Our bodies are so much work. Think about how much of our lives is taken up with the care and the maintenance of our bodies. We have to clean them and feed them and relieve them and then rest them and then wake up the next day to do it all over again.  Sometimes when I have a very, very full day, from meeting to meeting and email to email and this to that to stop to eat or to stop to pee is just frustrating.  Like, I don't have that time to take care of you body. I don't want to take care of you. I have things to do. And that's only when our body is working smoothly a few times a year. My back goes out and everything stops. My whole life stops.  Last year I tore my meniscus and it was undiagnosed. I tried to get diagnosed. But the doctors at Kaiser said, you know, rub some dirt and it should be fine. And that's literally almost what they said.  I'm like, "no, I think there's something."  They're like, "no you're going to be fine." But I had blew apart my meniscus. Anyway, so I went to Hawaii. We're supposed to feel amazing and my knee was hurting. Really, really bad. And I'm like, kind of limping on it and walking like this and trying to hold Juni. And then my back goes out and then I take anti-inflammatories and my stomach starts hurting. And then I get depressed.  It's like all connected. Like, when that happens, everything starts to swirl out of control. Now, if you deal with chronic pain, you have a whole different reality when we talk about our bodies. Bodies are a lot of work. The needs of our body are relentless.  Not only are our bodies a lot of work, but there are some in tech and A.I. specifically that say that the body is obsolete. The logic goes that many people today don't really use their bodies anymore in the real world. We use cars and planes for transporting our brains around. We lay our bodies down to watch TV. We sit in front of our laptop to work. They say that most of our life is lived in our mind and the consciousness, and that our bodies were designed to do stuff. But we don't really do that much stuff with our bodies anymore. I mean, we take them to the gym to work them out, but we don't really need them for anything.  It's our minds where everything happens, our consciousness. And for many in the world where your body, your body either breaks down too soon or it doesn't work like it's supposed to. The question is, can we just get rid of it? Can we escape our bodies through our technology?  And then there's the ways that we talk about our bodies. This past week, I was watching something where Nick Jonas -- don't ask. Where Nick Jonas was describing a men's facial mask. Again, don't ask.  And he said it was good for both men and women. And then he said, "Use it, your body will thank you." Think about this phrase. "Use it, your body will thank you." Your body will thank you. We talk like this all the time. The question is what is the you that your body is not that will thank your body? What is the you that the body isn't that will thank -- is it your soul that was your body?  Is it your psyche, your consciousness, your spirit that will thank your body? Or maybe it's just you? The you that is not your body will say to your body that you presumably possess or own or rent. Thank you body for doing that.  I guess the real question is, are you your body? Can we get rid of our body and still be us?  And I imagine in a room this size, there are several, maybe many people in here who are thinking, please don't tell me that I am my body. And there are all sorts of reasons for this, all very real and very relevant.  See, the good and beautiful things that we experience in this life are experienced in our body. This is true from the smell of garlic simmering in olive oil, thanks be to God.  Or the warm sun on your face as you sip rosé in Napa Valley. Or the sensation of riding your first wave in Hawaii or holding a newborn baby, a sleeping newborn baby.  The best of life is experienced through the body. But what is equally true and sometimes more overwhelmingly true, is that some of the most harmful things in this life are also experienced through our bodies.  From a young age, we are hurt, abandoned, made fun of and bullied and abused, and the trauma gets trapped in our bodies. As the famous book says, the body keeps the score.  And on top of that, many of the isms of oppression are against the body. Racism, sexism, ageism, ableism.  With all of this, you can see why so many of us would rather not identify the self with our bodies. And our language betrays us, too. We say things like, I hate my body. But we don't really ever say things like, I hate my soul or I hate my consciousness. Because many of us don't believe we are our bodies. We believe our bodies are something that we possess, like a car or a phone. And because our bodies are something we possess, the cultural narrative goes we can do anything we want with our bodies as long as it doesn't harm another person.  Former lesbian atheist turned Catholic writer Melinda Selmy says this and I've quoted this before, but I think this this quote is so important.  "Beneath all the pageantry of the free sex and love narrative, there is a fundamental belief that the body doesn't mean anything. That it is insignificant in the literal sense, signifying nothing, our bodies don't signify anything. You could do anything you like with it. You can pleasure it with a vacuum cleaner or get a drunken stranger in an alleyway to whip it, and you can give it away to anyone for any reason. It's just sort of a wet machine, a tool that you can use in exchange for whatever purposes suit your fancy. In order to believe this, you must either accept a) that your body is not you. It is just a shell or a juicy robot. That the real you, the disembodied ghost controls or b) that there is no such thing as human value or dignity. It's like it's just a nice pretense that we make up because we are terrified of this senseless and nihilistic universe."