“Take off all of my clothes?” My voice intonates the last word as a question, rather like a child who asks her teacher if she has to complete all of the homework assignment.

I am sitting on an exam table under fluorescent lights in a clinic.  I feel cold, not only because it is an unseasonably cold April, but also because there is a deep loneliness associated with clinic visits and full body scans.

You lie naked as a stranger examines every bit of your skin. They concentrate on freckles, moles, and imperfections with frowns and furrowed brows. A magnifying glass assists them on the troubling areas and a computer helps them document what they see.

I feel an indignity as I wait, a feeling of vulnerability and loss. An indignity manifest in a naked body, the words of Adam and Eve reverberating through the centuries “I was naked and ashamed.”

I am acutely conscious of my own frailty and humanity during these times. I am astute at covering my imperfections, at dressing and acting my part in the world where I daily interact. But these moments erase all of that.

And yet, I have come here voluntarily. I have come here because I know that a short time of discomfort is far better than a diagnosis of a skin cancer. I know this well because a few years ago I was diagnosed with a skin cancer. Caught early, I now bear a beautiful scar, a war wound of sorts reminding me that scars are evidence of battles fought and souls made stronger.

We live in a world where our aging bodies betray us and tell a different story than the story that we feel. We watch as through the years people begin to respond to us differently. First, we are masters of the universe, we are young, and we are beautiful in our youth, even if we are not beautiful in our looks. We walk through this time with little thought to the older among us, or to the ones who have bodies that do not work as ours do. We may interact with a grandmother or a cute, elderly neighbor, but in our age-segregated society, we do not really know them. Out of embarrassment, discomfort, or just plain ignorance we avoid those who are trapped in bodies that do not function the same as ours do.

Then middle age comes along and the jokes begin. “Look how she’s aged” we whisper with giggles, certain that we don’t bear those same marks. But then, we catch sight of ourselves in car windows, and we wonder who we are and how we got so old, so fast. We continue to live, but the reflection that looked back at us from the car window showed us a reality that we would rather avoid.

And then the phone calls begin to come. One friend has had a heart attack; another friend is given four months to live when cancer is found throughout their body. Friends are diagnosed with diabetes and heart disease, arthritis, and cataracts. Funerals that used to be for others are now for us and ours.

We are eternal souls in temporary bodies that will need a new heaven and a new earth to redeem a broken process.

We still think we are immune – except for those now yearly physicals or body scans, where we lie naked before God and a stranger. Perhaps it is in those undignified moments that we realize that we aren’t so different from our friends. Then someday, the phone call will be about us. It’s in those times that we realize the reality of our humanity. Our scars, our freckles, and our moles on our earth suits are more pronounced, and we wonder how it will all end.

My faith tradition affirms that I am “fearfully and wonderfully made”.  And I don’t think that just means the young and able among us. Even as those who are fearfully and wonderfully made, we still need medical exams and physicals, body scans and preventive health checkups. We who are fearfully and wonderfully made need to brush our teeth and wash our bodies, eat healthy foods and exercise. In coming to earth in a human body, Jesus too was bound by his earth suit. He got hungry, tired, and dirty. He needed food, rest, and soap. He watched people get sick and die, and he didn’t heal all of them.

We are eternal souls in temporary bodies that will need a new heaven and a new earth to redeem a broken process.

How does one embrace every stage of life, appreciating what was and what is? How does one move gracefully through these seasons, putting trust in the Creator not the created; believing that there is something profoundly beautiful in our aging bodies? What does a theology of aging look like? What does holiness look like as I face my birthday and my body scan every year?

Before I have figured out the answers to those questions, the body scan is over. I am told that I don’t need to come back for another year. I am left alone with my body and my thoughts in a room that is still cold.

I get up and get dressed, inhaling a breath of thanksgiving. I am fearfully and wonderfully body scanned, and right now, that is enough.