Embodied Spirituality

St. Anthony (251-356), a monk who lived in the Egyptian desert and whose life was recorded by St. Athanasius, said that “the demons do not have bodies, we are their bodies.” He makes a very insightful observation, that we have agency which evil lacks, and that evil’s presence in the world requires a “host” to actualize it.

St. Maximus the Confessor (580-662) taught that God is embodied in our virtues. He is not claiming that God’s presence in the world is solely through us when we are virtuous by God’s grace. However, he is pointing out that we are very much the body of Christ, that is, the body of God in the world.

God is in all things, for all created things have their being in God and from God. However, in a very unique way, we, as humans, are able to embody God in a manner that is different from how God is present in simply the “createdness” of all things. The pursuing virtue is how we welcome the God who transcends ourselves, into ourselves into the world.

Likewise, we also give demonic realities, what we might describe as whatever resists God and elevates created things as idols, an embodied state in as much as we hold within us sinful desires and express them in the world. Our bodies are naturally the conduits of spiritual energy, for good or ill. We do not remain empty containers, but will surely incarnate spiritual realities that stir creation, either toward destruction or healing, death or life.

Anthony’s and Maximus’ shared belief is that the spiritual world gains a concrete physicality in this world through us, our bodies and earthly lives. We are capable of either being the residence of good or evil.

Careful reflection on our inner state and outward actions brings us to the inevitable conclusion that we harbor both good and evil within our hearts, minds, and bodies. In reality, we incarnate both good and evil.

Because our innate spirituality is not only the capacity, but also the necessity, to embody spiritual realities beyond ourselves, we must deliberately choose to pursue virtue or we will easily be filled with what is ungodly. The foothold of darkness in us can only be dislodged by the light in as much as we are receptive to it. The Spirit of God must evict the “demons.”

Therefore, to speak about spirituality is to necessarily discuss grounded and concrete realities which are borne out in every day life. Spirituality is always about what is embodied and actual, and not about what is merely theoretical, ethereal, or simply in our minds. Spirituality is what we are doing in our bodies.

This perhaps offers us a helpful way to understand Paul’s contrast of the spirit and the flesh. Both are types of spirituality, that is, the embodiment of spiritual realities which transcend and fill us. Sometimes we may think that when Paul mentions the “flesh” he is talking about our bodies. He is actually naming a type of spirituality, but not the type which is animated by the Spirit of God.

Living according to the flesh is a spirituality dominated by ultimately destructive human impulses and desires, which center in and elevate created things as if they are of ultimate concern. In contrast, walking in the Spirit is a spirituality which rises above fixation on created things and instead seeks harmonious interaction with the transcendent Source of all things.