I’ve been holed up by myself in a hotel room for the past two days, on a personal writing retreat gifted to me for my birthday, by my no-less-than-all-around-amazing-husband. Other than one phone call about a missing doctor’s note, and another text about a chore requirement, it’s been like they don’t even need me.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the way we need one another. And how this need always takes place in the bodies we inhabit. For me, this manifests in ways that may or may not be relatable to you— cleaning and nursing and cooking, talking and caressing and holding, sitting and listening and praying. That’s not an exhaustive list, but it speaks to some of the big ways I have to give of myself in and through my body on any given day.
Do you see the what I just wrote there? “…some of the big ways I have to give of myself…”
It’s striking how quickly we tend towards negatively framing the giving of ourselves to others. Even if we believe things like sacrifice and selflessness are positive virtues, we probably still think of the act itself as less than desirable, though maybe with an ultimate good at its end.
What if I could see all the ways I use my body to meet the needs of others, or just to give to others, as something inherently good in itself? What if I could see it as the beautiful intention of my life?
A lot of what I’ve been reading and musing on lately has been gently pointing out that the way we so often think about our bodies and ourselves is flawed. Or, picture it this way: if what God intended for us as human beings is an inflated balloon, then our current way of seeing ourselves as human beings is that same balloon, deflated. We’re missing out on the fullness of life.
Somehow, we’ve turned it all upside down. We think by starting with ourselves, looking within ourselves, loving ourselves first, we’ll find ourselves. We’ll be happy.
I’ve been reading Theology of the Body for Beginners: Rediscovering the Meaning of Life, Love, Sex and Gender, which is an introduction, or a sort of distilling of Pope John Paul II’s classic work, Theology of the Body. The pope’s work is an astounding treatment—so lovingly, thoughtfully, and theologically done on what God intended when he made us as persons with bodies.
“Man can discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself.”
John Paul II works this claim out in a few areas that are typically seen as negative or repressive: sexuality, singleness, celibacy, marriage, and submission. I have never heard thinking in these areas so positively expressed with such life-giving clarity. If you don’t believe me, I’d encourage you to read it for yourself.
Ultimately, he claims that the purpose of our life is to love as God loves— by giving ourselves to another. This is what God does, and it is what he made us to do. It is entirely other oriented.
It’s a remarkable claim that might sound frightening to our increasingly modern ears. We want to be free. We believe freedom is our highest good. We are individuals who must be ourselves, expressing ourselves in ways that feel good to ourselves! But then, we also want to belong. Everywhere you look it is evident that humans long to belong. How do we reconcile these desires?
What is perhaps surprising about the way the Christian church has historically understood the purpose of our lives (as giving of ourselves to another— to God and to other people) is that it answers these current and deeply felt human desires: to be free and to belong. But what God means by freedom is the freedom to choose between what is good and what is not, it is not the freedom to decide what is good and what is not.
When Jesus says, “If the Son has set you free, then you are free indeed,” he is speaking about the freedom found when we surrender our lives to him, and find who we were made to be in all our full humanity. It’s the freedom to choose to be an inflated balloon or not. We are not forced.
I’m not here to endorse door-mat living. These two days on my own have been an example of the way my own tanks need and experience re-filling. But I think of this refilling as a gift, not a right.
Jesus is my champion here. He is the embodiment of self-giving love. One striking example that has always been instructive to me in thinking about self care is how Jesus handles a crowd of needy people after John the Baptist is killed.
Jesus is clearly grieving, or dealing in some way with the news of John’s death. He goes away by himself to a desolate place. But the crowds follow him. He sees them, and Matthew records that Jesus “had compassion for them and cured their sick.” He must have been with them for awhile because evening comes, and everyone is hungry. The disciples suggest the crowd be dismissed and head to local villages to find food, but Jesus insists that the disciples feed the crowd, which of course they can’t. So Jesus asks for whatever they have, which is not a lot. He blesses it, and gives it back to the disciples, and the rest is history (if you believe in these recorded supernatural events as history— which I do!).
If Jesus life and words are just pithy statements, then we can abandon ourselves to our favorite Instagram influencers without a second thought. But if his life and words are true, then suddenly my way of understanding myself has a whole new orientation, and a whole different story to inform it.
I can’t help but think that the way we view our bodies, and the way we live and love in them is at major turning point right now. It would be easy to be worried about the direction we’re headed. But I think we keep holding out the light.
I’m 43 years old this week, and I’m thinking about the way I want to move forward in a more beloved way of embodying the love God has for me and the way I pour it out for others.
I am praying the same for you.
Happy Birthday, dear friend! So glad you are enjoying margin to ponder.
Such deep thoughts to ponder and very similar to a place that I find myself in. Earlier this week I was considering the idea of self care and how we typically look at it as a shopping excursion with friends and a nice lunch or a mani/pedi...a little me time. But whenever we see Christ looking for alone time it seems he was always heading into desolate places and praying. Not quite the same thing, is it?