The Faithful Living and Eating column is an excellent exercise in focusing on the interplay of eating and identity, culture, and faith. People are more than our intrapersonal and social aspects. We are also embodied beings, flesh and blood. Christmas is a time of celebrating “great mystery and wonderful sacrament” of God choosing incarnation.

 The idea of God choosing incarnation can feel obvious. Jesus, God incarnate, is the center of our study and worship. But it is a cosmic anomaly. God isn’t like us. And God chose to briefly be like us. We live in our bodies, and the nature of being incarnate can lose meaning, similar to how being surrounded by water loses meaning to a fish. I want to consider and re-examine things we take for granted about being embodied.

We eat with our bodies — a simple statement of fact. But it’s a fact that ties us to the material world. We eat material stuff. Food takes labor, land, processing. The work of many embodied hands negotiate with the material world before we are able to eat. In the creation story, God gave us animals to eat. When we eat meat, our living bodies become sustained by the dead flesh of animals, who were sustained by plants grown on the earth, watered from the sky and fed by the sun.

Most of the time, we are fortunate enough to decide when and what to eat. We plan, we think, we meet up with others. We can eat while focusing on the social, or faith or cultural aspects of food, but when we aren’t moved quickly enough by those reasons to eat, another reason crops up: hunger. Hunger is a visceral response in our bodies. It reminds us that we can choose many things about what we do or don’t do, but our bodies will sound alarms when we stray too far from what we need.

Embodiedness also means we are limited. An obvious limitation is that we can only do one thing at a time. We can only be in one place at a time. We are limited to walk only one path in life. I can never be certain of what could have been if I stayed in Goshen, Indiana. We are limited to walk only one path, and our path will have an end. Embodiedness means we can’t do everything. We get one shot, and then it ends.

This seems obvious when we lay it out, but it’s easy to behave in ways that ignore that fact. Many people live lives preoccupied with what was, what could have been and what may be to come. Mindfulness practices accept the limits of human embodiedness and help us tune in to what is around us on our particular path here and now. Practicing mindfulness is a way of submitting to our truth as incarnate beings. Philippians 2:6 describes Jesus as fully submitting to the humility of his incarnation: accepting limitation, accepting mortality.

Incarnation makes Emannuel what it is. God has sent his presence among people many times, but there was something special about being with us while incarnate. Jesus was with us in the way we are with each other. We connect with others through our bodies. We know there is a difference between meeting in person and meeting on Zoom. It’s different to wave at a person. To greet each other with hugs. To lean on each other. Being in community has a different quality when we meet as embodied beings.

A part of it is that bonding isn’t a purely social exercise. It’s an experience mediated by neurochemistry. We bond because our bodies are near each other. When we hug, lean on each other, smile and sing together, our brains find regulation and help us bond. We don’t just bond socially, but also viscerally. The excitement when we see an old friend and the longing of grief don’t just show up as things we consider; they are things we experience. Jesus experienced the visceral aspects of community while on earth. God mourned viscerally over the death of Lazarus (John 11:35). Jesus wept. Not mourned, not pondered, but wept.

Christmas is a time when we celebrate God’s incarnation. The significance of that is richer when we meditate on the ways incarnation shaped Jesus’ life and teaching. Jesus’ birth and death are both shared visceral experiences. Jesus’ body and Mary’s body went through a lot on a silent night. Jesus and the two others with whom he was executed shared the desperation of final moments together. Incarnation and embodiedness orient our eating, bond us with our community and give us common ground with Jesus.

Incarnate reflections:

• Ponder the frailty of baby Jesus.
• Ponder the toll on Mary’s body to bear, deliver and feed God incarnate.
• Ponder the experience to greet Jesus with a handshake, or the biblically accurate kiss.
• Ponder the mystery and blessing of God, whom we consider to be everywhere, to choose confinement to one vessel.
• Eat with loved ones.
• Physically lean on someone you like.