Daniel 13:5-63So back to the mantra: "the pictures do not show too much. They do not show enough."
It's this last part that trips me up. The soul is not a "part" in the body. Rather, as the body's principle, the soul animates every part of the body. Under "normal" circumstances--where the woman is married to a man--this same body can communicate one of the greatest gifts possible, the gift of herself in lifelong devotion to being a wife and mother. It is possible, though of course only "in a certain sense," to see the soul through the body.
[For the sake of "normalcy," this is not to the exclusion of the possiblity for the same body to communicate a complete gift of self to God and to others without being married]
Part of my hesitancy comes from experience. If we were looking at a piece of art (even a photograph), which tastefully depicted a woman in the nude, would we feel the need to say, "this doesn't show enough?" My guess would be probably not. And why not? Because the art as a medium opens us up to a deeper reality. It puts our eyes at ease and allows us to take in all the wonders of the body. It is obvious that pornography as a medium obscures the deeper realities of the human person; it forces the observer to exaggerate and distort the very being of this historically unique woman.
Now please do not get me wrong. I'm not at all advocating picking up pornography in order to try and redeem the medium by a one-sided optimism: "if I look at this the right way it can make everything ok." The form of the damn thing (yes, I said damn and meant it...it's not from God) is such that it can never be something else than a terrible perversion. I think really for me, it's knowing that there is a real person depicted in the magazine, who on account of her body, automatically gets associated with the "trash" part of "trashy" magazines. This is not to remove whatever responsibility the woman has to respect her body and the souls of those men who look at her. I just think I err on the side of seeing the woman as Susanna--in need of the benefit of the doubt in a culture that has more than likely taken advantage of her.
So to both the woman in the magazine and John Mayer, I think the body can show more than enough and is just as big as you are.
2 comments:
Are you just trying to say that we should be careful when we say the "not enough" mantra--careful not to make others think that we're finding the soul in the body, etc.?
der eez 2 troofs:
1. The soul does not "run" the body, as if the soul were some type of motor. This is against John Mayer's dualism. For him, the body is getting in the way, but it's the only thing-for now-the soul can "use" until that someday when he can fly or whatever. I mean, maybe I'm getting John wrong and he's really talking about how it just so happens that the human soul by nature determines a body that is kept in boundaries: I'm not everything else. And I have 2 arms instead of 3.5 and one nose instead of 6. John just could be upset that he doesn't have wings.
2. The other "troof" is that in this life, the body is the only thing the soul has to express itself. The "in a certain sense" is that the body can point to the soul's transcendence. The woman in the magazine, doesn't have anything else to "use" to express herself except her body. But the "except" part is no trifle. This same woman's body even when used for ill, is still capable of expressing something beyond.
eh no?
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