Glorify God In Your Body
You must know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Glorify God in your body.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Christians have gotten mixed messages about bodies. On the one hand, St. Paul has told us that our body is a temple. On the other hand, he has said, “Nothing good dwells within my flesh.” For many of us, the second message has been emphasized, and not the first.
We are easily able to list all the things we don’t like about our bodies, what we feel is “wrong” with them, and are hard pressed to come up with an equal list of all that is wonderful about our bodies, all that we love. We certainly struggle with seeing our bodies as a sanctuary of the Divine, as sacred. We usually think of ourselves as HAVING a body rather than BEING a body. And often that body gets in “our” way.
We believe that honoring the sacredness of the body is not outside the Christian tradition but rather lies at the heart of it. Using breath work and movement as embodied prayer, as well as poetry, Visio Divina, and small-group sharing, we will explore what it means to be a sacred body in a community of other embodied sacred persons living in an embodied and sacred cosmos.
Christine Marie+ and Dan Martin warmly invite you to join us for a new series.
Sacred Ground: The Sacrament of Embodiment will be a four-session series (see dates below). This is the first of three series. Following and deepening spiritual growth work we have done in past offerings, we will focus the first series on the body center, the second on the heart center, and the third on the mind center. The heart and mind center series will be in 2023.
Since the body work is integral to this first series, we will meet in person. There will not an on-line option. Masks may be voluntary or mandatory depending on the status of the COVID situation.
We will meet on Sunday from 3 to 5 PM in Berktold Hall. Attendance at all meetings is required. Here are the dates of the four gatherings:
Session 1 October 23
Session 2 November 6
Session 3 November 20
Session 4 December 4
The cost of the program will be $25 to $45 dollars, sliding scale - you decide. Scholarships are available. Please do not let money be a reason not to come.
Participants must sign up by September 30 and commit to attending all sessions. We ask that those who sign up be fully vaccinated.
To sign up or ask questions, contact Christine Marie at christine@saint-marys.org.
