Divorced From Myself, Part II

Though I am not prone to separations of heart and head or of divisions of love (see previous post), there are other "schisms of self" that have divorced me internally. One of the most powerful schisms I've experienced was separation of soul and body.

It seems to me both society and church have, wittingly or not so, lent a hand to this type of schism. The church has a tendency to see the world as "physical" and "spiritual" - which is worked out in many ways, but particularly in the belief that "we are inside our bodies." I've mentioned this before, but this belief is more Greek than Hebrew, which again, doesn't make it bad, just not necessarily the "gospel truth."

Add to this the consumption of our bodies by society - women's bodies as well as men's bodies these days - and we slowly schism between body and soul. I have never known one "beautiful" person - as society defines it - that hasn't had to spend hours maintaining and enhancing their beauty. And for all their effort, they rarely have time to create depth of soul.

I'm not saying that it doesn't happen - please don't hear that! I am saying that beauty as defined by society is often a quality defined as time consuming - hours at the gym, hours cooking healthy food, hours highlighting your hair, hours doing your hair, hours bleaching your teeth, hours tanning your skin, hours, hours, hours...("of course it's all natural!").

For me, I saw this as a choice - and I have friends who saw it (see it) this way too. I could either develop my "soul", "spirituality", whatever you call it OR I could develop my body or image. I chose to develop my "spirituality", but I learned a few months ago that I made a mistake.

I am my body.

I am my mind. I am my emotions. I am my soul. All of this is me.

It was gnosticism that divided the world into physical and spiritual. Perhaps they were right, but for what it's worth, the Apostle Paul didn't think so.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/09/2004 08:23:00 PM