Body

Miracles 4.1 Body -- one of four hard words.

Man has held three views of his body. First there is that of those ascetic Pagans who called it the prison or the "tomb" of the soul, and of Christians like Fisher to whom it was a "sack of dung," food for worms, filthy, shameful, a source of nothing but temptation to bad men and humiliation to good ones. Then there are the Neo-Pagans (they seldom know Greek), the nudists and the sufferers from Dark Gods, to whom the body is glorious. But thirdly we have the view which St. Francis expressed by calling his body "Brother Ass." All three may be--I am not sure--defensible; but give me St. Francis for my money. //Four Loves//, chapter 5, paragraph 18

Not that you and I have now much reason to rejoice in having bodies! Like old automobiles, aren't they? where all sorts of apparently different things keep going wrong, but what they add up to is the plain fact that the machine is wearing out. Well, it was not meant to last forever. Still, I have a kindly feeling for the old rattle-trap. Through it God showed me that whole side of His beauty which is embodied in colour, sound, smell and size. No doubt it has often led me astray: but not half so often, I suspect, as my soul has led it astray. For the spiritual evils which we share with the devils (pride, spite) are far worse than what we share with the beasts: and sensuality really arises more from the imagination than from the appetites; which, if left merely to their own animal strength, and not elaborated by our imagination, would be fairly easily managed. //Letters to an American Lady//, 26 November 1962

Bless the body. Mine has led me into many scrapes, but I've led it into far more. If the imagination were obedient, the appetites would give us very little trouble. And from how much it has saved me! And but for our body one whole realm of God's glory--all that we receive through the senses--would go unpraised. For the beasts can't appreciate it and the angels are, I suppose, pure intelligences. They //understand// colours and tastes better than our greatest scientists; but have they retinas or palates? I fancy the "beauties of nature" are a secret God has shared with us alone. That may be one of the reasons why we were made--and why the resurrection of the body is an important doctrine. //Letters to Malcolm//, chapter 2, 4th paragraph from the end

Song of Suburbia: Minerals eat no food and void no excrement. So I, borrowing nothing and repaying Nothing, neither growing nor decaying, Myself am to myself, a mortal God, a self-contained Unwindowed monad, unindebted and unstained.' //Pilgrim's Regress,// Book 10, chapter 5, paragraph 5