Five-Senses Spirituality: Why Our Whole Bodies Need God
This, year, as last, I'll make an empty tomb cake for my Sunday school class of 4- to 6-year-olds. I'll bake one small square cake for the base, and one small dome-shaped cake for the tomb. I'll frost both with sand-colored frosting, perhaps scatter raw sugar for a sandier appearance, and carve out a hollow in the dome's side. Candy-coated chocolate rocks will accent the ground. A large plain cookie will become the rolled-away boulder, guarded by a tiny wooden angel. Two wooden women will approach the empty tomb. We'll look quietly at the cake for a while; we'll tell the story, and we'll eat the cake.
Once I would have scoffed at the practice. For a brief time in my university years, I became enamored of a narrow approach to worship that privileged all things left-brained. Christianity is a religion of the Word, I insisted. Images, incense, Christmas pageants, even instruments were suspect. After all, Nadab and Abihu offered "strange fire" and were soundly extinguished by God, which somehow meant that we should also be suspicious of churches that encourage worship including drama, painting, or, heaven forbid, dance.
Christianity is a religion of the Word—the written Word, yes, but also the Word made Flesh, who dwelt among us, who turned water into wine, who made the blind see and the mute speak, who washed the stinky feet of fishermen and broke bread with unsavory characters. Christianity is a religion of that Word, too. The psalmist knew that words were not the only way of knowing or even worshiping God. His songs suggest that dancing, animals, birds, trees, oil and wine all speak in their various ways of God's infinite wisdom, beauty, and love. The trees praise God with their seasonal dressing and undressing, the mountain goats praise God as they bring forth their light-footed young, and the bread and wine and oil speak of God's sustaining love that's worth savoring.
The prophetic (if curmudgeonly) Wendell Berry insists that many of us think of our bodies as "shipping cartons to transport our brains and our few employable muscles back and forth to work." And so often, we ship our brains and muscles to church, too. We've been missing out, say Brent Bill and Beth Booram in their new book, Awaken Your Senses: Exercises for Exploring the Wonder of God (InterVarsity Press). We humans have a great capacity for learning, knowing, experiencing, and understanding that goes well beyond our ability to analyze and process words.
Think of what a 6-month-old baby does when presented with a new toy: she grasps it, tastes it, turns it over in her hand, pounds it. She encounters it with all her senses, and in so doing, learns more than we might guess. Young children do some of their most important learning through the senses, which is why my boys are outside as I write this, building a tiny cabin out of sticks and stones scavenged from the yard, alternately shrieking out directions and ideas and humming either "Jesus Loves Me" or the Lumos! theme from the Harry Potter soundtrack.
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Lynette Mould
I think this is wonderfull I am giving the lesson for our small group this week. I am using this them to deliver the message.Thank you so much for sharing this. GOD BLESS.
MICHELE GYSELINCK
By all means bake a cake, but you better start practicing because it might be harder than you think.
shawn leonard
I just signed up for "Spirituality and the Senses" at George Fox Seminary. Thanks for giving me a really good start!
charity
"For a brief time in my university years, I became enamored of a narrow approach to worship that privileged all things left-brained." Ha! Love this. It bothers me to hear knowing-through-logic so privileged in faith discussions. As the post and other commentators note, scripture affirms other ways of knowing, including our senses, feelings and emotions. I used to think that well-reasoned understanding of scripture preceded sanctification and transformation, and this attitude lead to much disappointment and disillusionment with my relationship with God. I have experienced much healing as I have learned to accept that God might be working things in me that I will never understand through logic. And this is not "weak" or "womanly" faith; it is the substantial reality of the unseen as it manifests in my life. Yay! I will have to check out this book, because it seems to be speaking to where I suppose I'm at right now...
Doreen Ashley
I agree that we should worship God with all of our senses. Fragrances, dance, music, art are all wonderful and add to the richness of our worship experience. We have 5 spiritual senses as well and Hebrews 5:14 urges us to exercise, practice or train them too. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. We were born to be seers and hearers just as the first century church was. Our spirits can; Taste: Taste and see that the Lord is good. Smell: For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing Hear: My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me Touch: And Jesus said, Who is the one who touched Me? And while they were all denying it, Peter said, Master, the people are crowding and pressing in on You. But Jesus said, Someone did touch Me, for I was aware that power had gone out of Me. See: your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Kim at Kingdom Civics
Rachel, I have a suspicion that you may have spent your "university years" affiliated with my church tradition (the instrumental music being suspect is my biggest clue). Regardless, as someone raised in a distinctly "left-brain" church, it has taken me a long time to realize the truth of what you are saying. It has been so freeing to acknowledge that God created all of our senses (AND our emotions!)as means by which we can know Him. It's funny that you mention the cake, b/c last year was the first year that I really, REALLY celebrated Easter with my kids, and we made Resurrection cookies. They definitely helped us all appreciate the miracle of the resurrection, and we plan on doing them again this year! Thanks for your thoughts!
KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR
The theologoy underlying this post and the book is so important and so neglected. Thank you for this.
MICHELLE VAN LOON
I reviewed this book for the most recent print edition of the Englewood Review of Books, and really enjoyed it A LOT. In fact, I'm supposed to be leading a day retreat for a small group next week, and am considering using one of the exercises in the book to shape our time together.
JANE HINRICHS
Rachel, I know the point of this post isn't to give me a recipe but I think I ought to make this cake for my Sunday school Class! It sounds like such fun. God is so into physical stuff. He made it all so why not! The last few days or so I've been thinking about the daily tasks we do -- clothes, meals, cleaning -- and I realized today that these tasks are more like God's work than a lot of the stuff we call ministry. Why? Because God does the same thing. Every day He has the sun rise and the set. Every day He provides food and water and air for us to breathe. Every day He watches us get up and often forget to thank Him for all these gifts but He keeps doing it anyway (oh, wow, that sounds like a lot of what parents do for their kids daily). Thanks Rachel.
Tim
Rachel, eating the empty tomb is a whole new way to bring home the idea of conquering death! Tim
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