A shitty little prayer about our bodies.

Dear God,

These bodies you gave us … I mean, there’s a lot to love about them.

First of all, they can sing – so, good job on that one.

And they can laugh at bad jokes and walk across the street to say hi to our neighbor’s dog.

And these bodies you gave us can smell fresh lavendar and savor the taste of perfectly ripe of cantaloupe in August.

And honestly, it’s pretty amazing the way the skin of someone we love can feel on our own skin. So, that’s pretty cool.

But I do have some notes.

Because these bodies are so fragile. So easily wounded and prone to sickness.

They age and get soft and just sort of slowly slip toward the ground like they’re really tired of holding it all up.

And then sometimes our bodies stop making insulin or our knees suddenly can’t do really simple things for us anymore (like reliably get us up from the damn sofa), or our cells lose their minds and mutate in ways that make us need to remove and/or poison entire parts of these bodies you gave us just so we don’t die …and if I’m honest, that feels like a pretty major design flaw.

But then they can also magically knit themselves back together - which, if I’m honest, is kind of mindblowing. That they can be sliced opened, fixed, closed - and then…somehow… cells come to repair the whole thing, collagen lays down across the incision like the lattice top of our grandmother’s apple pie, and one day we are whole again. Crossing the street to say hi to the neighbor’s dog.

Pretty cool.

These bodies you gave us, God…

please help us be a little more patient when they disappoint us,

and a little more respectful when they need something from us,

and a little more grateful when they take such good care of us.

Because we are just down here doing our best with what we’ve been given.

Amen.

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