Symeon the Theologian
Turkey (949 – 1032)
NOTE: Although the following poem, cited Housden't as one of Ten Poems to Change Your Life , is by a 10th century Christian mystic, I offer it as a powerful commentary on how any of us may engage any relationship so deeply that it feels we have merged with that entity. – Erie Chapman
We awaken in Christ's body
by Symeon the New Theologian (10th century)
English version by Stephen Mitchell
Original Language Greek
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,
every 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.
Journal of Sacred Work 
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