Why is the Theology of the Body important to you?

A friend asked me to write on this, and my first response was "heck yeah!," and my second response was..."oh no...that's a whole new book!"  There is so much in the Theology of the Body, and often it is so misunderstood.... Since I have written on this extensively (Theology of the Body, Extended: The Spiritual Gifts of Birth, Impairment, and Dying, The Gift of Birth: Discerning God's Presence in Childbirth, in the background (or foreground!) of many articles, and certainly a deep part of the current book I am writing, Why You Shouldn't Kill Yourself: Five Tricks of the Heart about Assisted Suicide), I think I will do the less wordy thing and go for bullet points instead.

But first, a little candor: I am also a theologian, and part of my "stealth mission" is to introduce John Paul II's anthropology and the potential within it to a wider academic audience. The Theology of the Body is more appreciated in ecclesial circles than some academic circles.  Mind you, good people can disagree on the value of a given argument (get a Thomist and Augustinian in a room and watch them go), but I honestly hold that most of the people who tell me they don't like the Theology of the Body haven't read it, or have encountered some twisted stereotype of it that has badly informed their reading.  We need to be clear what the audiences are about: that God created human beings male and female as a form of incarnational revelation, a sign that we best perceive in relationship that points to our destined relationship to God. The Fall skewed our ability to see and live out this sign, but it remains the reason why humanity was created--and we can see it, with God's help. The audiences are rich (and occasionally difficult), but truly the tip of the iceberg.  We live in a world that is desperately asking what it means to be human any more.  There is wisdom here to answer that question.  So the Theology of the Body is important to me, but I think it could be important to everyone, academic or not.

OK, a few bullet points about the importance of the Theology of the Body (or ToB):

• Revelation and sacramentality.  So many efforts theologically to recover a thick sacramentality of the human being...and John Paul II's is one of the very best.  The idea that before there even existed the scriptures, there existed the human body--this is a radical notion that changes the way we see and treat the body, not as a machine or vessel or functionary, but as the visible sign of God's revelation in the world.  Many Christians want to say the body is important.  John Paul II's work reminds us why.  p.s. I find it very interesting that many of my Protestant friends and colleagues in Theology (I went to an ecumenical divinity school) are deeply and favorably intrigued by this notion.  It could be a point of ecumenical dialogue....
• John Paul II's gift to spiritual direction.  I am trained as a spiritual director, and so much spiritual direction is informed by the groundbreaking work of Ignatius of Loyola, the saint who founded the Jesuits and famously proclaimed that we must learn to see God in all things.  The Theology of the Body is about seeing as well, precisely, it is about perception of the divine in human bodies and their relationships.  There are so many insights in ToB that work brilliantly with spiritual direction: the meaning of shame, fear, self-giving, receiving, God in the everyday, vocation, avocation, discernment of spirits, the work of the Holy Spirit.... OK, I'll admit, it's probably the next book!
• It lends itself to a theology of childbirth.  You guys.  Women make up half the human race and we basically have no theology of childbirth.  How did that happen?  I won't "go there" right now, but although John Paul doesn't say much about childbirth, he opens the door to it and all the possibilities are right there.  If the man and woman are created and told to be fruitful and multiply, and the body exists as sign, then doesn't childbirth serve as an extension of the sign of marriage?  Might it be a form of revelation?  Is that why many women name it one of the most spiritual moments of their lives?
• It helps us learn how to give our dying bodies to God in love.  That is, it teaches us how to die.  Many refer to the law of the gift or the hermeneutic of the gift as the dynamic heart of the Theology of the Body--and there is another word for it, usually applied to Jesus Christ's death on the cross.  That word is kenosis, or "self-emptying."  It is a rich and loaded theological term, but most importantly here, it teaches us how to die.  Death is a consequence of original sin.  But with Christ's redemption, we can approach death as he did--an emptying of the self into the arms of God the Father, a gift originally received and offered back to God.  We simply don't know how to die in our culture--look at the 17 states considering passing laws on physician assisted suicide right now--and John Paul's insights give us a new art of dying (ars moriendi). 
• We are not trapped souls.  We are, each of us, a unity of body and soul.  ToB speaks to this is clear ways, undercutting the gnostic tendencies that still reside in Christianity and the wider culture.  Gnosticism is an ancient heresy that (among other things) held the human being was a good soul trapped in an evil body, just waiting for the release of death.  Well, ToB says clearly we are both spiritual and bodily, and these realities are not opposites.  It is a freeing teaching when absorbed, and brings a lens to what it means to be human that is not what our culture typically holds.  ToB, in this regard, is a medicine to our culture.

There are many other things I could mention (understandings of marriage and sexuality, for example), but I wanted to go with some of the lesser known reasons I think ToB is important, the ones that I think need further exploration.  

ToB is important, more important than some people know.  I encourage you to read it with an open mind and discover for yourself.  I'm here to talk about it anytime.

--Susan Windley-Daoust

*****

This will be a a separate post later, but indeed, The Gift of Birth is now out and available for purchase!  This is a more "popular" treatment of the sign of childbirth for any one who has given birth, plans to give birth, or is working with one giving birth.  Lots of ToB, quite a bit of Ignatian spirituality, and many women reflecting on the spiritual nature of their varied experiences giving birth.  Please feel free to share the news!  Available at Amazon in hardcover and softcover, as well as ebook, and at Gracewatch Media in hard and softcover editions.

A New Book....

Hello. everyone!  My silence is more than being reflective or generally busy.  I have been writing a new book!  (Explains the circles under my eyes too....)

I'm in the final stages of a draft of what I am calling Giving and Receiving Birth: a spiritual theology of childbirth.  I have my spiritual director hat on, and am offering Catholic women a way to reflect prepare for and reflect upon their childbearing as a sign that points to God.  After all, if the body was created as a "pre-given language of self-giving and fruitfulness," (Waldstein) childbirth is a privileged place to reflect upon our life as we participate in the Holy Spirit.  He is, after all, the Lord and Giver of Life.

I address this in some academic depth in Theology of the Body, Extended...but this is angled more specifically to new mothers.  The book is broken into small chapters meant to serve as daily musings on how to "perceive" the spiritual nature of childbirth, stage by stage, with spiritual exercises and reflections.

To that end, here is a very short reflection that I just cut.  (I cut it because it had been covered elsewhere in the book, and better.) It gives you a flavor of the book to come, with more birth stories to flesh things out.  Enjoy... and anticipate more coming!

Preparing to give birth: how can I pray in and through unexpected complications?This is for women who have not yet given birth, but are using this book to pray through their pregnancy.  Although we’ve spent time considering what the signs of birth look like, according to broad patterns, it’s best to be honest: not all births fit the pattern.  Most do, but some don’t.  What do you do then?

Remember the three spiritual keys in the process: 1) Give God permission to work in your life and relax, 2) Cooperate with God’s intention to realize your motherhood through your body now (be ready to give), and 3) Yield to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.  When the birth process seems to throw you a curve ball--the unexpected--it is time to lean on yielding to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

It sounds so easy, but it may not be.  At best these “curve balls” can be confusing and disorienting.  At worst they can be frightening.

Remember these things:
1)      It is wise to ask the Holy Spirit to help your medical team and other supports offer good advice and make good decisions for you and the baby.
2)     Sometimes people pray in a way I call “wrapping prayer”: you ask the Holy Spirit to wrap you and the baby in His protection.  You can imagine this as you like, including being covered in cloak.  You may even bring, or re-purpose, a blanket or shawl to be used in this way, as a reminder.  Scripture has many examples of using clothing as a form of spiritual protection.3)     Often the Holy Spirit is called the Sustainer, and that may be most appropriate now.  Pray, or have your husband or doula pray, for His sustenance and protection.
4)     Listen, or if you cannot listen, have your husband and/or doula listen.  What is the medical team saying?  What are the medical options in moving forward?  You can only make the best decision you can under the circumstances; God and no one else expects any more than that.  You can ask for peace as a sign of a good decision, and often it is given.  But if the decision needs to be made quickly, do it, and leave it in the hands of God.

Whatever happens, God is present.  God loves this child and you.  Whatever happens, that never changes.  He will give you what you most truly need.

Thoughts on the Annunciation....

Happy Feast of the Annunciation!

Part of the text addresses the spiritual motherhood of Mary, and how it is related to the physical motherhood of millions of women. In particular, it addresses what it may mean that Mary received the news of her motherhood with love, not fear, and that resistance to fear may well be a witness not only to her love and trust in God, but her immaculate conception....

The book is scheduled to be released at Easter.  More news as I know it!  Meanwhile, from the text:

...[W]e do know how Mary received the conception and birth of the Son of God: and this gives us all the insight we have about her as a person, and her call to motherhood. That is, she did not give in to fear, and lived out her vocation in utter fearlessness. At the annunciation, being approached by an angel and the Holy Spirit, she asks a simple clarifying question (How can this be…?) and then responds “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.” No flash, no drama, only humble assent. In an age of historical-cultural criticism, we know that the stakes were high for her personally, in her culture: she was betrothed to Joseph but not living with him, and this seemingly illicit pregnancy could result in being stoned to death. Additionally, if it is true that she was dedicated as a child to the Temple as a virgin (as some legends offer), this pregnancy would look to the world like another grievously broken vow. It’s hard to see how anyone in such circumstances would have received this “good news” well.

But the encounter with the Holy Spirit may have assured her and strengthened her to travel 50 miles to tell the other person mentioned in the annunciation, a cousin with another miraculous pregnancy, Elizabeth. And her words are not “I’m afraid,” “I’m so worried,” or even “I’m confused” but:

...My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

for the Mighty One has done great things for me,

and holy is his name (Lk 1:46-49).

That is, her response to Elizabeth’s awe-filled “you had faith” was to redirect Elizabeth’s awe to God: “Look! Look at the goodness of God! Look at what God has done! In me, in Israel, in all the small ones of this world!”

Mary’s acceptance of the pregnancy, the child, and her vocation to motherhood is rooted in a fearlessness that comes from a harmony of body and spirit, and total trust in God. If she was indeed without fear—that psychological consequence of dissociation—then perhaps she saw the birth of her son (whatever that would look like) as work, as effort, as cooperation with the Holy Spirit, but not pain. That is, perhaps she did not anticipate or experience pain because she did not give in to fear, from her acceptance of the annunciation onward. Perfect love cast out all fear.

For Mary, accepting motherhood meant to focus her energy and attention—in her case quite literally and directly—on God, fearlessly and without reserve. This was her untarnished experience of motherhood....

"Unto Us A Child Is Born"

Hello, everyone! 

The ToB Extended book is getting formatted and ready for publication soon (hurrah), and I'm talking to another publisher about a popular presentation of what Theology of the Body could say about childbirth, more of a "spiritual direction for birthing mothers in a book" project.  Life keeps me busy.

In pulling that together, I realized that this 2010 article I wrote on childbirth is available online--but after Feb 17, Sojourners is going to ask you to pay for access (don't blame Sojourners--all online publishers are trying to figure out how to make things work in this dragging economy).  So, if you are interested in reading my earlier thoughts and experiences on giving birth and the Christian life, please, go ahead and read here.


A snippet from mid-article:

....

Of course, there are times when drugs and other medical interventions are absolute life-savers, and we thank God for them. But the rest of the time, I think there are many gifts in a natural childbirth that make flouting current medical convention worth it. And one of the biggest gifts is that natural childbirth helps us realize we cannot do this alone.

We cannot do this alone. Well, isn't that why most of us go to hospitals? Although there can be exceptions, anyone going to a hospital craving companionship for this journey is very likely to be disappointed. I know some women who go to the hospital, get the routinely offered and accepted epidural, and watch TV with their husband or friend until it's time to push. After all, there’s nobody else to talk to, you can’t get out of bed, and there's nothing to do.

When I suggest that we cannot do this alone, I am suggesting that we need something more than medical interventions, as necessary as those sometimes are. When we become, in the fullest sense of the term, new mothers, we are aware as never before of all our relationships and connections -- with the baby’s father, the baby, the siblings, the grandparents, the friends. And through those relationships, we see and step into a calling that God has given us: Being a mother. This child is your son, your daughter. Love this child with Me. Let us all love this child, together. An amazing thing has happened: A child, loved by God, created in God's image and desired for God’s kingdom, has been given to us.

....

Enjoy!

Being pregnant during advent, and hospitality

From the book:

Many people are familiar with the story of Servant of God Dorothy Day (1897-1980), co-founder of the Catholic Worker, a radical movement dedicated to serving the needs of the homeless and vulnerable through depending on God’s providence. As a young adult, Dorothy-- a strong-willed young woman in love and living with a man named Forster Batterham, writing for socialist and communist papers in New York City, and joining marches for women’s suffrage and worker’s rights--found herself pregnant. In fact, she was pregnant for the second time; she had an abortion of an earlier pregnancy by another man. This pregnancy, wholly unexpected since she had thought she was barren after the earlier abortion, she was determined to bear--despite Forster’s objections and her own precarious financial situation. While pregnant, she decided that the baby must be baptized in a faith she wished she could fully embrace herself. She was attracted to Catholicism, sitting in the backs of churches full of people she was trying to stand in solidarity with, the working immigrant poor of New York City--but she hesitated to become Catholic, in significant part because it would mean the end of her relationship with Forster. When recounting this story, Jim Forest, a friend of Dorothy Day as well as her biographer, said “And this birth, the birth of Tamar Teresa, was a turning point, the beginning of her ministry of hospitality. It all began with the hospitality of the womb.”^[1]

---

[1] Jim Forest lecture, March 2002, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota (Winona, MN). Forest’s most recent biography of Dorothy Day is All Is Grace: A Biography Of Dorothy Day, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 2011.

Three of my five children were held in my womb during advent. It's a common experience for pregnant women--a nine month pregnancy does cover most of the year, and the chance of hitting advent is high.  But it's a privileged time to be pregnant and to hear of another pregnancy, Mary's childbearing of Jesus.

So much of pregnancy can be just uncomfortable.  Even painful., sometimes scary.  But there is also something like holding a great secret.  And  the real sense that you are able to nurture and care for your child by doing so little, really--eat, a little exercise, sleep.  It may be the one time in life that living out your vocation given by God doesn't require any real thought or deliberation: at this point, it's simply about providing the other room to be and grow.

This is a note that Dorothy Day's biographer Jim Forest highlights beautifully: Dorothy made a decision to offer her child the hospitality of the womb, and all of her hospitality to the most vulnerable in society began in a concrete way with that experience of making room for a child of God.

So much of the Gospel of Matthew's nativity story is about a lack of room: no room (initially) in Joseph's heart for a miracle child, no room at the Inn, no room in Bethlehem thanks to Herod and a hurried flight to Egypt.  But Mary made room, and we all make room when we embrace a pregnancy as God's work.  And soon enough it will be work: the labor, the raising.  But for a few more days, we get to practice hospitality by simply breathing, eating, drinking, and resting as needed.  This end of advent, let us remember Mary's hospitality, and our own call to hospitality as we understand it in our state of life.  And I wish all of you a blessed Christmas.

Ritual blessings, the sign of the family, and the Theology of the Body

The USCCB made news last year when they wrote and authorized a blessing of the child in the womb.  And this picture of Pope Francis blessing a woman's unborn child quickly went viral:

The blessing is lovely, paying attention to the child, asking for health and a safe delivery, the woman who has now experienced the "joy of motherhood," and the man, who has been "graced with fatherhood."  What is beautiful about this prayer is the reminder embedded within it that the family has been established at the moment of conception.  But what is remarkable is how it expresses that the family is indeed a dynamic sign of love, grace, and joy, within itself but within the play of the economic Trinity as well.  The gift and the giving fundamentally expressed through the family's devotion to God in the callings of motherhood and fatherhood.

While I can imagine a few people arguing pregnancy is not always a joy--it's physically difficult for many--we have to remember that joy is a gift of the Holy Spirit.  It transcends physical realities and may be granted without being fully felt.  It is deeper than comfort and happy ease.

How does this blessing, focusing on grace, joy, love, and protection embody the law of the gift?  Read the full blessing and think about it.  I know I am grateful for this blessing, a sign that points to a sign that points to God's love.  Given how God's love overwhelms every created sign, we need all the reminders and signs we can get.

Childbirth as sign: Childbirth "teaches" receptivity to seeing God's work

So much of whether childbirth is an event to survive or an experience that brings you closer to God through your vocation to motherhood involves our response to fear.  Fear of danger is a legitimate reaction, and it can be protective in a helpful way.  Fear of pain is understandable, because it hurts.  But pain does not necessarily mean something is wrong with the birth: it could mean that something is wrong in the way the mother is giving birth (through physical position, or her psychological approach to it).  The key to embracing the present moment is to not be afraid of the typical processes of childbirth.

The opposite of fear is not so much courage, but trust: trust that God is present and will give you what you need in the moment.  De Caussade illustrates this trust—this ceding of control to fully cooperate with God’s will--in evocative language:

"In the state of abandonment the only rule is the duty of the present moment.  In this the soul is light as a feather, liquid as water, simple as a child, active as a ball in receiving and following the inspirations of grace.  Such souls have no more consistence and rigidity than molten metal…so these souls are pliant and easily receptive of any form that God chooses to give them.^[1]"

These images are, interestingly, some of the same images used in the Bradley method for relaxing the muscles and allowing the uterus to contract and do its work, unimpeded: imagine yourself as liquid, imagine riding a wave, receive the birth of your child and allow it to happen.  In addition, there is at least one other person there helping you focus on accepting and relaxing  through the contractions: your husband (or birth coach).  His (or her) role in this present moment is to attend to your process of opening up: caressing a brow to release tension, checking the laboring mother for relaxed positioning, maybe physically supporting the woman during contractions if she is laboring standing up, and lots of encouragement. 

To be fully present at the time of giving birth is to move into mystery.  And that does take courage.  But more, it takes trust: trust in someone outside of oneself.  And since our primal relationships--body and soul, mother and child, human to creation--have suffered a felt dissociation as a consequence of original sin, trust requires a radical move to embracing God’s will.  Fear is a potent distraction from the call to trust.

As I said in the first chapter, receptivity in prayer is hard to explain and hard to teach.  But giving birth in this manner “teaches” receptivity to the work of God beautifully.  It is a gift, fiery indeed, but a gift nonetheless: it calls our attention to God.  Childbirth as a bodily sign presents the “law of the gift” in an exquisitely designed manner.

---

[1] De Caussade, ch 6.  

Childbirth as sign: we are all in labor

From the book:
The hermeneutic of the gift holds that every life is given the greatest of all gifts: a call to follow God.  If the body is stamped at creation with a pre-given language of self-giving and fruitfulness, the response to the call is to offer one’s life in gratitude to its Source, our loving God. 

The body giving birth gives a woman essential practice in yielding to grace, and the gift of the power of God.  But even more so, it has acted as a sign of the spiritual life: how all souls, pregnant with the Holy Spirit, are transformed by cooperating with the Spirit, letting God make all things new.  That requires putting aside fear, putting on trust, accepting grace and other helps.  That requires allowing God to lead, work within you, and transform you.  Scripture cites the analogy of birth frequently, and whether “pain” is correctly translated or not, the process of birth is one cited as one we all must embrace:

When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world. So you also are now in anguish. But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. (John 16:21-22)

According to John, we are all in labor.  We are all at the point of salvation history where God is pushing through us to the second coming.  This requires attention, acceptance, cooperation with God’s will, and allowing “birth” to happen.  Perhaps the gift of the natural birth process is that it helps us to experience, see and express God’s work in us, as God’s people and as an individual child of God.

What "seeing birth as sign" may tell us about Mary as spiritual mother

From the book:

For Mary, accepting motherhood meant to focus her energy and attention--in her case quite literally and directly--on God.  This was her untarnished experience of motherhood.  So what does this say about the rest of her vocation, as spiritual mother to all humanity?  What does it mean for her to be the spiritual mother?

One of the most famous icons of Madonna and child is the Virgin of Tenderness, the patron of Russia (see image).  The icon, initially written in 12^th century Constantinople, features Mary cradling the baby Jesus near her face as he clings to her.  Jesus gazes lovingly at her eyes while Mary, gesturing to the infant Son of God, gazes serenely at you, the viewer of the icon.  Spiritually, this icon communicates beautifully one of the central tenets of Mariology: everything in Mary’s life was dedicated to leading others to the Son of God.  And that she was given to us, pure gift, as a spiritual mother.  A witness, yes, a sister, yes, a model for Christian discipleship, yes: but the primary relationship between Mary and the people of God is one of motherhood.  Indeed, in this picture, she is holding him up for us to see.  But what a phenomenology of birth shows us is striking: the state of quiet alertness so common to the first hour of birth is the state with which she beholds us.  She looks at us with the mother’s gaze: Mother of God and spiritual mother of you as well.  

 ...

Image credit.