent is, well, beautiful. Surely this is a good G_d at work among us.
But just like a tent is a thin-walled shelter of a tremendous volume within, a body is analagous. There is another old saying worth saying: beauty is skin deep.
So beloved, we must be ever so careful when looking at the tent of another. We can easily be carried away by the beauty – and we can be tempted to think that the tent is all there is. If we can just look at, or touch the tent of another – that will be enough. But, we know that this view is really shallower than the skin covering the soul and spirit of the body we want to look at or touch. For, the true depth and volume of a person is within.
It does seem that media and marketing know how to play on this need for connection. They seem to hijack the deeper need of connection, and just short-circuit that with a skin-deep image that implies connection is possible in some instant manner.
But would that we might, by His Grace, look beyond the walls of the tent when our eyes are tempted to stop there and gaze. This longing for connection cannot be met by simply viewing or coming in contact with the outer layer of a person. It can only be met in deep relationship of the souls and spirits of the people involved.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
~ Romans 6:12-14
