Body and Spirit

I was talking to someone the other day about this huge divide that we have created in our culture (and religion) between body and spirit. There are attempts throughout faith practices and cultural revolutions to bridge this gap, but the fact remains that we have inherited an idea that feels instinctual: our bodies and our minds (or spirits) are separate. And by default, in that separation we have deemed one to be good and the pursuit of it safe, and the other to be bad and the pursuit of it dangerous.

In my religious experience, particularly growing up in an evangelical church, the separation of the flesh and the spirit was a constant, underlying theme. We were instructed to reject our flesh, our desires, and focus instead on spiritual things. Focus on morality, purity, and spiritual salvation. Our bodies were mere shells.

There is a quote mis-appropriated to CS Lewis that says "You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." The original lines can be found in Walter Miller, Jr's novel "A Canticle for Leibowitz." But it reminded me of another quote that is similar: "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." This was written by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a french philosopher, theologian, and scientist. I really like him. I'm not sure he was trying to drive a hard wedge between the body and spirit, but this quote and others like it are constantly re-tweeted/shared/memed/etc.

Quotes like these make the rounds because people LOVE them. People LOVE them because it feels mystical when everything can feel so mundane and terminal. Dividing the body and spirit so clearly gives us a shot at magic. Something beyond what we see and feel is at work, and when we feel the limits of our physical bodies and the physical world, we can believe in the magic of the spirit. The spirit is set free to roam about and do things uninhibited by this creaky and battered thing.

It's so comforting. I didn't realize just how deep into this divide I had fallen until I started thinking about it. I find comfort in separating myself into two. Good = spirit (at least the well-fed and trained one). Bad = body. That equation allows me to drop my body by the side of the road when it fails me. And it fails me often. I have nerve pain, back pain, numbness, hearing loss, vision isn't what it was, and my body can create uncomfortable moments of vulnerability. My God what a relief to throw the whole bag of bones in the trash. In the next life, anyway. Isn't that what a lot of mainstream Christian voices say? Store up your treasures in heaven and all. We love this because it means that if we fail at having all the treasures here on earth - that's OK. If our body fails us in this realm, it's no problem because we didn't need this body anyway. Cancer, dementia, chronic illnesses- they can all go to hell (literally) while we shed the mortal coil and graduate up to spirit. What a relief right? It is, actually. But this relief comes with a price.

I remember in one seminary class, when the professor reminded the majority of United Methodists in the room that their faith tradition included a belief in a bodily resurrection (for you non-church folk- that means your body gets a new lease in heaven). Granted, even in this idea the understanding is that your body is all new and shiny and painless. But there was a tangible discomfort in the room. I could tell that people really did not want to grasp onto this idea of having an actual body - their own. He made them even more uncomfortable by saying that perhaps that might affect their beliefs on whether or not they should be buried or cremated, etc. Most of them tossed the discomfort away with the God-card, saying that if God could make us from dirt in the beginning, then God could do it again with ashes. Not a bad argument, one I've used. When I die- toss me in the ocean, burn me or not. Feed me to the sharks. Who cares- I don't need the body. But maybe I should be thinking about my body as having a purpose, even in death.

The Christian tradition can't get away from the body, and sometimes it slips into awareness that maybe we can't separate ourselves so readily. On Ash Wednesday, we line up to have someone mark our foreheads with smudges of ash in a cross shape. The person imposing the ashes often repeats a refrain like: from dust you were made, to dust you will return. It's similar to what we say at a gravesite service: dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Some people absolutely love the lenten season because it is an excuse to get in touch with our physical reality (in the name of spirituality). Most people hate it and would rather skip Lent, Good Friday (when Jesus dies a real physically terrible death) and jump right to Easter. In fact- most people would prefer to do Christmas and Easter- which is basically Birth and reBirth. We try to leave that pesky mortality by the roadside. Who cares, we are people bound for heaven and shiny things, why would we waste our time in darkness with our disposable bodies?

I'm reminded that the stories of the resurrected Christ include his scars. When I think of my body, I have so many scars that I would like to see erased. But maybe this image of a not-perfect bodily resurrection is supposed to teach me something. Is God full of scar tissue?

I just finished reading "Learning to Walk in the Dark" by Barbara Brown Taylor (highly recommend- she's my best friend and doesn't know it). In this book, Taylor writes about the "full-solar spirituality" of the Church. She points out how many churches split the world in two and focus on the sunny side up. Light vs. Darkness (which is the focus of her book); Flesh vs. Spirit; Good vs. Evil.... Many churches welcome their member into their sanctuary where only light, spirit, good, and happy things are allowed. Sure we say "bring your burdens" but what we want is for you to set them down and forget about them. We don't want to talk about them, feel them, shoulder them, or anything uncomfortable. We're going to shine a floodlight onto you until all the darkness and badness burns away and you might be blind but at least you're safe, at least we're safe. There are ALWAYS exceptions to this, but as a whole, the world and the church both are very happy for you to leave your dirty laundry in the basement.

What are the unintentional consequences of separating body and spirit? (I'm assuming that they are not separate like we imagine, as the separation is indeed a theological and epistemological development that has not been around forever. That argument is for another blog.) For me, it means that I do not fully feel. I have welcomed the habit of turning my body off so much that I must prepare for a physical activity like preparing for a quiz. My children plop themselves into my lap and I must resist the urge to protect my "bubble" that I have created. It's not as hard with them, but when it comes to others- I share very little physical vulnerability. I'm not talking about sex (but I will). I'm talking about all the things I'm not allowing: the hugs, the squeezes, the hands held and the fabrics felt, the paintings done, the dances danced. I've shut it all down because it is a tunnel into my body. And I don't want to feel my body. I've rejected it. You know why many people can't dance unless they are drunk or high? Because dancing is a full body expression- one that completely owns the body as a beautiful and good thing meant to be expressed, felt, moved, and admired. Oh hell no. That sounds terrifying. But it also explains my obsession with the movie Dirty Dancing as a kid. How I longed to be able to move like that, in a community of other people where it was OK and not actually, well, dirty.

Why are we so image-conscious? Why must our bodies be shaped a certain way or operate a certain way? Why isn't our body just good? We are all working out some guilt and shame about our physical beings because we are all taught through our culture, religion, and gender- about what pitfalls lie within our skin (especially if it doesn't fall within that parameter set by our surrounding social structure). The color of our skin gets assigned to varying levels of inherent goodness and badness. A topic for another blog post (or for me to read another's perspective). Our culture tells us bodies are bad - meant to be covered to varying degrees. Our religion tells us that sex is bad, unless it falls within a certain parameter. And even then- none of us really believes that it is good if our whole life we were taught it is bad. We know that there is no magic that makes it good only in this pocket of circumstance. The magic is that somehow we're left off the hook for doing this "dirty" thing. So we do it because our bodies need and want it, but we still feel it as being on the bottom half- the lower things that might be fine in moderation, but not to be overly enamored with. We're playing with fire, or something. When we forget to turn our brains off, sex becomes a rebellious act nearly every time. We're doing something we weren't supposed to do. Pile up enough guilt and shame around sex and the body, and then watch the sexual disorders multiply. Any kind of physical intimacy (whether in friendship or as lovers) carries with it a sort of shadow from shame or at the very least the fear that vulnerability digs up.

What if our bodies and our spirit were seen as one mingling substance? What if who we are is not just our "heart and soul" but also our body and death? Perhaps we would dance more. We would feel the earth and the painting. We would touch our face with grace and appreciation for all it has seen and felt. We would sob and laugh more. The avenues to intimacy might be broader, allowing more of us to feel connected to one another. We might understand our illnesses better, and our health. I honestly don't know. I'm new to this journey. Right now what it feels like is less shame. It feels like the opposite of numbness. It feels like the possibility of more joy.