"God is Spirit, or Self-Knowingness; God is Law and action; God is result or Body."** ~Ernest Holmes, The Science of Mind

Here's a sentence I never expected to type: your body is a theological statement.

Not a mistake. Not an inconvenience you're dragging around while the "real" spiritual you does the important work somewhere up in the clouds. Holmes puts Body right there in the same breath as Spirit and Law — not underneath them, not despite them. The body is where the invisible becomes visible. It's God, showing up with a face and a heartbeat and — let's be honest — some genuinely strange noises.

I grew up with a mother and older sister who believed if you weren't thin, you weren't happy. I am sure my sister learned this from my mom, and my mom probably was taught this jewel by her mom. A couple of real memories: hugging my sister hello and her whispering in my ear, "you should really lose at least ten pounds"; or from my mother, "I always know when you're unhappy — you start wearing jeans to hide your weight." It is not easy to love your body when those you love demean you.

We are so practiced at being embarrassed by our own bodies. We apologize for stomachs that growl during meditation, for the wrinkle that showed up overnight, for the fact that grief made us cry in the church parking lot and someone saw. Somewhere along the way, we absorbed the idea that a "spiritual" person floats slightly above all that — untroubled, unbothered, un-embodied. It's a lovely idea. It's also nonsense.

Because here's the truth Science of Mind keeps handing back to us: we don't get to Truth by escaping the body. We get there by moving *through* it. "We shall never know peace until we embody it," Holmes writes — not think it, not theorize it. Embody it. That word is doing a lot of work. It means the Divine isn't allergic to your body. It moved in on purpose.

I'll be honest, I like my body when I am wearing a size eight versus a size twelve. Is that conditioning? Probably. And it's the truth. Am I ashamed of liking my body at a smaller size? No — the truth is, I feel healthier, I move more easily, and I have a lot less aches and pains. I'm comfortable in loving my body, and I am comfortable knowing everyone has a right to choose how they appear in the world. I love Lizzo. I love her confidence and her loving herself enough to be exactly who she is without letting an industry shame her into being something different.

None of this means every ache or limitation is secretly a blessing in disguise, or that we're supposed to grit our teeth and call our suffering holy. It means something gentler: that the body having needs, limits, sounds, and seasons is not evidence that something went wrong. It's evidence that something is alive. Shame has had a long, lucrative career convincing us otherwise — that the right body is quiet, controlled, and endlessly cooperative. Yours doesn't have to audition for that role.

We will stay whole — not despite having bodies, but because we finally stopped treating them like the secret we have to keep.

Blessings on your journey,
Rev. Gayle