I have some smart, thoughtful Facebook friends, one of whom recently posted this comment: "You are not your body."
That's worth thinking about.
My blog's title is "My Body, My Identity."
But is all or part of my identity independent of my body?
I think so. On the inevitable day when people's bodies stop functioning forever, my Christian faith tells me there's an essential, core part of all humans' identities that lives forever, without inhabiting the aching, decaying globs of flesh that a "Star Trek: The Next Generation" creature called "ugly bags of mostly water."
But whether a soul exists independent of a body -- and if so, what does it look like and how will other souls recognize it? -- is a question of faith that will be completely resolved only after earthly existence is over.
For now, I live on Earth, I inhabit a body, and my body's height, weight, shape and condition all influence my answers to what Parker Palmer once named as the core questions of identity: "Who are you?" and "Whose are you?"
For me, it started in toddlerhood. That's when people started to notice I was tall for my age. And because I could speak in sentences by my first birthday (or so my mother told me), adults always assumed I was much older and more mature than I truly was, and that was reflected in their high expectations of my behavior and cognitive function.
As I grew up -- a head taller than my classmates for the duration of grade school -- something else became apparent. My features lacked the blue-eyed, blonde, small-boned cuteness of most of my female cousins.
When we talk about stereotyping and pigeonholing, we assume that strangers are the ones who take one look at a body and decide what kind of person inhabits it. In my case, it was my immediate and extended family that stereotyped me. I'm not angry at them. They were behaving as humans behave. But I must acknowledge that, among the people who loved me, as much as among the strangers who surrounded me, my body defined largely who I was, and the expectations for me were communicated in dozens of subtle ways. I was "the smart one," whose bodily awkwardness was supposedly compensated by my love for reading and learning.
And don't get me started on clothing. "Tall girl" pants were almost impossible to find in stores in the 1960s and 1970s (unless we shopped in Chicago), so my pants were always "high-water." (Today, I get my pants by mail order, though I can find nice tops that fit me at thrift stores.)
From the beginning, my body was my identity. And I eventually had to seek a therapist's help to locate the dimensions of myself, and the assets, that had nothing to do with my too-big body or my intellect. I had to learn, from a professional, how to look at myself in a way other than how family, friends and strangers looked at me.
It's an ongoing process. There is no once-and-for-all answer to Parker Palmer's key identity questions: "Who are you?" and "Whose are you?"
My current journey, to improved fitness and mobility, is part of the ongoing process.
And I imagine that, once I shed my "ugly bag of mostly water" for good, my soul -- whatever it looks like -- will continue the process for eternity.
That's worth thinking about.
My blog's title is "My Body, My Identity."
But is all or part of my identity independent of my body?
I think so. On the inevitable day when people's bodies stop functioning forever, my Christian faith tells me there's an essential, core part of all humans' identities that lives forever, without inhabiting the aching, decaying globs of flesh that a "Star Trek: The Next Generation" creature called "ugly bags of mostly water."
But whether a soul exists independent of a body -- and if so, what does it look like and how will other souls recognize it? -- is a question of faith that will be completely resolved only after earthly existence is over.
For now, I live on Earth, I inhabit a body, and my body's height, weight, shape and condition all influence my answers to what Parker Palmer once named as the core questions of identity: "Who are you?" and "Whose are you?"
For me, it started in toddlerhood. That's when people started to notice I was tall for my age. And because I could speak in sentences by my first birthday (or so my mother told me), adults always assumed I was much older and more mature than I truly was, and that was reflected in their high expectations of my behavior and cognitive function.
As I grew up -- a head taller than my classmates for the duration of grade school -- something else became apparent. My features lacked the blue-eyed, blonde, small-boned cuteness of most of my female cousins.
When we talk about stereotyping and pigeonholing, we assume that strangers are the ones who take one look at a body and decide what kind of person inhabits it. In my case, it was my immediate and extended family that stereotyped me. I'm not angry at them. They were behaving as humans behave. But I must acknowledge that, among the people who loved me, as much as among the strangers who surrounded me, my body defined largely who I was, and the expectations for me were communicated in dozens of subtle ways. I was "the smart one," whose bodily awkwardness was supposedly compensated by my love for reading and learning.
And don't get me started on clothing. "Tall girl" pants were almost impossible to find in stores in the 1960s and 1970s (unless we shopped in Chicago), so my pants were always "high-water." (Today, I get my pants by mail order, though I can find nice tops that fit me at thrift stores.)
From the beginning, my body was my identity. And I eventually had to seek a therapist's help to locate the dimensions of myself, and the assets, that had nothing to do with my too-big body or my intellect. I had to learn, from a professional, how to look at myself in a way other than how family, friends and strangers looked at me.
It's an ongoing process. There is no once-and-for-all answer to Parker Palmer's key identity questions: "Who are you?" and "Whose are you?"
My current journey, to improved fitness and mobility, is part of the ongoing process.
And I imagine that, once I shed my "ugly bag of mostly water" for good, my soul -- whatever it looks like -- will continue the process for eternity.
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