Amy Taylor
Where can we turn for help? Where can we go to learn the sacredness of the body? Where might we discover practices that can give shape to a way of life that honors the body? How can we resist the dishonoring of our bodies and intervene against the dishonoring of the bodies of others?
We can begin by looking to our neighbors. Everyday, often without any grand theories to guide them, ordinary people honor their bodies and the bodies of those around them. The family that makes time to share a meal together, in the midst of everyone's busy schedule. The man who gives his beloved a daily bath, when his beloved is living with AIDS and can no longer bathe himself. The teacher who brings music to her classroom and invites her students to dance. The teenage who gives up smoking. Women who gather in a church basement to learn techniques of self-defense. Workers who organize so that they can insist on regular breaks from repetitive manual labor. Lovers who reverence each other's nakedness. If we look, we will see all around us people honoring the body in ways that are sometimes simple, sometimes playful, sometimes heroic. But in all of these gestures and activities, however spontaneous or improvised, the sacredness of the body is encountered and clarified.
To use the sacred, of course, is to imply that we can turn to religious traditions for wisdom about the body. But what do religious traditions have to offer the lover, the worker, the caregiver, the child?...
- Stephanie Paulsell, author Honoring the Body: Meditations on a Christian Practice p.4-5
www.AmyTaylor.com
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| Amy Taylor sitting in shadow and light. Isn't this the way, the mysterious way of enlightenment: explore the darkness within so the darkness without has no powers within your body? - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 10.16.13 photo: Jon Apostol |
Where can we turn for help? Where can we go to learn the sacredness of the body? Where might we discover practices that can give shape to a way of life that honors the body? How can we resist the dishonoring of our bodies and intervene against the dishonoring of the bodies of others?
We can begin by looking to our neighbors. Everyday, often without any grand theories to guide them, ordinary people honor their bodies and the bodies of those around them. The family that makes time to share a meal together, in the midst of everyone's busy schedule. The man who gives his beloved a daily bath, when his beloved is living with AIDS and can no longer bathe himself. The teacher who brings music to her classroom and invites her students to dance. The teenage who gives up smoking. Women who gather in a church basement to learn techniques of self-defense. Workers who organize so that they can insist on regular breaks from repetitive manual labor. Lovers who reverence each other's nakedness. If we look, we will see all around us people honoring the body in ways that are sometimes simple, sometimes playful, sometimes heroic. But in all of these gestures and activities, however spontaneous or improvised, the sacredness of the body is encountered and clarified.
To use the sacred, of course, is to imply that we can turn to religious traditions for wisdom about the body. But what do religious traditions have to offer the lover, the worker, the caregiver, the child?...
- Stephanie Paulsell, author Honoring the Body: Meditations on a Christian Practice p.4-5
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| Amy Taylor by Jon Apostol standing back to camera sun to the body in front of a window. August 3, 2013 |
www.AmyTaylor.com
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