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Draw near: Praying to listen to our bodies

Lynne Baab • Tuesday May 9 2023

Two disciples are walking home after Jesus’s crucifixion. They meet a stranger on the road, and he talks to them about the pattern of God’s work in history. When they invite him into their home to have dinner with them, he breaks the bread, they recognize that he is Jesus, and he vanishes. Reflecting back on the conversation on the road, they say, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:13-35).

Jenna Smith, the director of a Christian youth center in Montreal, has an...

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Draw near: Loosening our grip

Lynne Baab • Tuesday January 3 2023

In her book Prayers in the Night, Rev. Tish Harrison Warren writes about the ways we relinquish control when we sleep. However, she notes that “our bodies and brains are not inactive in sleep. A whole world of activity happens inside our heads. We dream. We fight illness. We form, sort, and strengthen memories from our days.” Then she continues:

“And crucially, all of this happens without our knowledge, consent, or control. Our bodies require us to loosen our grip on self-sufficiency and power if we are to thrive. Both physically and spiritually, then, we must be willing to embrace vulnerability if...

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Receptivity and offering: Hands

Lynne Baab • Wednesday April 6 2022

The other day I donated blood, and the woman who took my blood pressure had a tattoo of a cross at the base of her thumb. I didn’t ask her what it means to her because I was so busy having a light-bulb moment. I wondered what it would be like to put a cross on the base of my thumbs and use that as a way of offering my hands to God.

As a writer, offering my hands to God in service has particular resonance, but I also use my hands for hugs, cooking, folding laundry, and a host of other...

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Holy Spirit disruptions: Embodiment

Lynne Baab • Wednesday June 9 2021

My mom and her mom were always very slender, and my mom at 96 still looks great in her clothes. My mom had seven aunts on her father’s side who were all plump or significantly overweight. Most of them were also mean. My mother grew up associating being overweight with being a less than admirable person.

When I hit puberty and began to get a more rounded build than my mom had ever had, she started telling me stories about my mean, overweight aunts. I became so certain, deep inside, that being slim was virtuous. As a teenager, I loved Seventeen magazine,...

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