Early on in my minister's tenure at my church, she preached on the body. It hit me.
She referenced scripture wherein Jesus lets a woman rub oil on his body and they eat in the home of a leper, both of which are taboo in the Jewish tradition Jesus came from. There is no shame in the body in these stories.
I know a lot of people who’ve had trouble feeling at home in their flesh because of religion’s tendency to portray the body as profane at best, dirty at worst.
The sacred and profane dichotomy has been adopted and utilized by institutions to do far more than keep a populace from having premarital sex. The dichotomy is applied to gender, race, the environment, national identities, etc.. If we define something as sacred by virtue of certain (I would argue, arbitrary) physical characteristics, we Other things. If sacred Life forms are those which have a heartbeat, trees are therefore often seen as devoid of spiritual value and available for use to the benefit of the “sacred.” We rape the Earth in this way. We eat poorly because we don’t see our bodies as sacred.
Penny’s sermon hit on this idea. Christianity has a history of denying the body. We make things about the spiritual and neglect the physical. We focus on work and forget sleep. We need to be able to love our physical selves. Penny joked that she was surprised most churches don’t require you to check your body at the door.
She reminds us how our bodies tell us when things are wrong… but we don’t always listen. Our bodies have higher cancer rates, asthma rates, obesity rates… all of these results of the way we treat the body of the Earth, the bodies of animals, and our own bodies. Why don’t we listen? Why don’t we stop drinking milk that’s full of steroids, hormones, and puss?
Instead, we continually try to alter the changes out of our bodies. We get plastic surgery; we build a dam. 55% of U.S. women color their hair (according to Proctor & Gamble). Cosmetic surgery is becoming surprisingly (or unsurprisingly?) common. I am one of the few women I know who is willing to go to work/mall/wherever without doing my hair or makeup-- our society pressures us to look a certain way all the time.
If we believe in a creator, does that not make Natural systems morally paramount? Shouldn’t we have respect for the way this Earth was “meant” to operate? Why do we feel the need to give ourselves new breasts? A new nose? What is wrong with the noses God saw fit to give us… the nose that is a creation of my lineage? Shouldn’t recycling be a primary concern? How is it that we can look past issues of genetically engineered food? How can we look past the way that animals are treated in the food industry?
We all have this idea in our minds of what it means to be beautiful. We all give into these media pressures. I wear makeup. I may not get plastic surgery, but I’ve starved myself. I may not eat meat, but I’ve not made the organic switch. I may not have a Hummer, but I drive.
And so Penny asked… am I willing to be married to my body, to love it as it is? No. It wasn’t a step I could take. I want to be 95 pounds. And I want to be 95 pounds more than I want a lot of things. As much as I want to say that I can be happy with myself and focus on things that matter more than the size of my thighs, it is something that occupies my headspace constantly. I’ve made progress, but…
I want to drive. I want to cover the blemishes on my face. I want these things that matter far less than my ultimate concerns.
I think to myself… what issues do I need to start living in? What issues do I need to force myself to live? If I really believe what I think I do about the environment, I need to transform the way I do things.
It’s just so easy not to. Convenience is hard to overcome. But all bodies matter.
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