For If My Body Was A Temple

For if my body was a temple

It would be a shelter for the homeless

A second chance for sinners

A gateway to God

Through the love that radiates in us all

 

There would be no pretence here

No “holier than thou”

No role playing

No mask wearing

Just a group of God-fearing sinners

Trying to make their way Home.

 

There would be no saints,

For I am not one

For the good that I desire

I do not do,

But the evil that I do not want

This I practise

 

And it is in this temple

That only this kind of biblical vulnerability will reside.

Where there is no shame

For the reality of our human experience.

For all the ways we sin and fall short

Of God’s glory

Time and time again.

 

My temple would be

An abundance of loving arms

Mirroring that of the father of the prodigal son

Welcoming all home

Like estranged family

Ready to start anew

 

Oh, how eagerly God welcomes us home

Oh, how he yearns for us

How he pines and bleeds for us

 

But alas, my body is not a temple

This temporal cage does not deserve such recognition

My body is more like a prison of flesh

That my soul battles in

Constantly battling against my own human nature

Drifting me further and further away from the divine

 

May the Lord help marry my nature to my nurture

Help to bring peace to these two duelling entities

My innate sinful inclination

Versus

My holy burning aspiration

Only in you, Lord, will I find

Harmony and wholeness in this fatal human condition

 

For this I know:

Your Grace is sufficient,

Your Love is enough.