Body Sculpting

I have started to till the land for my garden and I am a little sore. It is almost as if my body is protesting the work and telling me to just get in the car and drive to the grocery store. There are vegetables there ready for the picking.

We are victims of and servants to our bodies. This is in part the argument that Hervé Juvin makes in his book The Coming of the Body. In the introduction Juvin states, “…that body has established itself over and above our individual and collective choices. It has taken power,” (ix). Our longevity of life, our emphasis on appearance, our values focused on health and the way we treat our body are all relativity new innovations, or so Juvin states. We are free to chose our own skin color, our hair color, our sexuality, and the way we look – the body has demand our focus and attention.

I think Juvin has a point and it is a good one. I do think we focus on our bodies. Our bodies are an economical commodity and a marketplace all of its own. Yet on another level I wonder if we focus on our bodies enough.

We control and shape our bodies so much that they are no longer real. Our bodies are fabricated. What if we went for a day or two without deodorant and just dealt with the smell? What if we spent time writing letters with a pen and paper (gasp!) and allowed our arm to get sore? What if we sat through a worship service and listened to the music (good or bad) and the sermon (good or bad) and let our cheeks grow numb? What if we accepted our impending baldness and the growing softness of our belly? Then the body will still be a part of our lives, but not in the same way.

Juvin does make this point that we have controlled our bodies to a point where suffering and pain are seen as completely negative and void of any redeeming values. He calls us to suffer with our bodies, if only for a little bit. I agree. So, you can stop suffering through this blog post and get off your butt and walk to your next thing. Go outside and get dirty and then don’t shower. Write me a letter about how much you hate writing letters. But please, keep your deodorant!