Bodily Prayer

God loves you, body and soul.

from saltproject.org

I read this poem and thought about the line, “A prayer his body makes entirely” (third line from the bottom). I have been struck lately by how our bodies pray, receive God’s love, and give it, not just our minds, souls, and hearts.

St. Kevin and the Blackbird
by Seamus Heaney

And then there was St Kevin and the blackbird.
The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside
His cell, but the cell is narrow, so

One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff
As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands
And lays in it and settles down to nest.

Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked
Neat head and claws and, finding himself linked
Into the network of eternal life,

Is moved to pity: now he must hold his hand
Like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks
Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.

*

And since the whole thing’s imagined anyhow,
Imagine being Kevin. Which is he?
Self-forgetful or in agony all the time

From the neck on out down through his hurting forearms?
Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees?
Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearth

Crept up through him? Is there distance in his head?
Alone and mirrored clear in love’s deep river,
‘To labour and not to seek reward,’ he prays,

A prayer his body makes entirely
For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird
And on the riverbank forgotten the river’s name.

I like the line, too, because of that “entirely” at the end—”A prayer his body makes entirely.” Seamus Heaney was Irish, and that sounds so Irish, doesn’t it? I can just hear his Irish lilt. But that “entirely” is significant, too, because St. Kevin is using his whole body. The bird, the eggs, and the nest are in his hand, but as the poem says when it is imagining “being Kevin,” his whole body is involved—his neck, forearms, fingers, and knees.

There are times I use my body for worship and prayer. Folding my hands, closing my eyes, kneeling. When the pastor says the benediction at the end of the service, I hold my hands up as if to “catch” the blessing. When I do that, I notice the air in and around my hands. I like to imagine that air is the blessing landing in my hands and entering my heart, like the way you “catch” a kiss someone blows to you. We use our voices to sing, our ears to listen. I sometimes raise my hands at choruses of the songs (something I could never do for years). I take notes most of the time, using my hand to write and draw, my mind to concentrate and imagine. Embodiment is kind of having a moment right now. I read quite a bit about embodying your faith, your meditation, and so on. Also, about the importance of our bodies and the need to pay attention to them.

How about you? What are ways you use your body to pray, to bring God’s love into your body? Thank God that we can use our whole body to receive and give God’s love, to embody the commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). God loves you. Body and soul.