Holy Alive: Appreciation & Appraisal Issue 00

Description

How should we feel about our bodies?

This is a question neither the Church nor the Culture have competently answered. Within each domain— Church and Culture—there are extremes of either neglect or exploitation. The Church neglects the body by disdaining its value and exploits the body by exhausting it through the demands of extreme devotion. The Culture neglects the body by resigning it to ambition-less acceptance and exploits it by flaunting an unrealistic and surface-level standard of beauty and attraction. That’s why this article provides  a means of evaluating what we’re doing with our bodies. Rather than asking “Am I pleased with the way I look?” or “Am I healthy?”, we’ll evaluate our bodies by the following criteria:
* How does my body help me show love?
* How can I use my body to reveal God?
* How can I use my body to cultivate pleasure?
* How can I use my body to invite belonging?

And, in all these categories, we’ll learn to ask these questions for both ourselves and for others; meaning, am I personally healthy? And, am I a healthy contributor to the wellbeing of those God has entrusted to my care?