If you go to the self-help section of a
bookstore, any bookstore, you see row upon row of books, all promising another
method to change or fix how you think, feel or imagine. It is as though we were
certain that our lives would be great if only we could think feel or imagine
better than we do now. Even Orthodox titles can hold a certain promise: Our
Thoughts Determine Our Lives (says a book on the teachings of the Elder
Thaddeus). But all of this can easily be misleading. For first and foremost –
we are our bodies.
We have a
very strange relationship with our bodies. On the one hand, we spend large sums
of money making them look good and we want them to feel good. Americans spend
more money on health care (on average) than any people on earth. We eat like
royalty (or overeat like royalty) and indulge sexual appetites in a manner
probably unknown at any prior time. But for all that, we think that we are our
minds. We have bodies, but we are our minds.
I saw a
quote recently, falsely attributed to CS Lewis that said: “You don’t
have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body”.
In truth,
you are a body and you are a soul. What is difficult, if we understood, is the
separation of the two. That separation is not natural (it’s called “death”). It
is also incorrect to identify the mind with the body. Most of what we popularly
mean when we say “mind,” is nothing other than the “sound” of the body.
Emotions and desires are very much things “of the body.”
Orthodox
Christianity is deeply physical, almost embarrassingly so in our modern
culture. We enter the Church and immediately begin crossing ourselves, bowing
and kissing. Before a word is spoken in the service, it is very likely that the
priest or deacon is already walking about swinging incense. And the words
themselves are sung rather than spoken, which gives language more of a physical
than mental form.
What is
going on?
Human
beings are not angels. The Tradition refers to angels as the “Holy Bodiless
Ones.” This rather non-angelic title (it sounds like the title of a sacred
horror film) is a reminder that the Tradition thinks that the most remarkable
thing about angelic beings is that they have no bodies – they are “pure
intellect.” But, by the same token, the Tradition rightly understands that
human beings are the “Ones with Bodies.” We are dirt. Before we are anything –
we are dirt. We are dirt that God formed and we are dirt into which “God
breathed.” But we are dirt. St. Gregory of Nyssa famously said, “Man is dirt that
God has commanded to become a god.” But we are still dirt. And if we fail to
remember this we fail to be truly human.
Christ’s
approach to His disciples seems to have started with the most practical,
physical aspects of faith: “Go, sell what you have, give to the poor, and come
and follow me.” And He said this before He said anything else to them.
He
commands His disciples to give their stuff away. He does not tell the disciples
to first love the poor or forgive them. That command comes later – but His
initial approach is quite practical and physical. For the Rich Young Ruler who
eagerly wanted to know what more he could do for his salvation, this very
non-mental action was too much. He turned away from Christ.
But as we
turn towards Christ, it is important that we turn our bodies. The rite of
Baptism in the Church is dominated by physicality. It begins with the candidate
facing West (the place of darkness – with no slight of the West intended).
There are exorcisms and renunciations of the devil culminating in that most
physical gesture – spitting! The candidate then turns to the East (for Christ
is called the “Orient from on High”) and unites himself to Christ. He is then
commanded to “bow down and worship Him!” And a prostration is made.
It must
be noted that the point of Baptism is made in a most physical manner – we are
immersed beneath the waters – physically plunged into the death and
resurrection of Christ! Prayer is equally physical. Orientation and posture
(standing, kneeling, etc.) are considered essential in the fathers, as is the
making of prostrations. Evagrius tells us that the “soul will follow the body.”
If we would humble the soul, we do so by humbling the body.
The
disciples began by giving. They did not wait until they felt like giving – they
gave. And they gave radically. If you would follow Christ, then get physical.
Give things away – including your money. As you begin to live your faith like a
human being (truly physically) you will
begin to see the transformation promised and described in the Scriptures. I
remember a quote from Mother Teresa: “If I had not picked up the first child, I
would not have picked up 40,000.” She followed the sure human path to the
Divine Life.
By Fr. Stephen Freeman
Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2014/11/25/lets-get-physical/
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