While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread,
and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them,
and said, “Take; this is my body.”
—Mark 14.22
The breath slides in and out,
a line of ancestors walking and walking.
Blood flows just beneath paper skin,
the scroll of the law and prophets.
So easily pierced. The way it hungers.
The way it delights. The way it trembles.
Flesh is doorway to the soul, or its garden wall.
Your monk’s cell, where you spend your days.
The little donkey bearing you into the light.
Does it carry us like a taxi we can exit,
or is it too much of who we are to leave?
The Beloved pours himself into his own body,
pours it into us,
making the body the holy temple.
This is where he is now, where his spirit breathes:
in bodies, bodies burdened, bodies beaten, bodies black,
bodies broken at the sacred table.
This is where we fight our battles, where we live and die,
where we claim our victories, where we feel our loss.
Where we separate ourselves. Yet where we are one.
This is where the Holy One takes shelter.
So easily pierced.
This is where we crucify.
This is where we are raised.
Eat the bread. It is flesh.
The work of the Creator’s hand,
the potter’s clay.
The Body of God.
“Take. It is yours now.
You are mine.”
—March 28, 2018