The Body Remembers

Some people say that the body remembers what the mind might forget. Usually, those memories are ones of deep trauma like a violent attack or significant injury. The memories might also be of a deep loss of a loved one. Those memories are always things we will never forget, even if we push them to the back of our minds, even if we think we've worked through everything with our therapist. The body still remembers.

Just a few weeks ago, that notion clicked with me for the first time. I was unusually grouchy for several days. There are plenty of reasons why I might be grouchy, including a busy season in church life. The grouchiness also followed a few weeks without a sabbath day. Then I realized it was also the anniversary of my grandfather's death.

I was 21 years old when my grandfather died. Nearly three years earlier, he fell in his garden, destroying his one good eye in the fall. His blindness revealed the dementia he had been hiding. If he had lived longer or been in good health longer, I don't know what our relationship would have been like. He was a terribly racist man, even for his generation. He was also wonderful to me.

My mother started college when I was two years old, so I spent two or three days a week at my grandparents' home until I started Kindergarten. For years after, my sister and I traded off spending Friday nights at their house. My grandmother never worked outside the home, so her days continued to be much the same as they had always been. My grandfather found retirement more leisurely than he liked, so I often tagged along with him.

We spent hours at the flea market and the tiny local grocery store. He'd eat the play food I prepared for him. I was always welcome with him in his garden, or garage, or the barn. He had an ever-changing menagerie of animals that I would help feed and, of course, play with. He let me drive his truck as soon as I was tall enough. Before that, he'd let me steer his truck while sitting on his lap. (Here, I think I should say he was always concerned for my safety as well.) He was sure I could do anything.

A few more years may have marred those many wonderful memories, but as is, they're just good. His death disconnected me from my hometown more than anything else. Of course my body remembers all of that. Of course it tells me that just because that loss was years ago, the pain is still there. Of course my body reminds me of how terrible it is when something so good is ripped away.

As I read the entire story of the last week of Jesus' life in worship this past week, it all made sense. Of course the body must remember. Of course the body of Christ gathers to remember what was done to it, the terrible crimes committed against one of its own. Of course the body must mourn what was done to it. Of course the body must feel the pain all over again. Of course.

It's the strangest combination. We re-tell the story of one we love taken from was, a story of terrible violence. And that story is also our story, the story of who we are together. Betrayal, beatings, death, all of the worst parts of the story, aren't one time events. They happen over and over and over again. The stories of Jesus' last week hit hard because we've heard them from people we love, people in our churches, people whom we recognize as fellow members of the body of Christ.

Betrayal, beatings, death--of course, of course, the body remembers.