Human Bodies

Whenever someone starts shouting on my Facebook wall, typically the question arises to determine the best way to respond. Most of the time, no response is given or a simple, quick, snippet reply with the hope of smoothing over the conversation so as to not spin out of control. Avoiding drama is key, despite the feeling to post something along the lines of what is believed, which ends up controversial (no matter what!) because nearly everything that is believed by me is against the culture.

Was something different expected? I ponder.

Jesus said He came to divide mother against sister and brother against friend (paraphrasing). He brought the sword and He told me (again, paraphrasing) that the world would hate me like it hated Him. He was crucified which is known for being the worst form of human torture in all the human civilizations. Romans perfected torture; it was something which was studied in order for a person to feel the most amount of human pain possible.

Alas, there has not been the experience of forty lashes with barbs ripping out muscle and skin. Nor has there been a beating to the point of death. The feeling of acute pain to the most-possible human degree has not transpired, either.

Thank goodness the world has not (yet) hated me like it hated Him.

That aside, my body and I are very ‘one.’ Humans beings are natural creatures and ‘one’ with nature because humans are nature. Humans are creations, just like a tree. Humans creatures are not machines, no matter how hard the effort is tried.

When reverting to Catholicism, the first Catholic book read was St. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle. The second: Man and Women He Created Them: A Theology of the Body by John Paul II (pope and saint). It was the first ‘theological’ text picked up and boy, was it a doozy. A book club began for accountability purposes to get through the hundreds of pages of text. It was read in the span of one month.

Right in time for a graduate level course taught by Christopher West at the Theology of the Body Institute. A fuller and in-depth understanding of human bodies surfaced from these pursuits.

Today human beings believe falsely the mind is who is the human: “I think therefore I am,” said Descartes.

To extrapolate his philosophy widespread as this culture has allowed is to mislead his original intent. Humans are body and soul; there is no difference between the “I” that is Ashley and the “I” that is Ashley’s mind and the “I” that is Ashley’s body and the “I” that is Ashley’s soul. My body is Ashley. Ashley is my body.

To cut into the body of Ashley is cutting into Ashley.

To carve out parts of the body of Ashley is carving out parts of Ashley.

The war on human bodies has only begun.

Today’s false and negative beliefs about the body are merely in the foundational root stages of a massive fight which is to ensue this millennia as technology progresses into the material space of human bodies.

Ashley is her body. Ashley’s body is Ashley.

Psychologically, for a human to carve, cut, shape, and control the human’s own and personal body is to enslave or master the human self. Where there is a master, there is a slave. The self is enslaving itself.

The mass genocide of innocent humans in mothers’ wombs is only the beginning. There are fifty-six million bodies worth of blood crying up from the ground. Pollution, capitalism, and over-population are small matters compared to the nature’s blood of fifty-six million natural bodies crying from the ground to Creator, pointing blame at human’s progressive mind and false philosophies.

Philosophers these last couple centuries have been leading the culture toward slavery. The belief that a woman deserves the right to own her body is a belief that the woman should be the master of her body; yet the woman is not master of her body because the woman is her body.

Note: the most important distinction which needs to be rectified this millennia is that people are their bodies, not masters of their bodies. Otherwise, as we move towards the heights of technological progress, we will decrease and become slaves to progress.

Perhaps some people want to become cyborgs; want to insert machinery into their bodies; want to change their genitals to match their feelings; and yet, in the progress of mastership over the body, the mastership only harms the natural world because humans are nature. Humans are not machines no matter how hard the effort is tried.

Today’s meditation:

“Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: ‘I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:12-14