More Than a Shell

"If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred." 
Walt Whitman

My fabulous, under-appreciated body

A thought that I have had rolling around my head for a while is: even the most broken of bodies are beautiful, miraculous creations.  The human body, no matter what form it takes, is simply perfection.  Not only does it house our mind, spirit, and soul, but it is our vehicle through this life.

We have fingertips that move, that can clasp things or pick up dainty, fragile objects, and it hardly brushes our consciousness to command them.

We have faces that can portray an infinite spectrum of emotions, ones we don't yet have names for, and ones that are so intertwined with other emotions it is impossible to dissect separate, singular feelings, but we don't take the time to appreciate our smile lines.

We have legs that move us, that can take us in any direction, start any new chapter of life.  They are powerful, strong, resilient, commanding.  

We have minds.  We have minds that, in my opinion, are the very fiber and essence of ourselves.  The brain is our most abstract tool, our most special, our most useful, our most abused.

These are just a few of the pieces that make us a perfect puzzle.  And even if someone is missing a few, or most, of their pieces, they can still create a beautiful picture.  We have blood that runs through our veins, and cells that keep dividing.  We have a nervous system that connects the mind and body.  We have eyes that can take a blood vessel and hole filled, upside down view and give us a window to the world.  We have a heart that just wants to beat and lungs that feed off of air.

The human body just want to keep living, through deterioration, old age, abuse, illness and disease, and neglect, it's only goal is to keep running.

That is a sacred miracle if I ever witnessed one.