Body Spirituality

Today is the fifth Sunday in Lent, a period in which we as Christians are invited to look into our hearts, to journey with Jesus, facing our demons as we prepare for the great mystery of death and resurrection. It is with some trepidation that I come today, not with scholarly exegesis of the texts we just heard, but with a confession of one of my own demons. It is one that I suspect that many share, one way or another; and I hope that by sharing it I will open a new conversation with you, my family of faith. For some of you, what I have to say may be old news, an issue that you have confronted and dealt with years ago. For others, it may be a new idea, which may feel strange or foolish or even -- perhaps -- inviting to consider. It is ground that feels dangerous to me, and that I have waited a long time to speak about in public.

First, some background. Eight years ago, when Glen and I first came to Seekers, there was a series of sermons on the topic of "body spirituality." We came from California, which is famous for being somewhat culturally ahead of the rest of the country. We had both lived for many years in the freewheeling -- some might say licentious -- sub-cultures of art and theater. We had friends of a variety of sexual persuasions, and had long ago accepted that people were wonderfully different in their choices of who and how to love. So, we were astonished to discover that this otherwise liberal and welcoming community was engaged in a struggle over adding a clause to its call that explicitly invited the participation of persons of all sexual orientation. The sermons addressed the difficulty some in the congregation were having with the acceptance of active homosexuals and the phrase "body spirituality" was at that time used to refer primarily to issues of sexuality. We wondered what the fuss was all about, but stayed to hear more.

The term "body spirituality" continued to be used with regard to gender issues when, soon thereafter, the Spirit and Sexuality mission group was created. According to Seekers Handbook for Mission Groups, members of this group "meet out of a personal desire to work with how our sexuality is an expression of our body-spirit nature -- how our sexuality can feed our spiritual lives." Last year, Pat asked us to look once more at these issues of gender identity and incarnation, as he revealed his own transgendered character. And a few weeks ago, Sterling stood at this pulpit with a Valentine for Jesus, suggesting that perhaps it doesn't matter what kind of body a person lives in when it comes to love and relationship.

Issues of gender identity were raised in a different way a couple of years ago, with respect to the question of how to raise boys to an ethic of peace and respect for others in a world that glorifies violence and exploitative sexuality. This conversation continues, and while it is not explicitly referred to as body spirituality, it is certainly part of our ongoing struggle to understand what it means to be incarnate as male or female. I think that the women's retreats and the Circle of Stones class in the School of Christian Living of a few years ago, and the men's retreat last fall, are also part of that conversation.

When the Bodyspirit mission group was formed about two years ago, body spirituality gained a wider, deeper meaning. The formation of this new group introduced a new focus, a new way of thinking about the relationship between body and faith. Its call centers on dance and movement, inviting members to use these "to serve Seekers Church and build the body of Christ, sharing the healing power of dance, in worship, teaching, ritual and celebration" as well as in their own lives. Its issues are not specifically about gender, but about how our ways of thinking and living and worshipping keep us from living fully in our bodies, as though our bodies were somehow disconnected from our minds or our souls. The Body/Spirit mission group reminds us that we belong to the body of Christ, the Word made Flesh, and that God made the physical world and called it good.

Alongside all of this, some of the older members of the community have spoken from time to time of the physical diminishments that come with age. We talk about death and illness, and the spiritual lessons embedded in our physical experiences of breathing and eating and drinking and walking and seeing and hearing. All of this is "body spirituality," and all of this is good.

There is, however, one area of body spirituality that has not -- to my knowledge -- been talked about much in Seekers, and never -- at least in the last eight years -- been mentioned in a sermon, except perhaps in passing. This area is one that cuts across virtually all ages and genders, and is one that probably pre-occupies many more of us, more of the time, than we are willing to admit. The issue is body image.

There may be a lucky few who are completely satisfied with the way that they look, or who have finally learned to accept themselves exactly the way they are. But almost everyone, at least some of the time, is dissatisfied with some aspect of how they appear to others, or to themselves in the mirror. It is easy to pretend that this is largely a women's issue -- and it is true that women are judged more obviously on the basis of looks -- but I have seen too many men grow beards or shave them off, change their hairstyles as they take on new roles and responsibilities or begin to grow bald, or dress carefully for an important event, to pretend that image is not as important to men as it is to women.

And the aspect of body image that is the source for many of the deepest shame, is that of body size and the ways in which we judge and cause pain to ourselves and one another based on the numbers on a scale or on a tape measure or on a clothing label. We are all familiar with the reports that associate fatness with higher incidences of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other medical problems. Fearing our own mortality, and properly concerned with avoiding illness, we have come as a society to associate "thinner" with "better." But "better" is a two-edged sword, and what may begin as advocacy for healthy living becomes a matter of moral judgment, a weapon for oppression and marginalization.

First, a story:

Late last summer, a number of women gathered to sew a quilt for a new baby in the community. As has been noted frequently, this has become something of a tradition around here, and is often an opportunity for deep sharing while we put our hands to a communal task. This time, one of the women brought with her some clothing that she had bought for herself, wanting to ask the others for advice on which suited her better. This became the occasion for an impromptu dress-up party, as all the women tried on jackets and coats, exclaiming over the fit or style or color. All except me, that is -- because there was no way that I could possibly have worn any of that clothing. I was too fat.

As this buzz of friendly activity wore on for what seemed to me an eternity, I felt more and more excluded. Eventually, people began to return to the task of quiltmaking, and one of the women -- who has always been, in my experience, quite slender -- commented that she thought she needed to lose some weight. She had gained a few pounds, she said, and described herself as "too fat." At this, I could take no more. Angrily, tearfully, I blurted out, "How can you say that, standing here next to me?" As invisible as I had felt the moment before, now I felt completely exposed and vulnerable. I went on to say that given my other physical problems, and my history of losing and gaining weight over the last thirty years, the size I am now is probably the size I will always be, and that I was no longer willing or able to further jeopardize my physical or mental health by dieting.

The other women listened, and some nodded as I spoke. Afterwards, we talked quietly in twos and threes as we worked. Almost everyone came to me and told her own story of struggling to love her own body; of obsessively weighing herself every morning to make sure that she wasn't getting fat; of refusing to have this or that food in the house, lest she eat all of it at one sitting; and of constantly monitoring everything she ate. The hardest thing to hear came from Margreta. As is obvious to all of us who love her, she has lost a lot of weight in this last year or so, and it cost her a lot of effort to do so, and she is understandably proud of her accomplishment. As I sat talking quietly with her, later that morning, she looked at me with tears in her eyes as she said, "There is a person at my job who refuses to continue being my friend, now that I am no longer fat. Will you still be able to be my friend?"

Of course, I will love Margreta no matter what size she wears. And I want to be clear that I am not judging her nor anyone else in the decisions that they make about their own bodies. What I am saying is that we, our society, have created divisions and hurt that ought not to exist. Margreta ought not to have had to ask that question. We have so divided ourselves from our bodies that eating or not eating is no longer a matter of hunger but of morality. Some of us, at least some of the time, cannot look to forward times of communal celebration, and fear meals that others cook, because we might be tempted to eat something we "shouldn't." We who shrink from using the word "sin" for lying, cheating, stealing, abusing drugs or drinking too much may describe a piece of chocolate cake as sinful. I would like to suggest that this either trivializes the concept of sin, or raises chocolate cake to an unreasonable level of importance.

But, you may argue, isn't it unhealthy to be fat? Aren't there demonstrable increased risks of heart trouble, stroke, and other ailments? Isn't it our duty to keep ourselves as physically fit, as healthy as possible? Isn't tending to the health of our bodies a proper way of honoring the living, incarnate God? The short answer to all this is "yes." But the long answer, the deeper answer, is "no, not exactly."

Part of that "no" lies in studies -- which I won't go into in detail here -- that show the decrease in longevity due to obesity to be no more than 2 to 3 years, on average. Furthermore, as some articles I have read point out, no study has been done which controls for or even documents the negative health impact of years of yo-yo dieting, of years of eating a diet which is low enough in calories to create weight loss that it is also deficient in important nutrients. In their quest for thinness and social acceptability, some people resort to weight-loss procedures and products such as gastric bypass surgery, liposuction, the recently discredited Phen-Fen, and other medications that pose more serious and immediate risks to both longevity and quality of life than does the obesity for which they are promoted as a cure. There are many in our society who would rather be dead than fat.

However, while this line of argument has been essential in my own journey of re-education and self-acceptance, it is the social and personal issues which are more important to us as a faith community that values inclusion as a primary aspect of its call. Again, I'd like to tell a story out of my own life. The details are particular to me, but the general outline is not uncommon:

When I was about fifteen, I weighed 115 pounds. My sister, who was four years older, and exactly the same height, weighed 110 pounds. We both wore the same size clothes. Such was the pervasive hostility to fatness, even thirty-five years ago, that I truly believed that I was seriously overweight. Throughout high school, I routinely skipped lunch, in a vain attempt to lose those five pounds. Because the world in which I lived taught me that to be fat was to be ugly and unlovable -- not simply a normal human variation, but a sin -- I grew to hate my body, to hate my self.

After the birth of my first child, I probably weighed about 130 pounds. This was still a not unreasonable weight for a person of my height -- and as a seventeen-year-old mother in an abusive relationship I had a lot more serious things to worry about than my looks -- but of course I believed that I was extremely, unattractively and unhealthily fat. This was somehow easier to focus on than the real issues of my life; so again, I tried to lose weight by skipping meals. This time I succeeded all too well -- the term "anorexia" hadn't been invented yet, so nobody seemed to notice that I was clinically depressed until I tried to commit suicide. Even then, my family was complimenting me on regaining my girlish figure.

This began a pattern of gaining and losing weight that continued for over twenty-five years. I had no idea how to eat normally, how to even tell if I was hungry or not. I would relax my vigilance and gain weight, then go to extreme measures to lose it, all the while hating my body, hating my self. No matter how much or how little I weighed, I saw myself as fat. There were always another five or ten pounds to lose, and then, I told myself, I would be happy. Body image and food became the subtext of my life, no matter what else was going on. Each time through the cycle, I gained a few pounds more than I had the time before. And each time, I vowed it would be the last. Fat was the enemy, and I was fat. Because forty and sixty and even eighty pounds ago I believed that I was fat, today the description fits. This soul-destroying journey was not a search for longer, healthier life -- it was a futile attempt to conform to the increasingly impossible societal demand to look a certain way.

So, why have I told you this terribly personal story? Is it simply an extreme form of Lenten confession, a public purging of my inner demons? Probably, partly that. But I believe that there is a word in the story for this community, a healing word for a world in which it is still acceptable to make fun of fat people. Those who would never dream of making anti-black, anti-Jewish, anti-gay jokes or comments seem to have no problem with anti-fat prejudice, often turned against themselves. Fat people in our society are routinely passed over for jobs and promotions, even when better qualified than a thin competitor. Fat people are made to feel ugly, unattractive and unacceptable at the beach, the gym, and other places where revealing clothing is the norm. Fat women, in particular, have few stores in which to buy clothes, and in those stores the clothing is often unappealing, poorly made, and expensive. To be fat, or even to perceive oneself as fat, is for many a source of deep shame, a secret shame that they cannot share even with those closest to them. Stereotypes of fat people as lazy and lacking in self-discipline are so pervasive that my own doctors repeatedly urge me to start an exercise program, even when I have just told them how much I already exercise. They simply do not believe that I am telling the truth, because I am still fat. I have heard and read countless similar stories. I have heard fat people wish for a life-threatening illness, AIDS or cancer, as long as it would make them thin.

The psychological and spiritual damage of our communal obsession with thinness distorts not only our social relationships, it contributes to a sense of separation from the body's own knowledge, a denial of God's declaration that all of creation is good. About four years ago, I decided that I would never again diet, never again count calories, portions, grams of fat, or restrict my eating in any way. In my years of dieting, of socially sanctioned anorexia, I had become obsessed with food. I carefully considered whether I could eat oatmeal for breakfast or a sandwich for lunch, or spaghetti for dinner, because my so-called eating plan only allowed a certain number of starchy foods per day. I ate when I was not hungry, and didn't eat when I was, because the eating plan prescribed both times and amounts of food -- skipping a meal, even if I wasn't hungry, was as forbidden as eating more when I knew I hadn't had enough. I would plan a whole week's worth of meals, worrying and revising almost moment by moment, fearing that I might be invited to someone's house for dinner and I wouldn't be able to control what was served. I ate things I didn't like because they were allowed, and never felt satisfied. For a long time I came to dread Seekers potlucks because I would be confronted with a buffet full of foods that I couldn't allow myself to eat, no matter how hungry I was. I thought about food all the time.

As part of my still-unfinished task of learning to love and accept myself as I am today, rather than in some imagined someday of conforming to societal standards of physical acceptability, I had to break my obsession with food and learn to listen to my body's true hungers. One by one, I gave myself permission to eat as much as I wanted of any given "forbidden" food. For a while, I did eat whole bags of Oreos and potato chips, pints of ice cream, loaves of bread. Astonishingly, though, I did begin to learn what my decades of will-power had never allowed me to find out -- that I can trust my body to know what it needs, and that chocolate cake is just a treat, not the devil's temptation. As I took each food off the forbidden list, and allowed myself to eat my fill of it, it lost its malignant power. I no longer craved what had previously been rigidly controlled. I began to live in harmony with my physical needs, instead of fighting them every step of the way. I could eat like a normal person, enjoying food, eating when I am hungry, without guilt, without shame. Sometimes, when I am very busy, I even forget to eat, and that is OK, too.

That what I ask of you today is simple but not easy. It is profoundly counter-cultural. I ask that you consider your own prejudices about fat, in yourself and in other people. Consider that in asking a fat person to celebrate someone else's weight loss, you are inviting that person into self-hatred. Consider that in commenting on how much a person eats -- even as a joke -- you are suggesting that fat people must always be trying to lose weight. Consider that in calling some luscious dessert "sinful" you are spoiling your enjoyment and that of those around you, loading God's good gift of pleasure in food with guilt and shame.

Today I stand before you, a short, fat woman with curly, brown hair and blue eyes. I am learning to understand that word, fat, as just another descriptor, no more loaded with value judgments than any of the other descriptors are. As with other spiritual disciplines, some days that is easier than on others. I am beginning to know that I am not my dress size, nor a number on a scale or a tape measure, and that God loves me in body, soul and spirit. We all fall short of God's perfect glory, one way or another. And in the mystery of grace, God loves us anyway, regardless of the shape we are in.

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