Embracing the Body - by Tara M Owens (Paperback)

About the Book

What is God trying to do through your skin and bones? Spiritual director Tara Owens invites you to listen to your thoughts about your body in a way that draws you closer to God, calling you to explore how your spirituality is intimately tied to your physicality. Your body is not an inconvenience--it is a place where you can meet the Holy in a new way.

Book Synopsis

• Foreword Reviews' 18th Annual INDIEFAB Book of the Year for Body, Mind and Spirit
• 2015 Readers' Choice Awards Honorable Mention

Our bodies teach us about God, and God communicates to us through our bodies. Our bodies are more good than we can possibly imagine them to be. And yet at times we may struggle with feelings of shame and guilt or even pride in regard to our bodies. What is God trying to do through our skin and bones?In Embracing the Body spiritual director Tara Owens invites you to listen to your thoughts about your body in a way that draws you closer to God, calling you to explore how your spirituality is intimately tied to your physicality. Using exercises for reflection at the end of each chapter, she guides you to see your body not as an inconvenience but as a place where you can meet the Holy in a new way--a place to embrace God's glorious intention.

Review Quotes

"Owens, a certified spiritual director and senior editor for Conversations Journal, addresses the disconnect most of us, and our churches, experience between ourselves and the physical world around us, even though it is in the body that heaven actively meets earth. Through a gentle, compassionate exploration of our thoughts and feelings about our bodies, enhanced with exercises for reflection, Owens helps us to learn what it means to be at home in our own skin and sensitive to the body's innate wisdom."

--Kristine Morris, ForeWord Reviews, Spring 2015

"Tara Owen's book . . . presents a compelling vision of what an integrated self--a self no longer divided into pure spirit and problematic body--looks and feels like. . . . Embracing the Body provides a heartfelt, accessible introduction to the many ways we can begin to bring body and spirit back together, figure out what our bodies have to do with our faith and embrace the remarkable implications of a God who took on human flesh."

--Ellen Painter Dollar, Englewood Review of Books, Lent 2015

"Tara Owens's Embracing the Body is a gift for anyone seeking to understand how the body--with all of its twitches, itches and bentness toward false unions--is not an enemy of spiritual formation but an amazing gift from God and the ground for personal incarnation--experiencing the reality of the apostle Paul's number one teaching point, Christ within. She makes great use of real-life stories and engaging theological reflection."

--Gary W. Moon, executive director, Dallas Willard Center, Westmont College

"Truth. Beauty. Revelation. Those are just some of the words to describe Embracing the Body by Tara Owens. It is a rare and insightful book written by a poet who longs to love Jesus with every fiber of her being and invites others to do the same."

--Stasi Eldredge, coauthor of Captivating

"Wise, erudite, loving and tender, Embracing the Body will bring true healing and wholeness to our theology of our physical bodies as a church. Tara Owens is the perfect guide for this holy journey."

--Sarah Bessey, author of Jesus Feminist

"With tender words and emotional depth, Owens offers a sacred space to ponder the fears of our bodies and how the subtle and overt messages we receive from church and society numb us to the murmurs from God that reverberate through our flesh and bones. . . . What does it mean to be at home in your skin? Step into Embracing the Body to continue your own healing towards an embodied faith."

--Ashley Goff, Presbyterian Outlook, June 11, 2015

About the Author

Tara M. Owens is senior editor for Conversations Journal. Owens also provides spiritual direction through Anam Cara Ministries and is a part-time instructor for the Benedictine Spiritual Formation Program at Benet Hill Monastery. She lives with her husband, Bryan, and their daughter in Colorado Springs.