Dueling with Dualism
(parts of this article have been published in ‘The Furrow’ in November 2011, under the title “Touching our Humanity”)
I have felt a weariness in me around the church’s attitude towards body. A weariness that comes from holding a deep sadness, as well as an anger and confusion.
Such weariness is the antithesis of what I experience in my work as a massage therapist. In this space I experience body as sacred and it’s here I have learned that as I touch the body of another I am also touching spirit.
A couple of years ago I felt it was time to stand back and I guess review all that I had learned in my years as a massage therapist. In other words I wanted to listen to and process the wisdom of my hands. So I cut back on my work and as a means of supporting my reflection, I chose to do an MA in Leadership and Pastoral Care All Hallows College.
As part of the course I wrote a dissertation in which I looked at body and touch in the context of the Christian story. I began with the intention of finding a way to express what I have learned through my hands. I finished with a sense of being solidly grounded in a faith story that for many years I have felt only marginalised in. This was the gift of that dissertation – not the results or the graduation but this – a solid ground for every aspect of my being within the faith story that had been handed down to me.
Quite a bit of academic research was involved where I looked into holism as well as the history of the separation of spirit and body or what is called the dualistic divide.
This notion of a dualistic divide is way more significant for us all than we may recognise. It is where mind and spirit are understood to be opposing elements and is a doctrine that goes back to pre-Christian times. Something I had not fully grasped is the extent to which we still live out of such a mindset and the impact this has on our perception of pretty much everything. Nor had I realized that despite being someone who has advocated a holistic approach to well being for many years that I still on some level continued to operate out of a dulaistc mindset.
To be honest it felt mighty disturbing to acknowledge this, at the same time it helped me understand a life long struggle – a struggle between an innate wisdom that has been guiding me towards wholeness and unity while my very mindset was, lets say, almost trained to partition or separate – the effect has been a bit like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Such interior struggle does little to nourish and much to torment mental emotional and physical well being.
So how does a dualistic mindset effect our thinking? Our way of viewing the world? Well for starters we frame things as either/or when we could frame things as both/and. Things become either right or wrong, good or bad rather than recognizing a flow of both. When we reflect on our experience out of a dualistic framework we split and polarize everything; right/wrong, good/bad, spirit/body, faith/reason, black/white, male/female, sacred/secular, you/me, rich/poor. We have learned to see things in opposition to each other, where one side is seen as better than, as less than and always as other than. There is a violence to this for as well as being limiting and uncreative it is also harsh and judgmental for if I am not right I am wrong, if I am not good I am bad. We can only experience this as damaging. Into these segregated categories we place almost everything : spirit-body, male-female, black-white, traveller-settled, homosexual-heterosexual, and with this segregation comes also a dangerous judgement – for when one is better than, the other becomes less than – so begins the divide and the separation of ethnic groups, of gender groups, of cultures, of communities. It’s a framework that is actually fragmenting us into pieces – both collectively and individually –.
In terms of a faith story or a spirituality does such a mindset enable us or actually restrain us from tasting the freedom and the mystery of what we have been offered? I reckon its the latter.
Here’s the thing – The foundation of the Christian faith is absolutely holistic. There is nothing divisive or segregational in the stories we read in the gospels, a dualistic framework is actually incompatible with the Hebrew mindset of the new testament. And as far as the historical Jesus was concerned, mind, body and spirit interpenetrate seamlessly. There is no fragmentation of any aspect of self.
In the heart of these sacred stories we learn that nothing is in competition, there is no division of the spiritual and material, everything is inextricably intertwined and not in competition. Different absolutely but not opposites. If we read the gospel stories of the healing ministry of Jesus, this therefore is the context. In consciously choosing to develop a “both/and” way of looking at things instead of an “either/or model”, I immediately experience a sense of landing into myself very solidly, finding in this a deeper reverence and also a kindness.
It is with this reverence and kindness that I can truly meet both self and other. I really believe that true compassion can only be born and sustained when we re-integrate ourselves; that it is from here can we begin to get a taste of the tender and complete compassion that Jesus embodied with grace and ease.
So what got tangled up into our sacred stories that has hindered us from knowing the tender depths of being wholly loved? What has limited our ability to embrace our full selves? Well, there has been quite a few things historically that have impacted. It appears that the separation of spiritual and material worlds began seeping in from the earliest days of Christianity. Gnosticism is a belief system that hugely influenced Christianity from very early on. In this world-view the spirit was seen as somehow better than the body and the goal in life was to aspire towards the spiritual realm as far away from one’s body and the earthy material world as possible. There are many accounts of how the early church really struggled to sort out the ‘Good News’ from such influences because in essence what the good news is proclaiming is the antithesis of gnosticism.
Yet for many of us who may not have even heard of the term gnosticism or even understood dualism there’s something here that is more hauntingly familiar then we might like it to be. A depreciation of the body for example was certainly a part of my religious education when growing up and continues to hold an influence on Christianity today. Where do we see such a model in the gospel stories? No where. Jesus exampled a model of wholeness and health. His very way of being in the world, his very way of being in each and every day gives us a blueprint that unifys the whole being, body, mind and spirit, to meaningful relationship with God and with one another. When I really let this in, and know in the depths of my being that this is our true inheritance, I feel such a relief and a smile bursts up from my soul. There is a huge sense of ease and a gratitude as I recognize that the holiness is in the wholeness.
Another massive influence that has disturbed our ability to really expand into being whole and integrated comes down to us through the philosophy of Rene Descartes in the 16th Century. He saw body and soul as separate and distinct substances, perceiving the soul as disembodied and containing intellect while the body had no intelligence or wisdom and was somehow lower and less acceptable. It was Descartes who likened the body to a machine.
Sadly this image of the body as a machine became a metaphor that has hugely influenced the consciousness of science and technology. The body was allocated to medicine and science while the soul became the domain of the church. This legacy of separation continues to effect us doesn’t it? Even today the discussions are on-going about the church’s role being purely spiritual – yet in a more holistic mindset or framework such discussions would make no sense for all experience includes both spiritual and material.
We have lost so much by maintaining an “either/or” way of looking at the world. In the context of a global picture as well as within a personal interior journey. It has stunted or limited our ability to embrace and enjoy the full implication of our faith story. The struggle has been in the interpretation of the Source rather than the Source itself. It hasn’t supported a deepening of our connection with the Divine and exactly because of this it hasn’t supported an integrated understanding of our very humanity. The God of our sacred stories nudges us towards wholeness. Now that’s something to be delighted about! It seems to me that anything less than this is unbearable. The whisper comes, inviting us to expand into the fullness of ourselves, it is I think the only way that we can hold with love, with justice and with truth all that we have been entrusted with.