Story in the Skin: Skin's Altar #1

Barbara Brown Taylor has lifted a huge blind spot for me; at least, if I was not blind to this before, I did not know it:  “Each of us has a unique body ‘signature,’ which consists not only of our distinctive physical characteristics but also of our posture, our gait, our way of using our hands.”

 I have been raptly seeking the audible story so far in Los Angeles.  I had forgotten the story told in our skin—eyes that tell of power or fear, hands that tell of cheer or gloom, shoulders that tell of confidence or of time spent in a deep shadow.

 Already I am remembering things I did not notice at the time. A Homegirl Café host, carrying a story of fractured and missing family, who looked me in the eye the whole time she told her story.  Her gaze was one of power, not defiance but acceptance and embrace.  Or the server who smiled brighter when I asked her name.  She did not fear me, a stranger; she was grateful to be known, which I would not have known had she not smiled.

 To Taylor, “the daily practice of incarnation” is “being in the body with full confidence that God speaks the language of the flesh.”  I think my proper response to this is wonder.  As much as I talk an emphasis of Christ’s humanity, do I look for it around me?  If I did, I think I might be awe-struck more often than I am.

 Because “God loves the bodies of hungry children and indentured women along with the bodies of sleek athletes and cigar-smoking tycoons.”  Therefore, just like any voice can carry the sound and power of The Voice, so can all of our bodies embody the Word Made Flesh.  Our bodies are going to tell a story anyway; why not tell the one that includes, heals, and redeems all stories?