In “Discerning through the Senses,” Thomas E. Clarke makes a case for employing all five senses in the spiritual practice of discernment. I agree with him, but the larger point (to which he makes brief reference) is that perhaps all spirituality functions at its best when it is embodied ... incarnated, if you will.

I also appreciate Clarke reminding me of the passage in Augustine’s Confessions, where he asks, “What is it that I love when I love [my God]?” Augustine answers himself partially by saying we know God through our experience of the material world (specifically through our five senses as I note in brackets below), although God’s self ultimately transcends that experience.

Says Augustine: “In a sense, I do love light [sight] and melody [hearing] and fragrance [smell] and food [taste] and embrace [touch] when I love my God…
When that LIGHT shines upon my soul which no place can contain,
That VOICE sounds which no time can take from me,
I BREATHE that fragrance which no wind scatters,
I EAT the food which is not lessened by eating,
And I LIE in the embrace which satiety never comes to sunder.”

Incorporating (yes, I realize the Latin pun with corpus) the five senses into contemplation means being attentive to “savoring [the] immediacy” of the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches that are present before you.

Welton actually wrote a book about worship with the former Minister of the Arts here at Northminster entitled Worship: A Symphony for the Senses. We regularly practice some of that vision of stimulating all five senses in worship: sight (liturgical banners and paraments), hearing (sacred music), and taste (weekly communion with a common cup and loaf). We infrequently use smell (I’d love to have more incense!) or touch (I also wish we did weekly passing of the peace – although we did have a powerful footwashing service last Maundy Thursday).

The challenge is to do more, but irrespective of what innovations happen (or don’t happen) in corporate worship, I can make my personal practice more embodied by being more intentional about contemplatively receiving my surroundings: the sights (the view out the window, the icon on the wall, the flame flickering on the votive candle), sounds (whether silence, traffic, or my cat purring beside me), smell (even the occasional paper mill odor of Monroe), taste (usually green tea in the morning), and touch (the feel of the chair bracing against my back, the blanket around me, the air filling my lungs).