Wednesday June 4, 2008
Body and soul
When you read this column, you don\’t see me at all – you see only some squiggly marks on paper. Unlike voices, those squiggles don\’t make sounds. Unlike art, they don\’t represent anything. They carry meaning only because our culture has agreed to assign certain sounds to certain squiggles.
As far as readers are concerned, I don\’t need to have a body at all. Only my thoughts matter.
I find I sometimes treat myself the same way. When I work on a column, an article, a story, I am not conscious of my body. I pay no attention to the solidity of the chair beneath me, the temperature of the air around me, the hunger or thirst inside me.
All that matters is the words I put out.
Ignoring our bodies
I thought I was alone in this perception of myself. Then, a gardener commented that she ignored her body while working with plants. A painter said the same about painting. And a musician about her music. Even when their bodies demanded food, water, or a bathroom break, they still wanted one more practice run through that difficult cadenza, one more brush stroke to get that shape just right, one more weed to pull or seedling to plant…
We ignore our bodies until they hurt enough to demand attention.
I started wondering: if I were my body, what would I be saying to me?
In one sense, it\’s a ridiculous question. It arbitrarily assumes that I exist as two separate entities that can have discussions with each other. But the “I” that responds is the same “I” that asks the question.
And yet it reflects a common perception in our society. We talk about body and soul, as if they were separate things. We believe that something, whatever we call it — soul, spirit, essence — will survive the death of the physical body.
Separation of flesh and spirit To receive this column regularly via e-mail, send a request to [email protected]. E-mail subscribers also get excerpts from correspondence about these columns. Please forward a copy of this column to anyone who might be interested in subscribing.
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For a lighter look at ethics, faith, and life, I recommend Ralph Milton\’s weekly e-newsletter Rumors. You can subscribe to it at the Wood Lake Books home page in Ralph Milton\’s Site, or by sending a note directly to [email protected].
It\’s also worth pursuing Charlene Fairchild\’s United Online site. Another site worth visiting is David Keating\’s \”SeemslikeGod\” page.
My religious tradition has long made a distinction between flesh and spirit – we are to desire things of the spirit, and to renounce things of the flesh.
The distinction appears mainly in St. Paul\’s letters – which were heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. According to Luke\’s gospel, Jesus simply said, “Blessed are the poor.” Matthew\’s later gospel amended that to a more socially acceptable, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
Paul occasionally takes the body/spirit distinction to an extreme: “For what I want to do I do not do, but I do what I hate. And if I do what I do not want to do… it is no longer I myself who do it…”
Some other religions probably could not even ask the question, “What might my body be saying to me?” For them, body and soul, flesh and spirit, are all one.
Perhaps there is a me, beyond my body. I can imagine such a state. But I can imagine it only because I have a body that sustains my imagining mind.
For the time being, at least, I am — and can only be — an embodied self.
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Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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