Once establishing that the human body and spirit together make up a human being, Christopher West explain why we have bodies. God created the human person with a body in order to "make visible His invisible love." As a reflection or manifestation of the invisible God, our bodies are "sacraments." Christopher dubbed this point the "bullion cube" of Theology of the Body :
In conclusion at the first session, Christopher asked for a "thick-skinned, male volunteer." The feminist inside me wondered why male. I'll let you hear what happened, and I'll be interested in comments if the volunteer could have been female.
Guy stood up. Christopher summoned him to the front and instructed us to, "Look at Guy's body." The audience giggled. Of course, he called us out on it. Why, he asked, is it okay to say, "Look at Guy," but not "Look at Guy's body"? He said that Guy was beautiful; he imaged God. The shy, older man smiled a tiny, beautiful smile at this affirmation.
Christopher ended with the challenge : Why are we uncomfortable with our bodies? Our bodies are us.
Ahhh good point. I could see a church audience blanching if a speaker said "look at this woman's body," especially if a man said it about her. Is that because the female body is more readily objectified? Are women's bodies more sexual in appearance? Or are we more naturally protective of female modesty? Or is it a lack of feminism as you suspect? Hmmmmmm.
ReplyDeleteAt first I just wondered, "Why male?" Then I thought, "Why couldn't it have been a female?" As I considered it, my first thought was chivalry -- which I distinguish from chauvinism. Of course, I had to deconstruct this idea, but I do think there is something different about saying, "Look at a woman's body." I'm not sure why -- maybe it's a sign of the damage we have done to the female body.
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