Dear Friends,
I hope this letter finds you well, and by “well” I do not mean, “in perfect health.” What I mean is, I hope your soul is well. I hope that somewhere in the midst of life, you sense you are loved. And I hope that knowing that gives you the ability to wake up each morning and face the day. So I hope you are well, friend.
I am well when I lean into my own belovedness, and not so well when I do not. This centeredness is something I am continuously work on, in much the same way that rest is something I continuously work on.
As I embark on this exploration of the body and theology, I’d like to start with body size. Before I do, I ask you to pause for a moment and consider your own feelings towards your body.
I invite you to close your eyes and tune in to your body. How does it feel right now? Are you hurting or achy anywhere? Are there parts of you which want to be stretched? Are you warm, or cold, or just right? Are you sitting or standing or lying down? Are you comfortable?
Now that you’ve tuned in to your body, with your eyes still closed, zoom out a little bit and look at yourself as though from outside, but still as you. What do you like about your body? What do you dislike? What parts of you do you try to cover? Why? Which parts of you do you leave exposed? Why?
Go ahead and come back into yourself and, with a deep breath, open your eyes.
Consider for a few minutes what messages you have been told (or have told yourself).
What are some things you often tell yourself about your body?
When you are clothes shopping, what messages guide your choices?
Has anyone ever made a comment about your body that felt good? What was it?
Has anyone ever made a comment about your body that made you feel bad, or violated?
Has anyone ever commented on your clothes? How did that make you feel?
Do you typically feel as though furniture is “just the right size” or even “too big” for you?
Have you ever tried to sit in a chair where the arms pressed too tightly against your hips? Have you ever started to rest on a piece of furniture and had it creak or break in response?
As you consider this, I invite you, right here and right now, to give yourself a hug before continuing.
(For this next portion of the letter, I’ll be speaking from the lens and with the language of Christian theology.)
The first idea I’d like to tackle is whether body size is connected to character and morality, or whether it is morally neutral.
If you’re like me, you grew up hearing two conflicting messages about God’s attitude towards your body: one was that your were fearfully and wonderfully made, and the other was that it was your job to “steward” your body well, since “it is the temple of God.”
While the first part of this sentiment is that you are perfect just as you are, the second is enigmatic and comes with a warning. “After all,” you are bound to wonder, “What exactly does it mean to ‘steward’ your body well?” “But also,” you might tell yourself, “be warned; if you don’t ‘steward’ your body well, you aren’t honoring God.”
Interestingly, the immediate textual context for 1 Cor 6:19-20 shows that it is speaking about sex (a topic we can broach another day) rather than what you eat, how you dress, or whether or not you exercise. Furthermore, the scripture actually says “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you,” which is a gift from God, and you are not your own. One implication of this is that you are precious, your body is valuable, and this creates a paradigm you can use when making decisions about what you do with your body (sexually).
You might also have been raised on a steady diet of those Proverbs which suggest you should not be a sluggard. These verses may have been used to encourage (cough, cough) you to work hard. In the religious circles I used to inhabit, if a person was thin and/or fit-looking, they were called a “hard worker.” In my mind, this meant the opposite was true, too— if a person was fat, then they were not a hard worker, therefore they were sluggish, and therefore, according to Proverbs, they were wrong/bad/sinful.
Of course, the verses in Proverbs are simply talking about what happens if people don’t work and have nothing to do with the size of their bodies. Some scholars see Proverbs as a book which offers people paradigms in strong metaphorical language which they can use to navigate the difficult moral choices life continuously throws their way; therefore, it shouldn’t be read as a bunch of isolated moral codes, but rather taken as a series of mini worldviews. In other words, it’s probably not super sensible to take individual Proverbs and lob them at people as commands.
One of my interpretive guidelines when it comes to scripture is to ask whether a given interpretation brings life.
Which interpretations of these various scriptures involving bodies give people life? Which ones bring shame?
What do you think? Is it evil to be fat?
I’d like to gently point out that asking this question in this way suggests an opposing statement might be true: that it is ‘good’ or ‘righteous’ to be thin.
I’d also like to point out that if you do decide that thin is good and fat is evil, you will also need to demarcate the line between the two. Which bodies will you use as your standard “good-sized” bodies? What evidence will you use to back up your claims about which sized bodies are “good” and which ones are “evil”?
Do you really think God sorts people into categories depending on their body sizes? I mean, if God does, then this means we’d better expand our ideas about sin, too. It would have to be true that it’s a sin (or something like a sin) for your body to be above a certain size, right?
Do any of us really have any theological grounds to claim that certain bodies are morally superior?
Could it be that the size of our bodies is actually morally neutral?
Could it be that God loves us no matter what our body size is?
Could it be that we are actually fearfully and wonderfully made, and our souls can know that full well— without our bodies having to shrink?
If our body size is morally neutral, what are the implications of letting God/religion/spirituality off the hook in matters of body size?
For sure it means that we can’t use “God” or “being God’s temple” or “being hard workers” or “not being lazy” as excuses for judging our own, or one anothers’ bodies, right?
It also means that we will have to take a long, hard look at some of the other claims we’ve attached to our beliefs about body size, like that thinner people are healthier and live longer or that thin people are beautiful and desirable while fat people are not. We’ll have to look at whether or not these claims have any scientific or historical grounds, and also suss out where they come from (hint: quite a few of our ideas about body size are rooted in white supremacy). We’ll leave the continuance of this discussion for the next newsletter.
Until then, friends, I hope you find yourself examining your core attitudes, biases, and long-held beliefs about body size. I hope you tune in to your thoughts when you look at yourself in the mirror, or when you pass someone of a different body size at the grocery store.
After all, I’m pretty sure God isn’t concerned about body size— are you?
With much love,
Carissa