the art of racing in the rain

The body and the mind are seamlessly who we are. The body and mind are equally important in our identity. To truly believe in God with us, a God embodied in humanity, is to also accept this truth about ourselves. To live in faith, to walk with God with us, we must live in and from both our body and our mind. I have always favored the mind. I cultivate it, please it, train it, teach it, rest it, care for it, value it. It is the part of me that I always felt defined me and so I favored it, seeing my body often a weaknesses, am impediment, something to be overcome or ignored.

But this Christmas, as I live with the appearance of God in the most vulnerable human form, a story, a narrative, a popular novel, showed me this truth and this flaw in my faith.
In The Art of Racing in the Rain, Enzo understands the fluidity of body and mind, the finds that to truly live is to live into that truth, surpassing the ego when harmony is achieved. Only then can you race in the rain.

The timing of this story showed me how little I trust my body, how I abuse my body, how I refuse to listen to it and even fight it. I should work with my body, cultivate it as I cultivate my mind, and consider it an asset, rather than an obstacle. This is a matter of faith. In I cannot trust my body, which I believe God made, how can I believe in and follow a God who was and is embodied? How can I learn to walk on this planet as Emmanuel did if I cannot acknowledge the physicality of that walk?

That first night, Jesus slept. His tiny, fragile, new body needed rest, just as my body needs rest now. He sighed, cried, breathed as I do. Without these and many more physical actions, he could not have been the spiritual being he was. Without these and many more physical actions, I cannot be the spiritual being I am called to be.