Transcript

Hi.

I'm Emily Stimpson Chapman, author of The Catholic Table.

Welcome back.

Today in our discussion about the book, we're going to reflect on our bodies, the bodies we put food into, the bodies we struggle with, the bodies that are often much more difficult for us to love than, say, a piece of chocolate cake.

During our first couple of discussions, we talked about how the sacramental worldview in general and the Eucharist in particular changed my understanding of food.

The more I learned about the Catholic faith, the more I came to see food for what it was, a sign of God's love and a foretaste of the Eucharist.

That discovery made me stop wanting to count calories and fat grams, stop starving myself and eat some cheesecake.

But there were still a few hurdles I had to overcome, starting with my deep desire to be thin.

Back then, I thought the value of my body was determined by its size and shape, which was totally understandable.

After all, that's the message that comes at us from the culture 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

That's the message I'd been hearing my whole life, that my body's worth and dignity was the sort of thing you could measure.

You know, it had a concrete value that directly correlated to the numbers on a scale.

Coming to see the meaning of food, it didn't automatically change that flawed understanding of the body.

It took something else.

What it took was the theology of the body.

Now for those of you not familiar with the theology of the body, you should go read another one of my books.

It's called These Beautiful Bones, and it will fill you in on the beautiful teaching of the churches, which was given to us by Pope Saint John Paul II during his papacy.

For now though, what you need to know is that the theology of the body is a way of understanding the sacramental worldview that we talked about earlier in the series.

So it's an anthropology.

It's a study of the human person made in the image of God.

It shows us the dignity, the beauty, and the meaning of the human body, a dignity and beauty and meaning that has nothing to do with the body's size and shape and everything to do with the truths about our creator and us that it reveals.

As I talk about in The Catholic Table, I happened upon these teachings of John Paul II's just weeks after I had my realization about the Eucharist.

A friend and I had wandered into a Catholic bookstore, and there I saw a book called The Theology of the Body by the then current pope, John Paul II.

Now remember, this was in 2001, okay?

So almost nobody outside of academic circles had ever heard of the theology of the body, so I definitely hadn't heard of it either.

But as soon as I saw the title, I was intrigued.

Uh, despite my new understanding of food, I was still struggling mightily with my body, so I figured if the pope had something to say about it that could help, I should read it.

I bought the book, took it home, and immediately began reading.

It was dense, and it As any of you who have ever tried reading the theology of the body, you know what I mean.

But the more I read, the more I realized that the same sacramental worldview I had been encountering in Aquinas and John of the Cross and G.K.

Chesterton was being presented to me in the theology of the body, only John Paul II was using the human body as his starting point.

In other words, what John Paul II was demonstrating was that just as the stars and the seas and the mountains and the plains bore witness to God, so too did the human body.

But that's understating it.

Uh, it's more accurate to say that far more than the stars and seas, mountains and plains, the human body bore witness to God.

Other things reflected the maker.

The human person was made in the image of the maker.

Foundational truths about God and man were to be found in every human bone and every human muscle if we just looked for them.

So, what are those truths?

Um, we could spend another six-part series and more going over them, but for our purposes today, we're gonna stick to the two most foundational truths in the theology of the body.

And the first of those truths is this: our bodies are not something apart from the real us.

Okay?

They're not a shell or a husk.

They are not a carrying case for our soul like we have for our iPhone.

Our bodies are us.

So my body is me.

Your body is you.

As human beings, we are a perfect union of body and soul.

The two go together and make us who we are.

So the soul animates the body.

It gives it life.

And the body expresses the person.

It makes the innermost truths of us visible in the world.

So in practical, simple terms, people know we're happy when we smile and sad when we cry.

They know we're angry when our faces grow red with rage, and they know we're in love when they see us walking arm in arm with our beloved.

Our bodies speak a language all their own.

But our bodies don't just reveal our emotions.

Our bodies tell the story of us.

They tell who we are, how we've loved and suffered and worked.

They make our joys and our sorrows visible.This isn't always as easily evident when we're young, but as you get older, trust me, at 43, my body is becoming one big story of me.

Uh, every gray hair I have was earned during the seven months we struggled through our adoption process for our son.

Um, on my abdomen are the scars of five different surgeries, one that was done to save my life and four that were done trying to conceive new life.

I've got laugh lines aplenty, which I have no problem with, but I've got some wrinkles on my forehead that appeared while we renovated our house.

Uh, then there are my hands which are marked by about half a dozen scars, all earned while cooking a little too quickly for the people I love.

My body is becoming like a book.

All of our bodies are.

The trick is to make sure we like the story they're telling, that it's a good one.

Okay, so that's the first fundamental truth The theology of the body tells us, that the body expresses the person.

The second truth is that the body expresses God in its ability to love and serve and create.

To give itself to another and bring life forth in the world, the body reveals a God who is love, who did serve, and who is the creator.

It reveals a God who is a life-giving communion of love and who calls us into an eternal relationship of love with him.

Every time we use our bodies to die to ourselves and serve another, every time we use our bodies to create life or nurture life, we image the God who gave us natural life and died upon a cross to give us supernatural life.

So what does any of this have to do with my eating disorder?

Well, as I explained in the book, one morning not long after I finished reading The Theology of the Body, I was at my gym on Capitol Hill doing some exercise or other that I hated, um, I think it was lifting weights.

And over and over in my head, I was urging myself on with the reminder that I have to control my body, so I have to control my body.

I have to shape it and sculpt it and make it all that it can be.

And then suddenly, in the midst of that, a different thought broke in.

No, you don't, it said.

You don't have to control your body.

You have to care for it.

That was the theology of the body talking, and it was a paradigm shift for me.

Control, after all, is about power, right?

It's about managing a problem.

Caring, on the other hand, is about love.

It seeks to tend to and honor a good.

Controlling the body and caring for the body are two entirely different things.

One treats the body like a problem, the other treats the body like a gift.

Now, the world tells us that our bodies are problems, right?

They're weak, they hurt, they suffer, they grow old, they die.

When you see the body that way, the natural response is to try to control it, to avoid all of those problems by trying to avoid suffering, aging, and dying, or, you know, at least avoid the signs of all that for as long as possible.

But that's not what the theology of the body tells us.

That's not what our Catholic faith tells us.

They tell us that our bodies aren't problems, they are us, and they are great gifts given to us by a good and loving God.

So, that's what I began focusing on, how and why God gave me this great gift.

Obviously, he didn't give me this body so I could look great in a bikini or hot in a pair of jeans.

That is not why God has been handing out bodies since the dawn of creation.

No, God gave me this body so that I could be me, so that I could do all of the things that are Emily.

So reading, and writing, and cooking, and painting walls, and organizing closets, and I love organizing closets, and making basil and parsley grow.

He also gave me this body so I could love and serve others, so I could cook for friends and babysit their children, so I could take food to the hungry and clothes to the homeless, so I could hug my husband when he's struggling and hold my baby close throughout the day, feeding him, and rocking him, and showing him with every gesture of my body how precious he is.

Why else did God give me this body?

He gave it to me so I could show the people I love how I feel, so I could smile, laugh, cry, take their hands into mine and process aloud ad nauseam all the crazy thoughts going on inside my head.

He gave me this body so I could appreciate the splendor of his creation, so I could hear birds singing and see trees blooming in the spring, so I could feel the wind in my hair and the sun on my face, so I could see the sun setting and rising, and snow falling, and rain pouring, and in all of that, see his goodness and greatness.

God also gave me this body so I could worship him, so I could kneel in his presence, sing his praises, speak his holy name, and receive his holy body into my own.

And lastly, he gave me this body so that somehow, mysteriously and so imperfectly, I could make him known in this world.

So that as I suffer, sacrifice love, serve, nourish, and nurture life, I could help others see a glimpse of the God who suffered and sacrificed, who loves and serves and nourishes and nurtures life.

He gave you a body for all the same reasons, to be you, to love and serve others, to express yourself, to revel in creation, to worship him, to image him.What do you do with a gift like that?

You certainly don't measure its value in a number on a scale.

You don't spend hours each week doing things you hate to mold it and manipulate it into a shape that it's naturally not.

You don't starve it.

You don't look at it with disgust.

You don't treat it like a problem.

No, you care for it.

You feed it right and move it enough so that it can do all the loving and serving God is calling it to do.

You give it rest and sleep so that it can recover from a hard day's work.

You spend time each morning admiring a flower or feeling the air on your face.

You get it to Mass and put it before the one who made it.

And most of all, you give thanks for it.

You praise God with every step it takes and every good action it performs.

You glorify God in your body by using your body the way God meant it to be used.

In sum, you treat your body like the temple it is: not as an idol to be worshiped or a demon to be combated, but as a holy place to be tended with love.

That is what the theology of the body tells us about our bodies.

That's the way it calls us to treat our bodies.

And when I finally understood that, I was able to start fully enjoying that cheesecake like God meant it to be enjoyed.

I was able to accept my curves and find a joy in my body that I never imagined I could find.

Now, does this mean I still don't look in the mirror and wish I could shed a few pounds?

Of course not.

I've had plenty of bad days over the last 18 years that have made me feel less than thrilled with my body.

Right now, I'm carrying around an extra 10 pounds thanks to the fertility drugs I've been on and a baby who is intent on not letting me exercise as much as I used to.

I call it my baby weight.

Um, but when I do start to lament the loss of half of my wardrobe, I try to think about all the beautiful things my body is doing right now, how it is pouring love and comfort and strength into another tiny human body, how it's serving my family, how it's learning to show love in a whole new way.

And when I do that, I can't help but praise God for it.

My baby thinks my body is beautiful because my body is his home.

It makes love incarnate for him.

My husband thinks my body is beautiful because I've entrusted it to him as a gift, because I love him with it, and comfort him with it, and strengthen him with it.

Compared to all of that, like what does, what's it matter that a couple dresses don't fit?

When you are struggling with the image staring back at you, try to do something similar.

Go over every single thing your body can do and every single act of love you perform in it.

Think about the smiles, the laughs, and the hugs, the cooking, the washing, the writing, the dancing, the building, the growing, the teaching, the nursing, the praying, and the worshiping you do, and give thanks for all of it.

You are beautiful.

You are a temple.

Never forget that.