Sex Summer 1995

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There is a paradox in writing about embodiment. In some ways living an embodied faith means putting down our academic journals and cooking a banquet instead. It means moving out of our heads and into our senses. "Come to your senses." That is the call.

I am not suggesting that there is not an intimate connection between the words we choose and our fleshed experience. Indeed, the Christian faith is a celebration of the dynamic between Word and flesh. But to offer nothing more than a cerebral argument is to locate truth in the head rather than in the whole body, which belies the very embodiment in question.

So in an attempt to offer a more embodied approach to the subject of embodiment I will quote some poetry as well as argue some philosophy, but first I will tell a true story about my own body.

When I was a teenager, I believed that the way to become more holy was to allow the spirit to control my mind and my mind to control my body. This was the teaching of the church to which I belonged. Spirit was good; flesh was bad. Mind over matter was the way of salvation. We discovered truth through reading the Bible. It was clarified by thinking.

This framework suited me because I was told I was a clever girl and I didn't like sport anyway. I might have subscribed to this dualistic creed for many more years if I had not developed an eating disorder.

For about four years I was a compulsive eater. I ate in one of two ways: either I ate according to the calorie counter or I ate everything in sight. I was either stuffing or starving, fasting or feasting. Food brought no pleasure. I hardly tasted it. It was the object of my addiction.

Eating disorders are basically of three types: anorexia, where sufferers are not able to ...

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