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We awaken in Christ’s body as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ,
He enters
my foot, and is infinitely me.
I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
(for God is indivisibly
whole, seamless in His Godhood).
I move my foot, and at once He appears like a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous? —
Then open your heart to Him and let yourself receive the one who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him, we wake up inside Christ’s body where all our body, all over, very most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him, and He makes us, utterly, real, and everything that is hurt, everything
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably
damaged, is in Him transformed, and recognized as whole, as lovely, and radiant in His light He awakens as the Beloved in every last part of our body.
from The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, by Stephen Mitchell
Hymn 15“We awaken in Christ’s body”by Symeon the New Theologian (ca. 970-1022 AD)
English version by Stephen Mitchell
Poems
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