Bodies are people who need to be loved

Recently, I put my back out, moving a chair.

Two days later, it was too painful to stand for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

From that point, thankfully, things have slowly returned to normal.

Most of the time, I do not give my back a second thought.

I am middle-aged, ablebodied, take regular exercise – and take being able to move around freely and free from pain for granted.

And because I take it for granted, the temptation is always there to assume that you take it for granted too, or at least that you should.

But our bodies don’t always live up to the ‘ideal image’ of a dependable vehicle in which to get around free from pain.

Amazing though the ability of the human body is to repair itself, our bodies do break down, whether through injury or disability or the inevitable process of aging.

Someone once said that you should never judge another person until you had walked a mile in their shoes.

A mile really isn’t very far at all, unless each step is painful or painfully slow.

Over several days of impaired walking, and one day when all I could do was sit, I got to see the world from a very different perspective.

I have stepped into the shoes of the senior citizen or the wheelchair user, albeit for only one mile, and, hopefully, that has made me more aware of others.

Bodies are not vehicles after all. They are people, to be loved. The Rev Dr Andrew

Dowsett, Sunderland Minster