I was ten years old and was fishing in a canal running through a Miami park. I had cast a lead lure too far and it had snagged in the mangrove on the far bank. I jerked the pole so hard the lure came back and struck my closed right eye. The impact caused blindness in that eye for a few hours. Later on, when I was in my forties, I was diagnosed with a cataract in that eye. For years, my left eye had been doing the work for my right eye. It was not a conscious decision for me to let my left eye compensate for my failing right eye. Yet in God’s economy of creation, this was the natural progression of the parts placed in my body.

Our segmented world engenders a self-concept that is tied frivolously to ever-changing status symbols. We define ourselves by identifying with groups we belong to, teams we cheer for, cars we drive, or uniforms we wear. Our identities become driven by material sensibilities. Such worldly comparison is born of the ego’s need to place us either above or below all else. But Paul invites us to turn our attention to the One who touches us in the eternal place of our soul, transcends our bodily senses, and connects us to the Spirit in which we are baptized and given life.

What do the new Christians in Corinth think of Paul’s “body of Christ” idea? Still, after thousands of years, we struggle to grasp its full meaning. Paul’s analogy comparing the church’s body of Christ to our body parts is visionary. When we wholly become one as the body of Christ, our actions meld into one harmonious purpose in perfect alignment with God’s will for humanity. When one member stumbles, others in the body compensate effortlessly. Creation adapts as one in God’s economy.