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I was sitting in the bar tonight chatting with this guy. Was a former pitcher in Single A ball, blew out his shoulder, and there went his baseball career.
We’re just talking about life—interesting to experience a conversation with someone who had that kind of dream shattered.
As we’re talking, I just start to observe the people around me. Especially the men. Comparing myself to them. Because that’s what my brain has been wired to do—well, one of the many coping mechanisms and survival skills my brain has learned over a really long time. Apparently they used to serve me. Maybe they still do somehow. Either way, I’m sitting there judging my body. All the negative things you can imagine—I’m saying those things to myself about my body.
And then I began to think of this saying people just throw around these days: “Your body is a temple.” It’s such an interesting phrase. And I’m sitting here observing these so called temples. I mean, that’s at least what my brain says. I’m sure they don’t all feel that way about themselves.
And the whole thing kind of cracked for a moment. This makes no sense. That phrase makes no sense. It’s patently absurd—at least the way it’s used. That phrase may in truth be rooted in some deep ancient wisdom. But this thing which seems to plague the human spirit—this craving and desire to restrict, to be smaller, to close up and contract—has gotten its claws in whatever wisdom penetrates those words. This force which we all seem to just accept—that thinness and smallness are somehow some kinds of moral virtue—has redefined this idea in such a sinister way.
They tell us that our bodies are meant to be temples. Our bodies are sacred and holy and should be treated as such. That’s a beautiful idea. But this thinness culture goes so much further. The temple image it invokes is this clean, pure, white, and almost transcendent temple. And so we must be clean, pure, white, and almost transcendent. We must treat our body as this idyllic and perfect temple. So there’s no room for messiness. There’s no room for clutter. There’s no room for excess. There’s no room for imperfection and certainly not for perceived impurity. And they go even further this. Often clothed within the “treat your body like a temple” is really the sinister and self-absorbed “treat your body like an idol.” The perfect body ideal itself becomes the object of worship. It becomes God.
And so there I was. Sitting in this place. Presented with a choice to either serve that god or to break free. In that moment, the absurdity of this whole thing revealed itself. And for a moment I was free.
My body isn’t a temple. Certainly not in the way that they mean it. If the ritual metaphor is to be kept intact, the correct version may be “my body is a vessel” (I’m sure we can corrupt this phrase as well). But in this image, my body is the vessel. The vessel is used for its function. Sure it may have been made out of precious metals. So is every body. I mean what are our organs and our limbs other than the most precious of metals. And yet the vessel’s ultimate purpose is to be used in service. The vessel probably gets dirty sometimes. It likely falls on the ground. It might get a little dinged up. It’s not expected to maintain the perfection that the temple itself maintains. And yet, everything is accomplished by means of the vessel.
In that moment, I realized that my body is a vessel. It’s a damn incredible vessel. It carries me. It protects me. It brings me through life. It holds me and does for me. And it receives for me. The vessel can perform and give, but it also is what receives. Without my body, I couldn’t receive on this earth. It’s not the object of worship. It’s not the idol. It is that which the universe is always pouring into and that which always has the ability and privilege to pour out to others. That’s my body. So is it perfect and chiseled? No. Is it as thin as I would like it to be? Definitely not. Do I struggle with that? Yes, a lot. But in that moment in the bar, I could clearly see that my body was never meant to be a temple. Not in that way.
Also, I just wanted to add that this whole imagery about what a temple even is has been so corrupted and hijacked by this same force. The picture of some perfect, transcendent place that stands above imperfect daily living and is that which we are meant to strive for—this is the same force that says that there’s some elevated quality in trying to not be human and to rise above this earth. Whether I am shrinking or trying to transcend, I am doing the same thing.
But isn’t that actually the opposite of what a true temple is? A true temple stands on earth. Sure, maybe it reaches higher, but it never forgets the ground it rests on. The temple sits here. The temple is made of the material realm. It’s a building. And the purpose of this building is not to serve as a kind of portal by which humans can escape this earth. On the contrary, this image is meant to invoke the place where the divine comes down and rests on earth.
The metaphor of the temple is the place where the human spirit doesn’t attempt to rise above but actually opens up to the divine that rests right there—precisely within the material.
~
Daniel Sobin | Contribution: 110
Daniel Sobin is a writer, artist, and seeker drawn to the raw edge where spirit meets shadow. His work lives at the intersection of mysticism and modern life, exploring what i… Read full bio
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