5/8/16
Every good sermon starts with a flashback to English class, right? Well, this one does, anyway: in 1855, poet Walt Whitman published “I Sing the Body Electric”, his ode to the human form. This poem celebrates the body’s magnificence in both its function and beauty. It’s an incredibly detailed work, including entire sections that are nothing more than lists of body parts—albeit, lists that manage to convey the poet’s sense of awe: “Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges…/Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails …” Over the course of its nine sections, Whitman describes the human form in exquisite detail and proclaims ALL bodies—male, female, black, white, young, old—as awe-inspiring and worthy of honor.