Author Archives: Laura K. Cavanaugh

Guest Post: Human Dignity–Part 2

Mar 7

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My dear friend Stacey Schwenker has graciously agreed to share some of her journey through experiencing her sexuality as a single person during her 50 Day Challenge. If you missed it, read Part 1.  You can find more of her journey here.

And now, the conclusion…

So I just let it wash over me.  I sat for a good while letting his love soak in.  I cried.  I laughed.  It felt like my own heart was growing.  I was being flooded by his acceptance and reclamation of his daughter.  It was if I had let getting older with the new wrinkles and the cottage cheese cellulite separate me from God.  As if my body was unworthy of his love now.

No.  He not only reminded me of his love, he embraced me in who I am.  God loved this body on that day many years ago when I took my first breath.  He loves this body right now.  And he will go on loving my body long past my last breath on earth—whatever that will look like.  I am so precious to God.

As I sat and reveled in all of my blood pumping wonder, I thought about how I want others to treat my body—with respect and care.  This comes only from its being something precious to God.  This got me to thinking about others.  I thought about my three roommates and their beautiful bodies.  I considered them in their own mothers’ wombs and growing up as children.

Then I expanded that circle to others.  However, when I got to thinking about bodies all over the world I stopped dead in my tracks.  So many bodies are not respected.  Many are treated as possessions or used as commodities.  They are stripped naked, not of their own volition but that of a pimp or an owner who inspects their goods and throws them at willing buyers.  Their beauty and uniqueness are trampled on.  Their vulnerability is used as a weapon against them.

This is when my praying became more than exploration or asking God for eyes like his to see my body as he sees me.  This is when I heard God call me to action.  To fight.  To take action.  I might look into donating my time or money.  In my own personal life, my vocation and calling involve education and healing in the realm of sexuality.  To help others sees the value of their bodies.  Once they can know that deep in their souls, they can then begin to have empathy for the value of others’ bodies.  To help others see their deep need for intimacy and examine the choices they make in seeking to know and be known.  To understand how sex might be used as a quick route to closeness but a short one to nagging emptiness.

The more I see how my sexuality is a part of me—not a distant part or a shameful part—the healthier I feel.  My embodiedness and my femininity and my desire to be in deep relationships are all part of my sexuality.  And to deny any part of this murders aspects of my humanity.  And to recklessly embrace parts of this in disproportionate ways feeds a nasty monster in me.  We are moral beings who have choices to make.  Are we brave enough to admit that we actually make choices about our sexuality or shall we sweep things under the rug?

Christians contribute to sex trafficking in direct and indirect ways.  I know that if we have more discussions about our sexuality and make more choices to embrace our sexuality, we will actively be fighting against using sexuality as a weapon.

I will begin by fighting for my own body—to reclaim its goodness by the creator God.  And I will not stop until I fight for others’ bodies and their goodness.

Will you join the fight?

Hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio, Stacey now resides in Washington, DC.  She occupies her time by writing, baking, and enjoying the outdoors through running, biking, and hiking.  She also spends copious amounts of time with her three wonderful housemates and the people at her church, The District Church, where she leads a small group on healthy Christian sexuality.  Stacey works in advertising sales for Sojourners, an educational and advocacy organization that publishes a monthly magazine and a daily blog (sojo.net).  Stacey is passionate about seeing healing and integration of our sexuality and spends a great deal of time reading, writing, and talking about it.  She also likes a good cup of tea and handwriting letters.

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Guest Post: Human Dignity–Part 1

Mar 6

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My dear friend Stacey Schwenker has graciously agreed to share some of her journey through experiencing her sexuality as a single person during her 50 Day Challenge.  You can find more of her journey here.

Hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio, Stacey now resides in Washington, DC.  She occupies her time by writing, baking, and enjoying the outdoors through running, biking, and hiking.  She also spends copious amounts of time with her three wonderful housemates and the people at her church, The District Church, where she leads a small group on healthy Christian sexuality.  Stacey works in advertising sales for Sojourners, an educational and advocacy organization that publishes a monthly magazine and a daily blog (sojo.net).  Stacey is passionate about seeing healing and integration of our sexuality and spends a great deal of time reading, writing, and talking about it.  She also likes a good cup of tea and handwriting letters.

This morning I prayed naked.  This exercise is part of a 50 Day Challenge I am doing for Lent.  Some friends of mine created 50 Suggestions to Embrace Healthy Sexuality and one of them is strip the clothes and prostrate oneself.  For me it looked more like huddling under my covers to stay warm (my bedroom is in a basement and my sensitive body doesn’t much care for its constant 65 degrees).

As I sat there praying, naturally I thought about my body.  At first I began to consider all of its shapes and sizes—the feel of my skin and hair and curves underneath my palms.  I thought about its beauty and how uniquely it was created.  There are few other things that have skin similar to us humans or a bone structure like ours.  And we each have our own and only attributes: fingerprints that never have and never will have any match; the unique combination of height, hair color, facial composition, and idiosyncrasies. 

I am the only me.  You are the only you.  Ever.  Period.  We truly are uniquely and fearfully made (Ps 139:14).  Molded with God’s own hands and done so that we are each special to him.  I am who he meant me to be.  He set each bone in place and laced each fiber of muscle and sinew.  He etched each eyelash and painted on every fingernail.

And because of this, I am beautiful to God.  Things that others might scoff at or look down upon, God embraces and finds endearing.  Understanding how God is so pleased and proud of my body means that I scoff at him when I reject parts of my physical attributes.  I do not fully understand grace if I do not treat my body with the love and respect that one of God’s beloveds deserves.

True, I have the ability to impact my flesh and bones.  I can influence my weight, my hair and eye color, my amount of hair, and my muscle mass.  I can dress it up or dress it down.  But, in all that I do am I honoring God with my body?  Am I caring for every cell of my body through my actions?  Or am I spitting in God’s face?

Sitting in my bed I also thought about my vulnerability.  Being stripped from things that hide me.  It felt like a barrier had been removed between me and God.  It wasn’t like I was clinging to my clothing in an effort to distance myself from him.  Rather, I just realized how he sees me all the time.  I felt more human and I felt him as more of God.  Somehow I could experience his love more deeply.  I wasn’t earning his love by creating or doing.  I was stuck in all my birthday suit nakedness to lie before him.  And he accepts me.  He loves me……

Come back tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion!

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Bathtub Spirituality: Getting Naked Before God

Mar 5

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I’ve always hated showers.  Give me a glistening white tub full of sudsy warm water, candles on the ledge, and a glass of red wine.  That’s the way to be clean.

Showers are for the hurried, getting clean all in a rush of water hurtling down and straight into the drain–like getting caught in a downpour and giving up any hope of finding shelter before you’re soaked.  Showers are for standing; you’ve got someplace else to go–and you’re going to be late!

Baths are for lingering, resting, enjoying.  No agenda.  No interruptions.  Only peace.  Warm, scented, slightly alcoholic peace.  Taking a bath is my favorite form of centering prayer.

I’ve had some very profound moments, naked among the bubbles and salts and dripping faucet.  Moments when God speaks, when my heart breaks, when I am listening.  Moments of forgiveness, release, understanding, wonder.  Moments of experiencing God’s tenderness, mercy, lovingkindness.

In these moments I feel like nothing separates me from God. I can lie back in the water until my ears are covered and my hair swishes like seaweed around my head and feel held, encompassed, hemmed in.  I can stretch my legs one over the other, stick my big toe in the leaky faucet and examine myself exactly as God knit me together–my skin softened by the soap and salts and getting wrinkly from the long soak.

I can be fully myself in these moments, alone in the sanctuary of my white bathtub.  In these private moments I share my most intimate, sacred self with the Creator.  No cathedral, chapel, prayer garden, or monastery compares to the holiest of holies that is my tiled bathroom–with the steamed-up mirror, flower-shaped bathmat, and humming air vent that occasionally creaks when one of the screws comes loose.

That is my sacred space.  That is where I am most spiritual–and most physical.  That is where I experience God–in the bathtub.

This week I’m honored to host a beautiful moment in my dear friend Stacey Schwenker’s journey through experiencing her sexuality as a single person.  She’ll be sharing her experience of getting naked before God tomorrow.

Until then, how do you get naked before God?

Posted in Physicality, Spiritual Practices, Spirituality

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Saturday Sex-versations

Mar 3

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Stay informed about what the world and the Church are saying so we can discuss the issues, discern healthy, holistic body theology, and discover God’s truth in the midst of many opinions.

Here’s this week’s installment of current conversations on issues of holistic body theology.  (Links are organized roughly by date and similarity of content.)

A blocked quote indicates a highly recommended link.

Don’t be shy.  Share your thoughts in the comment section, or join the original conversations via the links provided.

Physicality: Body Image, Sexuality and Relationship Issues

1) The Story Is Everything How does kingdom of God reshape the story of sex? How does new creation plot sex in its story?

2) Utah House passes bill to allow schools to skip sex ed “In truth, few of us are up to the task of effectively teaching our kids ourselves the things they need to know about sex.”

3) Yoga and Sex Scandals: No Surprise Here But over the decades, many have discovered from personal experience that the practice [of yoga] can fan the sexual flames. Pelvic regions can feel more sensitive and orgasms more intense.

4) Why (and How) Abortion Should Be Talked about in Church Churches that speak of abortion without acknowledging that many women have experienced it as an injustice, not as a choice, drive women deeper into their pain rather than set them free from the captivity where they are both bound and gagged.

5) How Old Should You Be to Marry? It’s not just about meeting the right person, but it’s also about their personal maturity.

6) Aw, Hey, Fella Aw, hey, fella–/Whatcha gonna do/When a pretty lady’s/Not ashamed of what she’s got?/Better let her know/Just what nasty names you’re thinkin’/‘Cause it’s so much easier/Than changing whatcha think.

7) Pew for One: How Is the Church Responding to Growing Number of Singles? The church needs to re-evaluate its relationship with singles, especially in light of the increasing numbers of unmarried adults.

8) Breastfeeding in Church, and Other Petty Crimes Breastfeeding is itself a work of art wrought by the Greatest Artist.

9) Day 13: Seek Intimacy Now Do I find it easier to be loved by God because someone else has said that the body I was created with is beautiful?

10) Birth Control: Burden or Blessing? This decision was meant to be hard—God meant it to be hard. He wants us to contemplate life with the utmost care and caution. He wants us to deeply consider the potential for life that we carry around in our bodies.

Media Literacy/Cultural Discernment

1) Women & Social Media Women are moving from passive purchasers to online authorities and tastemakers.

2) America’s Top Magazines: Still Not Hiring Women Do we really have to educate editors that women can bring new perspectives on major stories, and not just to stories about living as a single woman or going through a divorce?

3) Gender bias in books journalism remains acute, research shows Vida is instead trying to support women writers throughout their careers, and attempting to encourage people to examine their own biases.

4) Dear Oscar: Women Have Stories, Too When girls grow up seeing story after story that tells them they are sex objects, accessories or victims, they will learn that to be a “woman” is to play one of those three roles.

5) O Women, Where Art Thou? Certainly, something like a feminist intersectional analysis is rarely performed in the boardrooms and cafes of the Los Angeles film industry.

6) The Hidden Damage of Eating Disorders This inadequacy is due to the lie that resides beneath our cultural over-emphasis on physical beauty: “The only thing that is truly important or valuable about your identity is your appearance.”

7) People for the Ethical Treatment of Anyone but Women PETA’s use of nudity and sexuality has long been criticized as being exploitative of women, but many feminists say the new campaign crosses a line by trivializing domestic and sexual violence, further injuring an already-fragile demographic.

8) Why Do Only Women Whine? By stating that determined women are “whiners” their opinions instantly lose credibility in a distinctly sexist way.

9) you is smart. you is kind. you is important. the messages passed on to many of us through our families, relationships, and some of our church experiences are more like: “you’re somehow not enough.”

10) Does “The Help” Hurt? It is all too easy to accept caricaturizations of others that affirms our sense of justice while never addressing the inherent assumptions that come from living in a culture that is still largely “white normative”.

11) 3 Lessons Every Writer, Speaker, Blogger, and Musician Can Learn from Led Zeppelin Sometimes staying true to your art grabs the multitudes. But more often it does not. Staying true to yourself and faithful to your calling should always be the goal.

Community: Equality and Other Issues

1) This Easter Season, Remember: Church Growth is About More Than ‘The Marrieds’ These latest reports about childbirth and marriage suddenly show us that our typical evangelism efforts in churches are aiming at less than half of our nation’s population.

2) “I’m Dad, the Babysitter,” and Other Cultural Myths Dads are parents, not babysitters.

3) Tell Your Story, Tell It Well The church, if it wishes to speak into the culture around it, must regain its ability to tell testimonies. It must read its history and learn to tell its individual stories, and to tell them well, so that hearers hungry for a roadmap might find it in us.

4) More Than Enchanting: A Q&A with Jo Saxton I hope it changes the minds of women who have given up on God, their call on the church because of how difficult it’s been for them. I hope it changes the minds of those who have felt too inadequate to respond to God’s call.

5) Helen Lee: On Not Playing It Safe I still struggle with moments in which I distrust myself, in which I doubt myself, in which I would rather disappear into the background rather than put myself and my ideas forward into the public arena.

6) Reading the Magnificat During Lent [B]ut our faith is not something that concerns just us. We exist as a body and as members of the body of Christ the disciplines we engage in should always work towards the good of that body.

7) Resisting a Segregated Church Except for church, my life was one of post-Civil Rights integration.

8) Good Girls Never Change the World: Part 2 Esther more closely resembles the monarchs favourite prostitute than she does his married-in-a-church-before-God-and-all-our-friends-in-a-white-dress wife.

Service: Social Justice Issues & Creation Care

1) Earth Care as Lenten Practice If fashioned from the earth, and blessed and called by God, how can we live into an awakened relationship with the earth?

2) Living Abundantly “We understand that we can’t think about food without referring to the narrative of creation and linking it with a deep understanding of how we have been created to be the bearers of the Spirit and part of the community of life on this planet, not its owners,” Claudio said.

3) Because Children Need a Defender For children suffering in silence…justice and healing may seem impossible. But they are not—not when there is a strong defender standing beside them in the fight for justice.

4) Finding a Home for Oklahoma’s Orphans While not everyone is called to foster or adopt, every follower of Christ is called to bring justice to orphans and can do something to change the outcome for these kids.

5) Criminalizing Homelessness? Fallout feared from anti-Occupy bill “It’s criminalizing the right to exist as a human being. It’s outlawing homelessness.”

6) Desmond Tutu: Tackling Child Marriage in India One of the most common features of all these women is that they are educated, but has it reduced their worth? No, their worth has been enhanced.

7) One Small Wardrobe, One Huge Cause “I’m using my body and what I wear to represent these women. I feel like they can’t speak.”

8) Black Evangelicals, White Evangelicals, and Franklin Graham’s Repentence They see those 2,000 scriptures about poverty and injustice. And this new generation of white evangelicals is committed to fight systemic and structural justice because of the Gospel.

9) Feeling a Sacred Trust But the idea that we are separate from our world is a dangerous delusion. Every breath of oxygen we take was first exhaled by a leaf. No animal, even us, can be safer or healthier than its habitat.

10) Altering Clothes, and Lives, with Design “You have these smart students who care about the community, the planet and using recycled materials, and we have these people here in Detroit who really want to work and need money.”

11) Picturing the hands of Christ I touch people on their hands and feet and bodies to be a reminder to them that they are not alone when they are ill or dying, especially when they are dying. It is a holy moment to be with people in death.

12) Our Hands Tell Our Stories We receive the body of Christ in upturned hands every time we kneel at the altar. And as we kneel and wait, our hands, so unique and revealing about our lives, are made equal.

Posted in Body Image, Body of CHRIST, BODY of Christ, Community, Creation Care, Cultural Discernment, Equality, Music/Music videos, Physicality, Saturday Sex-versations, Service, Sexuality, Social Justice, Spirituality, TV/Movies

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Forward Friday: Where Physics Meets Metaphysics

Mar 2

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If you’ve ever had a philosophy class, you probably know that we get the word “metaphysics” from the placement of books on Aristotle’s bookshelf.  Next to the book he titled Physics was another book without a title, so scholars came to refer to the book as meta-Physics or the-book-after-Physics-on-the-shelf.

As far back as Plato, there has been a conscious separation of the physical and spiritual, as though the two were not intimately intertwined.  One of the profound experiences of the Lenten season is the remarriage between the physical and the spiritual through the spiritual discipline of fasting.  We’ve been talking a lot this week about how fasting allows us to experience our spirituality in a physical way.

1) For this Forward Friday, reflect on how your chosen Lenten fast joins the physical and spiritual sides of your experience together.  Share your thoughts in the comment box below.

2) If you haven’t chosen to observe Lent this year, try choosing to fast for the weekend and come back to share what you noticed about the link between your spiritual and physical life.

 

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Performing Open-Heart Surgery

Mar 1

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Since December, I have seen four different doctors and had ten separate appointments. I have undergone multiple tests and procedures–all to rule out causes of my unexplained fatigue.  Now the doctors are at a loss.  Perhaps I have chronic fatigue or some other nebulous disorder or syndrome.  Such things are difficult to diagnose.  But I think I know the real cause of my fatigue.

God as Surgeon

My spiritual director once said that experiencing God’s healing is sometimes like having a surgeon perform complicated, invasive procedures while we are under anesthesia.  When God is doing this kind of healing, she said, it would be too painful and scary for us to be awake and aware of God’s work.  So we are put to sleep.  Then when we awake, our bodies are exhausted and need rest to complete the healing process the Surgeon began in us.

At the time, her analogy didn’t really resonate with me. I was in so much emotional and spiritual pain that I did not know how to let go and rest, allowing God to do the hard work.  I wanted God to show me what needed to be done so I could do the work myself, understand exactly what was happening, and remain in control.

Looking back, my attitude was as ridiculous as my telling a doctor I wanted to perform my own open-heart surgery.  Not only do I have no medical training, but I also would not be able to survive the experience of cutting through my own flesh. The pain would be too great, and the procedure would be too complicated.  If I needed open heart surgery, I would have to trust the surgeon to do a good job. I would have to be anesthetized during the procedure, and then I would have to rest and allow my body to recover afterward.

God as Teacher

Ever since I completed my degree in 2008, God has been teaching me (ironic, no?) how to rest.  I have slowly been learning how to let go of my over-active drive to DO–to be an achiever and to be productive.  I’ve been a terrible student, I must admit, but God is an ever-patient teacher.

Despite my resistance, God performed a great work in me in the past few years, one that I am still not completely sure I understand or know the effects of. Now, my surgery is over.  I have left the operating room, and the anesthesia has worn off.  The hard work is done, and I’m awake!

Physical and Spiritual Rest

My body has been telling me for months that I needed to rest, and I just could not understand why. After stumping half the doctors in this town, I think it’s safe to say that it’s time to give up BEING AWAKE.  The surgery may be over, but the spiritual healing process has only just begun.

Now I must endure a new season of recovery.  I must allow myself to feel the effects of God’s work in me and give myself time to adjust and heal.  That is how I choose to spent this season of Lent. I’m giving up my DO-ER spirit and allowing God to complete the good work begun in me.

So for Lent, I will sleep as many hours as I can.  When I am awake, I will rest in bed as much as I can. My fast may not look very difficult or spiritual, but it is both. I am relinquishing control (again) and allowing God to take care of me–mind, body, and spirit.

Posted in Physicality, Spirituality

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Guest Post: 3 Must-haves for Lent: Part 2

Feb 29

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My friend Jenn Cannon has graciously agreed to share her experience of fasting during this Lenten season and its impact on her body theology. If you missed it, check out Part 1. You can find more of her writing here.

Many people, in modern Christianity, have taken the idea of a fast during Lent and tried to turn it into a positive action.  Instead of simply abstaining from certain foods, people are opting to try another way to express the same idea without the physical side-effects.  As an example: my former pastor gives up his morning Starbucks and all fast food and then donates the funds that he has saved to his favorite charity.

Unhealthy Fasting

As I have journeyed to get healthier in the last 8 months, I have found that I cannot outright deny myself a certain food without the danger of a binge looming on the horizon.  If I tell myself I cannot have chocolate for 40 days (or 46 depending on how you count it), I will most certainly have a meltdown and gorge at the end when I finally allow myself the chocolate – or I will be frantically trying to find something else to fill that need.

Either way – I lose sight of the meaning of the fast, and also do myself more harm than good.  Many people who are journeying back to health will tell you the same horror stories – fasting from any certain thing is a recipe for a binge.

Healthy Fasting

So I have learned to eat things in moderation.  Great.  But then what am I supposed to do about Lent?  If I want to participate in the spiritual journey of preparing myself for the coming sacrifice of Christ, what then can I do instead of giving up meat (which I already eat very little of) or chocolate (again, a minor part of my diet and not really a sacrifice) or anything similar?

I am fasting from laziness.  Fasting from sitting on my butt.  My Lenten practice, this year, is to commit to some form of intentional exercise for at least 30 minutes every day.  I am choosing to observe Sundays as the mini-Easter that they are, and so are not part of the fast.

So – that is my physical piece.  But, as a Lenten practice, it is fruitless and self-serving unless I add in the other aspects of prayer and service.   So, my prayer (or God-focus) part of Lent is to read Scripture more regularly, pray while I’m on the treadmill, and change the music I listen to to help keep my thoughts centered on God while I’m walking.  As for service, I am always looking for the people who cross my path that I believe God sent to me.  Also, my discipline for service will take the form of writing.

Writing as Spiritual Discipline

I have a lot going on in my head as I journey back to health – and with nudging from good friends (like Laura) – am realizing I have much to say and share as I do.  So I will be writing – intentionally – during the full season of Lent.

My writing is intended to help others understand this journey of getting healthy, encourage those who are struggling with their own health, and – selfishly – to help me process some of the stuff I need to think about – specifically regarding my self-image.

Join the Conversation

So have you thought about what you’re giving up for Lent?  Do you have a reason for your choice?  And how does your personal choice (Self-focus) tie back in to the other two aspects of Fasting: God-focus and Others-focus? Leave a comment in the box below to share your journey this Lenten season.

I am a musician, a photographer, a theologian, a customer service rep.  I am a wife, a stepmom, a sister, a daughter, an aunt.  But mostly I am a child of God striving to live my crazy life the best way I know how.  These writings have been born from my journey back to health that I started in June 2011.  At that time, I weighed over 300 pounds and needed to lose at least half my weight to be considered in a healthy range.  Since then, I’ve lost almost 50 pounds through adjusting my diet and adding exercise.  The surprising side effect is the emotional changes that go along with getting healthy – and that is what has prompted me to begin to write.

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Guest Post: 3 Must-haves for Lent: Part 1

Feb 28

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My friend Jenn Cannon has graciously agreed to share her experience of fasting during this Lenten season and its impact on her body theology. You can find more of her writing here.

I am a musician, a photographer, a theologian, a customer service rep.  I am a wife, a stepmom, a sister, a daughter, an aunt.  But mostly I am a child of God striving to live my crazy life the best way I know how.  These writings have been born from my journey back to health that I started in June 2011.  At that time, I weighed over 300 pounds and needed to lose at least half my weight to be considered in a healthy range.  Since then, I’ve lost almost 50 pounds through adjusting my diet and adding exercise.  The surprising side effect is the emotional changes that go along with getting healthy – and that is what has prompted me to begin to write.

Last week, Christians around the globe marked the beginning of the season of Lent.  This season of 40 days (well, really 46) of preparation and repentance is observed so that we can prepare our hearts and minds for the coming of Holy Week and Easter.  We intend to spend these 40 days focused on God and Christ and the upcoming sacrifice that saves us.

At least – that’s the intent.

Lenten Fasting

Historically, Lent has included a fast of some sort: abstaining from certain foods, from all food, from bad habits, from sex… The Lenten fast has taken so many different forms over the years.  In more Orthodox congregations, the fast is prescribed and required (with some dispensations granted for the extremely ill or weak).  In many Protestant churches, the fast is voluntary (at most) and unknown (at least).  Some congregations don’t observe Lent at all.

What then does this Fast, this abstaining, really mean?  What is the purpose and how do we observe it correctly?  And really – what does fasting have to do with Body Theology at all?

The Lenten practice was originally a 3-part one: prayer, fasting, service.  The idea is that one practice without the other 2 is incomplete.  So – if we choose to fast simply to fast, we miss the mark.  The whole point is to prepare ourselves for Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross and life-giving resurrection.  If we focus ONLY on the fast, we miss the rest of the preparation.

Lenten Prayer

Fasting without prayer is simply denying ourselves.  If we use the popular example of food – we are simply denying ourselves sustenance, and missing the point.  Prayer – focus on GOD – is crucial.  Without it, we are perhaps using the fast in a multitude of incorrect ways: pride at our will or self-control; attempting to manipulate others (as in the case of a hunger strike); proof of our own piousness; and many others.  And physically, denying ourselves a certain food can enhance the desire for it – to such an extent that it could lead to a binge.  Unhealthy AND ungodly.

When we add prayer – or scripture reading or any other discipline that focuses our attention on God instead of ourselves – we immediately rescue the Fast from the worldly concerns and it can become, again, a part of worship.  We can worship through our physical acts, provided our hearts and minds are in the right place.

Lenten Service

As we worship God physically and spiritually, we must remember that we are called to love our neighbor, as well. When pressed by the Sadducees to name the greatest commandment in the Law, Jesus answered:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. ~ Matthew 22: 34-40

Christ didn’t make a distinction between loving self, loving God, and loving others.  They are all tied together into one answer.  The Greatest Commandment.  And so, too, should our Lenten practice be….

Come back tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion!

Posted in Guest post, Physicality, Service, Spirituality

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I Gave Up BEING AWAKE for Lent!

Feb 27

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I’m excited to have my friend Jenn Cannon guest posting this week.  She’s going to be sharing some of her journey with fasting and healthy living in light of the Lenten season.  Before I turn my blog over to her, I thought I’d prime the pump, so to speak, by sharing some of my thoughts on Lent and body theology.

I never knew much about Lent growing up.  My church didn’t really follow the church calendar outside of Christmas and Easter, and I only knew about Ash Wednesday from my Catholic friend.  I was in college before I was ever encouraged to “give something up for Lent.”  That first year, I followed my friends’ lead and gave up sweets.  I lost eleven pounds in time for Easter Sunday (oh my, what a sweet tooth I had, especially with unlimited soft serve in the dining hall!), but I missed entirely the spiritual purpose of preparing my heart and mind for the celebration of the resurrection.

A couple of years back, I gave up driving for Lent.  I could, because I lived close enough to walk pretty much everywhere I needed to go.  Walking has always been a spiritual experience for me, although to be fair, I usually prefer to walk in nature than along busy city streets. For the first time, during that season, I sought the spiritual side of Lent and allowed myself to experience the loss of my car and enjoy the presence of God on my daily journeys.

The next year, I stayed overnight at a monastery on Ash Wednesday and learned the spiritual practice of silence. It was a painful time for me, and learning to be silent and still became disciplines I will always carry with me.  I wrote a little about my experience at the monastery here.

Giving up BEING AWAKE for Lent

This year, Lent sort of sneaked up on me, and I wasn’t sure I would give up anything at all.  But I’ve been uncommonly tired in the last few months, and recently I’ve been pressuring myself to get out of bed and be productive again.  Today I decided (a little late, I know) to give up this spirit of doing for Lent and practice being.

Giving up doing for Lent may not sound very applicable to body theology, but it really is.  Our western society is collectively sleep-deprived.  While most people sleep an average of six hours per night, most people need eight or nine hours.  That means most people are living on two or three hours of sleep fewer per night than their bodies really need to function properly.

Last week, after a super-fun sleep study and nap study (during which I was sorely unable to do much of either), I met with my neurologist to find out that my body most likely needs ten to twelve hours of sleep per night.  That’s two to four hours more sleep than most people need–and four to six hours more sleep than most people get!

So, for the rest of the Lenten season, I am going to be sleeping as close to ten hours a night as I can.  That means moving my work schedule from the morning to the early afternoon. That means going to sleep instead of squeezing in that extra Netflix episode.  That means allowing my body to receive the rest that it needs without pressuring myself to get up and be productive all day.  That means practicing the spiritual discipline of rest.

We’ll talk a little more about the theology of rest on Thursday.  For now, get ready to meet my new guest poster, Jenn Cannon.  It’s gonna be awesome!  Until then, I wish all you lovely readers peaceful sleep and pleasant dreams…..zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Posted in Physicality, Spirituality

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Saturday Sex-versations

Feb 25

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As part of the on-going series, the links below will take you to current conversations about sexuality and relationships as well as issues related to the other three categories of holistic body theology: community, cultural discernment, and service.

Stay informed about what the world and the Church are saying so we can discuss the issues, discern healthy, holistic body theology, and discover God’s truth in the midst of many opinions.

Here’s this week’s installment.  (Links are organized roughly by date and similarity of content.)

Don’t be shy.  Share your thoughts in the comment section, or join the original conversations via the links provided.

Physicality: Body Image, Sexuality and Relationship Issues

1) In which I am on my soapbox about shame Has shame ever helped a woman? This is just the other side of that same “You’re not enough” coin.

2) The Secret Sexual Revolution If this generation wants to reverse the trend and reduce the number of Christians having premarital sex, the first step is trying to figure out why so few are waiting.

3) Clothing In Church: Why It Matters The way we dress is frequently an external expression of an internal reality, a way for “the body, or even the self, to communicate itself to society,” in the words of theologian Tom Beaudoin.

4) Sex Is A Big Deal And I Wish Someone Had Told Me No one ever talks about the casual dating and casual hook up aftermath. Instead, it is glamorized and a fun, sexy, effective fix-all.

5) Transfiguration and Beauty We offer the Lord these forty days because we believe God loves us. We believe that when we let go of control, we will see more clearly the movement and the beauty of Jesus.

6) The Secret Life of Hasidic Sexuality Actually, the main purpose of sex — as explained by Jewish law — is to create something called devek, best translated as an intense spiritual/emotional cleaving between the couple.

7) Veiled Muslim women and revolutionary modesty Whether we’re wearing hajibs or jeans or baggy t-shirts or mini-skirts, are our clothes making us slaves to patriarchy and consumerism?

8) Resurrection Spirituality And this kind of eschatology leads to body image problems now, not to mention lack of care with creation and lack of concern with any sense of salvation having to do with creation and cosmos and new creation.

9) When Your One Beauty Goes Gray But then there are the days when I find that pesky, out of place gray hair, and I wonder.  Will anyone love me with gray hair?  Will anyone think I’m beautiful if it was gone?

10) Dear Victims of Rape and Sexual Abuse No Shame. No Guilt. No Excuses. No Blame. No Heartache.

11) Phyllis Tickle & Doug Pagitt: Welcome to Ash Wednesday Of all the observances of Christianity, Lent is far and away the most physical, starting not with Ash Wednesday but with Mardi Gras. [The last minute is especially wonderful.]

12) Transgender kids get puberty-blocking drugs, sex-changing hormones; MDs say numbers are rising Switching gender roles…is common in young children. But these kids are different. They feel certain they were born with the wrong bodies.

13) Seven states sue government over contraceptives mandate “This lawsuit is about protecting religious liberty and the rights of conscience, our most basic freedoms as Americans.”

14) The Millennial Church: The Future of Christianity (Pt.5) At the heart of the loss of virginity before marriage lies a bigger issue in the eyes of millennials, morality/ethics.

15) ‘Am I Ugly?’ Videos: Young Teens Ask YouTube Users Whether They’re Pretty Or Not But, in a world of carefully curated Facebook profiles that put personal lives (and looks) at center stage…it’s perhaps unsurprising that young people are sharing their body image anxieties in such a forum.

Media Literacy/Cultural Discernment

1) Erasing Women: How Both Sides Contribute to the Media Blackout on Female Pro-Lifers But as all this happens—and it is happening, however slowly—mainstream institutions such as the media, the government, the schools, and the entertainment industry need to recognize that these women exist and have voices worth hearing.

2) The Final Freaking Rose. [H]ave we grown so apathetic to the human condition that we’ve turned Love into a gameshow?

Community: Equality and Other Issues

1) there are a lot of ways to pastor [T]he world is crying out for more “pastors”, people who will bravely and freely extend Christ’s love, hope, care, mercy & justice in a broken & hurting world.

2) Mimi Haddad on Gender and Equality in the Church Now, you can hear more from Dr. Haddad, president of Christians for Biblical Equality on gender and equality in the Church.

3) We Need the Full Vocabulary of God To my mind, the church today has impoverished itself by praying with and singing with and thinking with such a small set of the many images for God found in the Bible.

4) And Daniel Kirk Said This Too! How are we to assess these women who, in the narrative world, are outsiders, on the margins?

5) Our Problem is Authoritarianism and Not Legalism Nowhere in the New Testament does it say that a Christian, because of title or position, has moral authority over another Christian.

6) Male and Female God Made (Most Of) Them: Part 2 Christians cared for people no one else cared for.

7) When Church Becomes a Verb Instead of going to church to be fed, to be welcomed, to be loved, why don’t we go to church to feed, to welcome, to love?

8) A Little Grace for Masculine Christianity I am saying [masculine Christianity is] one way—it’s part of the truth, just as God’s more traditionally feminine qualities are part of the truth—and for some people it’s critical.

9) Women of valor at Truett Seminary I can’t help but smile to myself when I think about the fact that over the next ten years, those who think that women should be banned from church leadership will have to contend with the talents and enthusiasm of these women of valor!

10) Evangelical 2.0: The Deception of Mark Driscoll’s Acts 29 Network Acts 29 commits itself to “…get behind the men (emphasis added) who are planting churches by…networking with men in different denominations and networks for the kingdom good of the city.”

11) Women in Ministry Series: All Are Invited to Talk I struggle as a woman in a conservative church. Do I stay and work for change? Or do I escape to enjoy freedom elsewhere?

12) What Diversity Should Look Like [T]he temptation is always to elevate your own experience over someone else’s. Within the Church, this can lead to conflict, division and sorrow. But those differences can also be the glory of God made manifest.

13) Is There a Place for Creative Christians? In community that is caring and healthy, an artist brings not only beauty and inspiration but also powerful observational skills and spiritual awareness.

14) Phyllis Tickle & Doug Paggit: The Physicality of Lent In the third installment of my conversation with Phyllis Tickle about Lent we talk about the physical nature of spirituality.

Service: Social Justice Issues

1) The Santorum Question: Should Theology Affect the Way We Vote? Faith and politics are enmeshed with each other in both vital and destructive ways.

2) Counting the Cost I have learned, however, that when you take these numbers and put them within context and place, these numbers actually tell a story.

3) Justice in Guatemala: Man Convicted for Raping His 15-Year-Old Daughter And the conviction sends a strong message to the entire community that sexual crimes against children will not be tolerated under the law.

4) A Savvy Peacemaker Building Across Missouri’s Race Lines The divide has resulted in tension between the African American community and the predominantly white authorities and social service agencies. Lawson sees his calling as bridging that gap.

5) The Significance of Linsanity Fortunately, the symbolism hasn’t been wasted; rather, it has turned into a fascinating conversation about the need for forgiveness and humility.

6) Role Reversal: The Problem of the Increasing Marginalization of Men And the Khasi men are experiencing the crippling prejudice, discrimination, and oppression that women throughout history have known all too well.

7) Haitian millionaire determined to build back better Now the 45-year-old is using his entrepreneurship to benefit communities uprooted by the devastating 2010 quake.

Posted in Body Image, Body of CHRIST, BODY of Christ, Community, Cultural Discernment, Equality, Physicality, Saturday Sex-versations, Service, Sexuality, Social Justice, TV/Movies

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