soul in the body: Christians in the world

St Mathetes tells us today in A Year with the Church Fathers that the way our soul acts in our bodies is similar to the way that Christians act in the world. He makes several interesting points. But the one that came home to me was that the same way our soul tells our body not to just engage in physical pleasure whenever it wants, so do Christians teach the world the same thing.

It's interesting to note that our soul doesn't teach our body that all pleasure is bad. God made pleasure. He created tasty food, warm sunshine, refreshing water, and beautiful sunsets. He made birds that sing songs for us to enjoy listening to, and so many different amazing aromas for us to savor. He created us with the ability to enjoy our environment, and He called it good.

But that also means that we have to learn to control ourselves. We can't just do whatever we want. We have to share with others. And it's good for us to fast from food and other pleasures for a time, so that we can focus on what is more important.

These same things are what we teach the world. Pleasure is good. Food is made to enjoy, and so is sex. But we shouldn't just eat whatever we want all of the time. And we shouldn't just have sex with whoever we feel like at the moment. There are parameters and guidelines that are created for good and healthy reasons.

Mathetes points out that our body doesn't like it when we tell it what to do. But our soul loves our body anyway, and is kind to it when it tries to rebel. The same is true with Christians and the world. It is GOING to hate us. We're telling it what it does not want to hear. But we should love it, because it needs to hear our words to be healthy and to be healed of its wounds.

Just as our soul keeps telling us even when our body doesn't want to listen, so we need to keep telling the world, in every generation, what it doesn't want to hear. And we need to keep loving it.

God, thanks for teaching us about how our bodies relate to the world. Help us to love them, especially when they hate us.