truth comes through the body

Life is a conversation. Disagreement and agreement are ways of conversing. Only when conversation is stopped, either because someone refuses to speak or refuses to listen, does death cast its shadow. And that death is the essence of sin because the essence of sin is silence.

This belief is why I write a blog. It’s why I write fiction and erotica, too. It’s why I draw – another form of conversing. Which brings up the point that there are many forms of conversing. Which brings me to the title of this post.

Crimson and Clover Over and Over

My own life has taught me the most honest conversation comes from the body. Many people will disagree with that statement on the face of it, but consider how easy it is to lie with words and hard to lie with your body. Have you ever been with someone who said they weren’t shy, but at a party, you knew they were? Have you ever slept with someone who said they loved you, but in bed, you knew they didn’t?

Things like lie detectors rely on the fact that it’s much harder to make your skin lie than your mouth. Those adept at reading body language discern the truth from lies for this very reason, and do you realize how many different interest groups are seeking better understanding of body language, even a science of it? From police and psychologists to fiction writers. Don’t I love the author who can get across this sort of complexity.

Sure, the body can be overcome. Not altered but managed, which seems to be the essence of a great deal of religious morality, from Christians to Buddhists. Overcoming the body? I’ve never been clear on the rationale: you mean, avoiding pain by avoiding pleasure? What’s the point?

Nevertheless, the ability to overcome the body has become so identified as the mark of spiritual athletes that religions believe the failure to achieve it, and certainly a lack of interest in achieving it, is virtually a modern disease.

Where You Begin is Where You End

But it seems to me, if you pursue the goal of overcoming your body, you’re pursuing self-creation rather than self-discovery. Isn’t that more like hubris than humility? I mean, it challenges Creation as somehow deficient, as potentially made better by you.

I know, you want to mention something here. I can see your shoulders tightening, see you leaning forward, your eyebrows flexing with thought. I’m pretty good at reading body language. Wait, you say, what about the Fall? Isn’t trying to overcome yourself only about a return to the real creation, God’s Creation, since we made such a bad show of it the first time?

Don’t know, but I’m beginning to doubt it because, true or not, that myth had to be made, you see. If we each looked to our own bodies for what seemed most true and valuable and desirable, we’d risk anarchy. We’d risk conflict on a Girardian scale (see my posts on Rene Girard for more), where everyone’s fighting for his right to party. That leaves culture bereft of the self-sacrificers it needs for unity.

Culture is built on religion and religion is built on self-sacrifice. Some few or many must accept the limitations others don’t. Those who don’t sacrifice offer palatable reasons to the self-sacrificers, whatever works given the religion’s mindset: you’re heroic, you’ll be rewarded later, you’ll avoid pain, you’re evil and have all you deserve.

If you think this sounds a little Nietzschean, well yeah, a little. I’ve always liked his questions. His answers leave a lot to be desired.

The Sound of Silence

These thoughts came to me recently as I wrestled with the Catholic Church’s many imposed silences.

For example, you won’t see Catholic leaders discussing women’s ordination anymore. Pope John Paul II silenced debate on that. He didn’t just disagree and say his decision was final and let the chatter go on. He told Catholics the world over they must not mention it again on pain of discipline. Did the same with certain voices calling for sacramental inclusion of committed gays and lesbians. No Jesits for the sodomites.

And there are other silences occurring in my life — with family members, with fellow bloggers who don’t like my words, with friends who expect more compromise from me.

I’m guilty of many things, but I’ve never been guilty of silence. I’ve poked a few bears and hope you will, too. I hope you’ll go make some noise.