God and Women's Bodies

The current conversation surrounding women’s bodies and how women are to be regarded is becoming more and more disturbing.  It’s a topic that comes very close to home for me, and I want to connect my experience with the emerging theology of unity that I’ve been developing in this blog. 

First, I need to share a bit of my past – not only do I have the usual body image and weight concerns, but I am a survivor of marital rape.  My first husband (now deceased) was an alcoholic who needed to exploit my body sexually just to reassure himself that he was alive.  At least, that’s what my therapist said.  For myself, I can say that I got told what I wanted, and in an effort to be a good and loving wife I went along with things I should never have allowed.  But all of that is in retrospect. 
In the moment, young, newly-married, and determined to make my marriage last forever, I was willing to “consent” to almost anything.  Such “consent” perhaps fell short of full competency, though, and I wish now that I had someone in my life back then to say that no relationship is worth the abuse that I permitted at the time.

I remember wondering one night where God was in this painful mess of a life I was living.  How could a loving God stand by and let this go on?  I was pretty sure this wasn’t what marriage was supposed to be. And in that moment of shame and fear and helplessness I “saw” with the eyes of my heart the gentle face of Jesus in the corner of the room.  The message that accompanied the vision went something like, “I am not far away somewhere.  I am right here.  I do not wish you to live this way.  Neither do I hate him for doing this.  He is as much a victim as you are.  But I will never abandon you.  And you do not need to stay.” 

I wish I could say that my life was transformed that night.  It took time before I was able to leave that relationship, and the next one, while not physically abusive, was deeply mentally abusive.  There was lots of time when God seemed very far removed from my suffering, even though I was ordained a priest, and strove mightily to please “Him.”  The truth is, the immanent, unmediated presence of God is something I’m still trying to comprehend, and for far too long God has been someone far away, sitting in judgment, and I was convinced that nothing I could be or do could ever be good enough.   

But recent history has begun to change some of that.  My husband now is a gentle, wise, deeply caring human being, and I wonder daily how it is that he managed to find me and transform my whole life.  And my sense of who God is and how God participates in human life is gradually changing.  It may well have something to do with the community to which I now belong, which is far more egalitarian than other forms of church I have known.

One thing has become quite clear to me now, and that is that pain and violence, manipulation and rejection are antithetical to the God I am slowly coming to know.  Stories of violence and manipulation may be compelling (witness the popularity of 50Shades of Grey!), and women may still be persuaded to “consent” to acts of exploitation, but such behavior is in no way an expression of genuine love and caring.  In my abbot’s words, “Violence is always a failure to love.”  And that includes the violence we do to ourselves, or permit others to do.  Violence is an expression of distance, of separation, either from the “other” to whom we do violence, or from our true self whom we would never permit to be harmed if we were conscious of that self.  The God of Love is here and now, incarnate in human flesh, and will never abandon us.  Given enough time and reflection, I think I can come to understand that truth.  I hope others will as well.