I used to think of my body as a Roiling Factory of Evil–lust, anger, jealousy, the whole sordid litany.

Now, I wonder if it is more helpful to see my body as a dispassionate observer to the real Roiling Factory of Evil: my mind.

I’ll admit upfront that I’m hardly qualified to delve into the messy, little-understood relationship between the mind and body. Who can say whether it’s the mind or body that bears responsibility for our most destructive actions? Was it my poorly regulated mind or my poorly regulated body that caused my latest verbal tirade? The gratifying piece of gossip I exchanged.

No doubt our minds and bodies interact with each other in mysterious ways. Actually, I am not that interested in delineating the domain of the body or the mind, and I remain agnostic that we ever could. I am, however, very interested in seeing the body as an ally instead of painting it as the annoying source of all our basest qualities.

I remember the first time I heard what St. Francis called his body. I connected with it immediately because I instinctively understood what he meant. He simply referred to his body as Brother Donkey. (In older English, it was Brother Ass, but semantic drift has proved that moniker less helpful.) I can’t say for sure what St. Francis saw in the comparison between our bodies and a donkey, but I’m certain he had functionality in mind. Donkeys may be stubborn, but they’re useful for many tasks. Similarly, our bodies help us function in countless ways: eating and digesting food, burping and breaking wind, picking blackberries and poaching eggs. They allow us to speak thousands of complex, precisely-intoned sentences each day, and they sleep and walk in the dark (hopefully not at the same time).

Calling the body Brother Donkey suggests a calmer approach than the panicky view taught in some religious settings. And indeed, it is understandable why Christians have distrusted the body. After all, the Apostle Paul has quite a few lines about the body that are less than flattering. “If you put to death the deeds of the body you will live,” and “Christ will change our vile bodies” and “Everyone will have to give account for the deeds done in their body.” Those are a few off the top of my head–I’m sure I could find more if I went searching.

I’m not purporting to be wiser than Paul, but I do wonder if he wouldn’t put it differently were he alive today. Without diminishing the inspiration in his writings, Paul was influenced by his time and culture. Gnosticism, the view that the body is categorically evil, was prevalent in Paul’s day (though he does seem to denounce it in Corinthians). Also, Paul views the mind as equally fallen, so it is probably more accurate to say that he is promoting a whole-person redemption in Christ that includes both body and mind. Finally, 2000 years of research has taken place since Paul was alive and I like to think that, given access, he would be the first to delve into it.

One excellent way of harnessing the body’s potential is to get in touch with the vagus nerve, the longest nerve in our controllable nervous system. The best way I have found to do this is to sit comfortably and take several deep breaths in and out, making sure to get the belly involved. As I breathe, I move through the different regions of my body and intentionally relax muscles. For me, this often creates a tingling, almost erotic sensation in my vagus and beyond. As a result, I often feel less anxious and more connected within myself. I feel more stable and less inclined to do something rash and regrettable.

I know everyone is talking about breathing nowadays but breath really is, as Thich Nhat Hanh puts it, “the bridge that unites the body with our thoughts.” It is a pity that I didn’t pay better attention in choir practice 15 years ago; they talked a lot about belly breathing, and I dismissed it as so much choral jargon.

Traditionally, I have often heard that we should pause and engage our minds when we are off kilter. What I’m finding is that sometimes it works best to listen first to our body. I know this sounds counterintuitive; after all, it is our body that carries out our most destructive actions, and therefore–so goes the thinking–we should not give it the time of day. But what if our body actually wants to do right by us, if only we let it? To quote Mary Oliver, what if we “let the soft animal of our body love what it loves?”

Personally, I am finding that if I can pause my mind even for a few moments, my body relaxes. It reassures me that it wants me to be safe, at rest, and that it has no need to engage in destructive acts.

As a disciple of Jesus, I look forward to when I am completely healed in both mind and body. Until then I resolve not to place disproportionate blame on the body. On the contrary, I hope to learn how to stop, listen to it, and gratefully tap into its energy.

I am confident that our God-given bodies are not meant to be seen as stumbling blocks, but as essential allies for human flourishing.