Earlier this week I was speaking to and in conversation with a group of Duquesne University students who are members of the campus's Saint Vincent Depaul Society. These late teens and early twenty-somethings spend every Sunday evening in Downtown Pittsburgh providing food, socks, coats, clothes and materials to persons who are homeless,
I confess prior to meeting these young persons I had bought into what is accurate statistically and that is that today's younger generations have the highest numbers of claiming no religious identity nor church membership affiliation. Yet, here is this group actively ministering to persons in poverty, individuals with mental illness, the groups whom we cross to the other side of the street to avoid or never make any eye contact.
This group of Generation Y-ers are doing more discipleship then many lifers in the United Methodist Church so I asked them why and whey this particular service?
They answered, "it's a need we see all the time and we thought we would try to meet it in a hands-on, in-person, human to human , body to body way."
I know the focus in this season in on gearing up for the celebration of the resurrection. I'm a big fan! I try to practice resurrection every day. The resurrection impact is because first there was the Incarnation, the Divine enfleshed, becoming all that it is to be human and in doing so proclaiming that a body is a very good thing...all bodies a grand gift with experiences and lessons to teach all of us.
Although I've never been a "touchy-feely+ type, I think the church needs to reflect more and minister more from an embodiment theology, to celebrate bodies and all that bodies do --- doing this would lighten us up in our dos and don'ts in regard to sexuality and identity and to our invitation, welcome and full involvement of persons with disabilities.
I want the church to do more of a broad focus on having more all-sensory worship experiences instead of so much over-reliance on seeing and hearing. Let's bring a little more smell and touch and taste to worship.
I want the church to do more anointing . Anointing is so intimate and close and connected, at times forehead to forehead, as one draws close to hear the person's need and desire. The small vial of anointing oil that I carry with smells of frankincense and myrrh...just wonderful.
In recognition and celebration of bodies, Anne Lamott writes:“My understanding of incarnation is that we are not served by getting away from the grubbiness of suffering. Sometimes we feel that we are barely pulling ourselves forward through a tight tunnel on badly scraped-up elbows. But we do come out the other side, exhausted and changed.” Let us then be people who journey one another through human to human and body to body.
