St. Thomas, Easter, and Bodies.

[deleted blatant affirmation-seeking paragraph, with thanks to those who gave it]

Easter II, or the 2nd Sunday of Easter, or “Low Sunday” is when Churches (that follow the Revised Common Lectionary, anyway) remember the post-Resurrection exchange between Jesus and Thomas. This story is the origin of a nickname that has always seemed unfair to such a faithful disciple- the first to proclaim Jesus as “My Lord, and my God!”

Easter II is also, by the church calendar, Ruth’s baptismal feast- although two years ago it fell on a much warmer day late in April. Darling girl, although you may never read this, and you won’t be there tomorrow (err… today) when I stand up in your Church and say it, I wrote it for you.

And perhaps Pontius Pilate isn’t the greatest role model for the Easter Season, but, “what I have written, I have written”.

I watched a pretty amazing video this week, featuring Neuro-anatomist Jill Bolte Taylor, describing a view of the human brain that few brain scientists ever get to witness, or share: watching the deterioration of her own brain function while she was in the process of having a stroke.

In speaking about her experience, she teaches about the human brain, and its amazing, beautiful design- two hemispheres that process information in entirely different ways, and as she says, care about different things, and have different personalities.

And I found it interesting, in part, because this Harvard-trained brain anatomist gives a rational, scientific, biological explanation for what people of faith have known for years.

Quoting from a transcript of her talk:
“Our right hemisphere is all about this present moment. It’s all about right here right now. Our right hemisphere, it thinks in pictures and it learns kinesthetically through the movement of our bodies. Information in the form of energy streams in simultaneously through all of our sensory systems. And then it explodes into this enormous collage of what this present moment looks like. What this present moment smells like and tastes like, what it feels like and what it sounds like… We are energy beings connected to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human family. And right here, right now, all we are brothers and sisters on this planet, here to make the world a better place. And in this moment we are perfect. We are whole. And we are beautiful.

The left hemisphere is a very different place. Our left hemisphere thinks linearly and methodically. Our left hemisphere is all about the past, and it’s all about the future. Our left hemisphere is designed to take that enormous collage of the present moment. And start picking details and more details and more details about those details. It then categorizes and organizes all that information. Associates it with everything in the past we’ve ever learned and projects into the future all of our possibilities. And our left hemisphere thinks in language. It’s that ongoing brain chatter that connects me and my internal world to my external world. It’s that little voice that says to me, “Hey, you gotta remember to pick up bananas on your way home, you need’em in the morning.” It’s that calculating intelligence that reminds me when I have to do my laundry. But perhaps most important, it’s that little voice that says to me, “I am. I am.” And as soon as my left hemisphere says to me “I am,” I become separate. I become a single solid individual separate from the energy flow around me and separate from you.”

I seemed to me like Harvard is a bit behind. People of faith have always known this separation, this divide. The great mystics have always had this ability to, as she describes it, “step to the right of their left hemisphere”, and as faith describes it, experience profound connectedness, energy, peace, or unity with creation, and with the creator.

We struggle sometimes, I think, with the division we have inherited from our Greek ancestors. In the time and the place that our New Testament was written, there was no such thing as neuro anatomy. There was a clear division, instead, between the things of the body and the things of the spirit.

And so we inherit this Greek division in passages such as Romans 8: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”

This divide places our ongoing Easter celebration into the realm of the Spirit. This is the work of God, a triumph of life over death, this is joy itself, and life, and peace. In today’s passage from John, this is breath- the breath of life- and the giving and receiving of the Holy Spirit. Spirit stuff.

Until Thomas returns. And Thomas, not having been there when Jesus breathed on the other 10, wasn’t interested in spiritual matters.

Thomas, who was called the twin, and (one might assume) familiar with the idea of mistaken identity, wasn’t interested in breath. Thomas has his mind firmly set on the body. “When I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails, and my hand in his side, I will believe”.

Blessed Thomas. Thanks be to God for Thomas, who was the first to see, and to follow the path to the cross before Lazarus was raised from the dead, who was the first to declare, “my Lord, and my God”. Who took the Good News of Christ to India.

Blessed Thomas, whose story reminds us that this faith of ours is not a solely spiritual matter.

Christians, in general, are far more likely to talk about “incarnation” at Christmas. Christmas is a very body-oriented feast.
But even then, with their strange shower gifts, the wise men point to the spiritual nature of this birth. So it is only fitting that at Easter, another voice should point back to the very carnal- bodied- nature of this Word that became flesh and dwelt among us.

Jesus had a human body- with all its lumps, wrinkles, weakness and funny dangly bits. His human body, and its mortality, was what made it possible for Jesus to be crucified, to die, and to open for us all the way to eternal life. This body was not a coat that Jesus put on over top of his true, Divine self in order to take it off at Golgotha. Jesus lived and died as one of us. And that human body, changed somehow so that Mary did not recognize him, stood before his disciples in a locked room and said, “Peace be with you”. And those human lungs breathed upon the disciples. And those human hands, and their scars, stood before Thomas and said, “put your finger here… and believe”

In life and in resurrection, Jesus was an incarnate, embodied, fleshy human being.

As we are.

On Ash Wednesday we mark the central fact of human existence: we are dust, and to dust we shall return.

These bodies are where we, in the words of the collect, “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” the words of scripture.

These are the bodies whose feet are beautiful when they bring good news, and on whose heads even the hairs are counted.

These are the bodies that Jesus meant when he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you”.

These are the bodies that Jesus left here to get things done, when, 40 days after the resurrection, he ascended into heaven.

And yet, so many of us are unhappy in the bodies we inhabit. If only these bodies were thinner, or curvier. Taller, or shorter. If only it had more hair, or less. If only these bodies were were younger, or more able. If only…

If only this base, carnal, unimportant earthly part of me were different, then I could get on with the Spiritual things that really matter.

“Put your fingers here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt, but believe”.

These bodies carry the genetic legacy of our ancestors. They bear the scars of things that have happened to us, or of choices we have made. They bear the mark, invisible but not, we hope, imperceptible, of the moment when they were bathed in water, marked with the cross, and claimed as God’s own forever. These bodies consume and integrate the bread and the wine that is, for us, the body and blood of Jesus.

“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

These bodies are where heart, and soul, and mind, and strength meet and dwell.
“And here we offer and present onto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies as a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee.”

These are the hands that Jesus sends in to the world, to act with justice.

These are the lips that Jesus sends in to the world, to proclaim Good News.

These are the heads that Jesus sends into the world, every hair counted, to bow in prayer.

I am. You Are.
Yes, we are united in one great Spiritual union, with the whole communion of saints, joining our voices with an unending chorus across all space and all time: “Holy, holy holy!”. But that is not all we are. And each of us makes a unique offering of our whole self, when we offer all that we are in service to God.

You are you, inside that body- that body that is aware of how long you’ve been sitting in an uncomfortable pew, and how long it’s been since breakfast, and that you never seem to get to wear your most comfortable clothes to Church… that body, whatever its shape, its size, its age. Whatever the things it can’t do- that is the body that Jesus breathes upon- that Jesus enters in this Eucharist- that Jesus sends out into the world.

And in that body of yours, you are beautiful.
Thanks be to God. Amen. Alleluia.

Puzzling it Out

One of my great pleasures over the Easter Weekend (I mean, besides the joy of the Resurrection; he is risen indeed! Alleluia!) was watching Ruth play. We did puzzles together in the church nursery during Daddy’s choir rehearsal, and then we got NEW puzzles for home on Easter Morning. (That Bunny, he’s right on top of things!)

She is awesome and hilarious and a little bit scary to watch (I suspect I’ll lose the ability to outsmart my kid sometime next month). She methodically picks up each puzzle piece, looks for a likely empty space, tries it in a few orientations, and if she can’t make it fit easily she puts it aside and tries another piece. It doesn’t take long until everything is sorted and she’s crowing , “I did it!” and moving on to the next puzzle. (Which was also the last puzzle, I may need to donate some new puzzles to the Church nursery).

Not a bad problem-solving strategy, all in all. Try something, see if it works. If it doesn’t, set it aside for reconsideration later. If it does, celebrate a little.

In some ways, I can see myself doing the same thing. But not so effectively. My husband thinks that I’m trying to hard with this Fat Acceptance piece, trying to force it into place. He may be right; I let myself get pulled into it with my Dad at Easter dinner. I want to tear my hair out when he says, almost verbatim, “Everybody knows that fat is unhealthy. Calories in, calories out. It’s as simple as that”. Mom, on the other hand, wants to play both sides. She gives us a box of Girl Guide Cookies (which in Canada come in one kind: row of chocolate sandwich cookies, row of vanilla). Yum, cookies.  She then tells my husband that the vanilla ones are for me, since they have 80 fewer calories than the chocolate. (She must be working off different nutritional information than what I can find online, I’d check the box but it’s been incorporated into the “stash” of desk-chocolate that keeps me going for lunch at his office). How you can hand me a box of cookies, while simultaneously telling me I’m definitely not to enjoy the cookies escapes me.

Right.  Puzzles.

So here’s the piece in my hand today: I have an appointment with my OB this afternoon, and he’s going to weigh me.  And I know that that will be in my mind when I decide if I’ll have a muffin before my in-service training today.   And it’ll be in my mind at lunch.  And how’s this for messed up: even though I have to present a case study for peer scrutiny this afternoon, its my doc’s comment on some scale number that has me anxious.

So it would seem that “relationship with the scale” is a piece that I can’t quite fit into place yet.  If I were as smart as my daughter, I’d just set it aside and deal with it later.

I hope that with age, comes wisdom- if not smarts.  She, in her two-year-old need to “I do it! My turn!” banished me to a chair on the opposite side of the room, as punishment for trying to help.  I can’t do it alone.  Which is partly why I read the fatosphere every day, and write much, much less often.  So I’ll post this, and then I’ll read someone else’s words about how its a journey, and starting on it matters, and I don’t have to have it all figured out.  And that will help.

(And I’ll build an elaborate fantasy about banishing my mommy to a chair on the opposite side of the room, during one of her misguided attempts to help).

And when faced with a muffin, I’ll take a minute and think about whether or not I’m actually hungry, and try to make that more important than an impending weigh-in.

I have a lot of faith that eventually, this will all fit together.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Don’t
deprive a TODDLER
of essential nutrients.

Screw it.
Fat haters, do what you want.
And my butter-fed darlings will receive all the goodness that fat provides for brain development, and they will rule the world.

Actually, that world has some decent potential. Survival of the fattest nourished.

(gratuitous baby shot, in which we see that she also enjoys sweet potato.)

Body by God: In the Beginning

This post has been percolating a while, since my last Body by God post, and fueled by conversation in the fatosphere about Girl Scout Cookies, and by Rachel’s sermon.

In the Beginning

The book of genesis begins with two accounts of Creation.

For anyone who understands these stories as Holy Scripture, these stories are imporant revelations about the nature of God, the nature of humanity, and the relationships between God, humanity, and the world. As such, they are stories that tell us about ourselves- and when we understand ourselves better, we are better equipped to offer ourselves in service to God, and in ministry to the world around us.

In the first, We hear of the 6 days of Creation, and the seventh day of rest. As the work of creation is completed, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

The second account introduces Adam and Eve, and tells the story of the first sin, and its punishment.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’”

In the very beginning, one thing was forbidden. And in the very beginning, that one forbidden thing was desired. And in the very beginning, that was the weakness that the tempter exploited.

Try a thought experiment with me. Imagine that you have placed a small child in a safe room. In this room are a number of toys, and a table. On the table, you place a sharp knife. “Don’t touch this knife” you say, “if you touch this knife, you will get hurt”. Imagine you leave the room. (Seriously, thought experiment. Please please don’t try this with an actual child)

Now imagine, a few minutes later, you return. What do you anticipate you will find the child holding? A cuddly toy? A bouncing ball? No? I didn’t think so, either.

A sharp knife isn’t inherently more interesting than a toy, or a ball. In fact, a knife isn’t all that interesting at all. Once you’ve plumbed the tactile depths of ’sharp’ and ‘hard’, a knife has very little to offer, in terms of interest. On the whole, a ball or a toy has far more scope for play, exploration, and discovery. But the ball or toy lacks one thing: the delicious thrill of being forbidden.

How deep is this human longing for the thing we cannot have?
Genesis tells us it was there in the beginning.

This longing for the forbidden is deep, deep within our nature.  I don’t know why its there.  It does spur us on to greatness, it propels us forward- always striving for something higher and greater, “because it was there”.  But it also creates an opening for the tempter to whisper in our vulnerable ears.

Some things are meant to be forbidden, at least for some people- such as sharp knives to small children.
Murder, theft, adultery…

But, on the whole, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good”

And yet, we take some things, some things that are, indeed, very good, and we convince ourselves, or others, or our children, that they are, in fact, forbidden. And perversely, we take other things are are also very good and we convince ourselves, or others, or our children, that they are, in fact, not very good at all.

When it comes to nourishing ourselves, we divide our choices up between “good foods” and “bad foods”. Good foods are healthy, but undesirable. Eating these foods is unpleasant, but virtuous; vegetables are the penance we must pay in order to ‘earn’ dessert. And bad foods are pleasant, but sinful; anything sweet or chocolate-y is to be enjoyed only only when ‘earned’ through virtuous eating or exercise, and better to be avoided altogether.

This understanding of food is problematic in at least three different ways.
1) It reduces the enjoyment of “good foods”. Anything that is eaten “because it’s good for you” becomes, by very definition, an unpleasant experience. When we bring this sense of duty and obligation to our eating, we make it more difficult to enjoy the unique and wonderful flavours and textures of those foods we have catagorized as good. Canadian author L.M. Montgomery quite accurately observed this human quirk in Emily of New Moon; “I am her duty,” thought Emily. “Father said nobody ever liked a duty. So Aunt Elizabeth will never like me.”

2) It inflates the pleasure we derive in eating “bad foods”. Just as the knife is only tempting because it is forbidden, foods that aren’t inherently all that wonderful seem more enticing than they actually are, and a mindset creeps in that says once we’ve transgressed in eating one cookie, we might as well eat the whole bag. It isn’t because the cookies are so very delicious that we can’t put them down- its the combination of the attraction of the forbidden, along with the sense that we’re getting away with something that puts us in some kind of thrall to the tempter until there’s nothing left but crumbs.

3) It denies a basic truth of the of creation: God made all things, and saw that they were good. It is not our place to name anything as bad when God has not done so. Several references in both Old and New Testaments connect feasting with good things: feasts are joyful celebrations, examples of gracious hospitality, and metaphors for the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus turned water into wine, ate on the sabbath, fed thousands with bread, and revealed himself to his disciples while sharing meals with them. God did not look at creation and see that it was “very good… except for that pie. That pie is bad”.

These stories from Genesis reveal to us that temptation is a very real human experience. It has been with us from the beginning. There are forces of evil that will seek to separate us from God- from experiencing the love of God, and from offering our best in service to God. The way to defeat temptation is not to seek spiritual or moral victory in self-denial and gustatory self-flagellation. The wiser approach would surely be simply to refuse to open the door to this particular means of temptation.

There is no ‘good’ food. There is no ‘bad’ food. Vegetables and whole grains and fruits and proteins and cookies and pies… they are all good. Some foods nourish the body with the physical nutrients we need to grow. Some foods nourish the mind, the heart, or the soul with memories of shared meals with loved ones. Some foods mark celebrations and enhance our sense of shared joy. Some foods just taste really good. Some foods don’t, but we eat them in the name of graciously accepting hospitality, and enjoy the experience anyway. (Ah, Aunt Ethel, you’ve made your carrot-and-marshmallow jellied salad again! For me? How kind!)

The forces of evil are real, and powerful. We are far too easily separated from God. But we don’t have to make it easy. We don’t have to trivialize the reality of temptation by making the dinner table (or the take-out window) the battle-ground. We don’t need to open the door wide for the tempter to find a way in. It has been so from the beginning.

I’m not just pregnant, I’m fat.

A friend was trying to be supportive the other day when she said “but you’re not fat, you’re pregnant”. In her mind, I guess, pregnancy is a free-pass (even for fatties) to eat more, exercise less, and take up space. Whatever.

The thing is, I’m not sorry that I’m eating what I want, and that sometimes a nap is a higher priority than a trip to the gym. I’m not sorry that I take up space. I’m not looking to be excused.

And sure, some things about the way pregnancy is changing my body suck a little bit.

Yeah. I’m just on the upper edge of sizing for non-plus stores. The few styles of trousers that come in my size from the maternity shops in my area aren’t the styles that fit my body type. I can choose between “too small for my butt” or “too big to stay up”. But I look damn cute in suspenders, and skirts.

Yeah, I used to be able to walk a lot further, a lot faster. I had to cancel a meeting that I really need/want to have because of snow. My ability to self-rescue is impaired right now, which changes the risk-assessment math of winter driving. And I’m parking in the parking lot on Sundays at Church, instead of down the hill, because the parking lot is for people with mobility impairment, and that hill gets bigger every month.

7 months ago, I was really happy with the way my body could move. We had our first vacation since that disastrous trip to Banff, when I couldn’t walk any distance at all without getting winded, and having to rest. Only so much of that can be blamed on altitude. A lot changed after that- some of it because of Weight Watchers (just because I wouldn’t go back, doesn’t mean I’m not, in some ways, glad I went then), some because I found a sport I really loved, and training made me feel great, some because I left the job that was making me unhappy, some because after so many years of waiting, Ruth was born. This vacation we walked all over- and I could. That felt really, really good. And now I can’t, again. That’s a hard adjustment to make. In my head, losing that strength and endurance takes me back to a time in my life that wasn’t very happy, or healthy. I made it out of that place, and I don’t want to go back there. There aren’t a lot of safe places to say, “as much as I love the idea of this new baby, and how happy I am about this pregnancy, a little corner of me resents what this child is doing to my body”. So that’s part of my reality right now- but so be it. It won’t be forever. And like last time, it will turn out that the gym is a great place to get an hour to myself, and my body will re-learn how to do the things it used to do, and more.

And sure, it’s sort of sad to be looking forward to spring, and knowing my bike won’t see much use until late summer, if that. My list of things more cute than my daughter in her bike helmet, asleep in the buggy: … I got nuthin’. (Mental note: look into tricycle for Ruth, just because I’m not riding this spring doesn’t mean she shouldn’t.)

On the other hand- pregnancy is a brilliant time to be learning about intuitive eating, because our culture can totally deal with the ‘cravings’ of a pregnant woman. It’s a great time to be paying attention to HAES, because nobody expects me to be focusing on weight loss. It’s a great time to be in awe of what my body can do. Sure, I can’t do 5k in anything close to my record time, but I can build an entire human being out of two half-cells, and that ain’t half bad.

I take up space. It’s hard to find clothes that fit the unique curves of my amazing body. I would rather look forward to some healthy living ahead of me, than back to a less-good time in my life. Sometimes I just HAVE to have a cookie, and sometimes I just HAVE to have a spinach salad. I wish I could do more, physically, than I can, and I know that eventually, I will. And all these things will all be true a year from now, too.

So Lisa Presley can kiss my ass. (Which balances out my belly pretty perfectly, thank you very much.)
I’m pregnant.
AND I’m fat, and I’m not looking to be excused.

Bonus Prize

I never realized before it happened how much I would love one of the delightful bonus prizes that comes with becoming a Mom.

He became a Dad.

I used to listen to him sing her to sleep, through the baby monitor. Last night, I got a little flash-back of that. We were all just hanging out after supper, just playing and watching Backyardigans and dancing to the Wiggles (she’s the most hilarious dancer! Where does she get her energy? And how can I get some?) At bath-time I fell asleep on the couch. Because, apparently, that’s what the third trimester is for: stocking up on all the sleep I won’t get in the three months after. It turns out going to bed at 8 leaves me awake, and all sentimental, at 2am.

So I was half-awake and listening to him read, and sing, and talk to her as she settled in to bed. This child will never, ever have any real cause to doubt how much her daddy adores her. I hope that knowledge– that at least one man in her life will always find her beautiful, and strong, and clever, and funny, and a helluva dancer– will make it easier for her to see those things in herself.

I had a dad like that. I know what its worth. I also know it wasn’t enough.

Meanwhile, there is this human creature who, when she stirs in the night, and is told “Shh, shh, it’s ok, mommy’s got you”, relaxes, and sleeps. There is so much trust there.

Please, God, help me to be worthy of that trust; and an equal partner with her adoring and adorable Daddy.