the secret gnostics

"You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body."

This quote, attributed (probably falsely) to C. S. Lewis, is the best summary of American Evangelical Dualism I've found.

Yes, we are physical, but that's only temporary.
Yes, we have a physical existence, but that's our "mortal coil" which must eventually be shuffled off in order to find freedom.
Yes, we appear to be physical in nature, but that's the very residue of original sin, the simultaneous evidence and petri dish of depravity.
Yes, we have physical bodies, but we would be holier without them.

If you were raised in an American Evangelical church, these statements probably don't sound that absurd to you. To tell the truth, they still don't sound absurd (or even outrightly false) to me.

But they are false.

If they are true, God declared something good that was not (Gen 1:31).
If they are true, Jesus became sinful on account of being human (John 1:14).
If they are true, the apostles were irresponsible in their priorities (James 2:15-16).
If they are true, it's kind of an insult to refer to the Church as the Body (1 Cor 12:12-27).

And if you were raised in an American Evangelical church, I hope you know immediately that these things are absurd and outrightly false. They cannot be.

We deny, even adamantly reject, these obviously-heretical ideas. But we all the same embrace, even promote as essential truth, teachings that stand on the same logical basis.

We say that the desires of the body must be not only kept under control, but disregarded and discounted.
We say that the position of the body has no influence on the quality of our prayer.
We say that the shape of the body causes sin.
We say that the actions of the body are meaningless except when connected to deep, fervent, and above all pious affections.

I wish I could believe those things. They are nice and comfortable thoughts. They cut out the necessity to look at and understand a part of myself which, despite being the most immediately obvious to everyone around me, is still mysterious to me. They allow me to leave it a mystery because it is inherently bad, sinful, etc, and to engage with it would be to fraternize with the enemy.

Yes, my body is my enemy.

Imagine my shock when I realized that, not only do I have a body, I am embodied. And not only am I embodied, but I will be so for eternity... that is, if I believe that stuff about "the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting."

This is also when I realized that this makes me really uncomfortable. It is engrained in the way I see myself and the world to think that the physical and emotional is lesser, the spiritual and mental is greater.

I am one of the Secret Gnostics. Our heresy is so deeply hidden within ourselves that we ourselves don't see it.

But now I've seen it.

Can I even read all of those parts of the Bible that talk about "the flesh" as referring to anything other than my body, anymore? And what about all of those statements? Those things I've always believed about the desires of the body, the body and prayer, modesty, and the use of physical action? Thats 20+ years of thinking to re-think.

The hardest part is this: my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
And this means that I should not only be grudgingly reconciled to my physical nature, but joyful in it.

I was glad when they said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the LORD!” (Psalm 122:1)

We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
the holiness of your temple! (Psalm 65:4)

I can no longer be a Gnostic, Secret or otherwise.

hello again.

I ought to be cleaning my room right now. It has not been cleaned in a Lot of Days.
I ought to be cleaning my inbox right now. It has not been cleaned in a Lot of Months.
I ought to be reading something edifying.
I ought to working on my embroidery project.
I ought to be researching for my thesis.

Buuuuutttt I promised Riley that I would do my verybest to write 10,000 words in the month of July, and it is now July 8, and I have written approximately zero (unless we are counting emails, texts, and Facebook messages).

The truth is, I haven't written much of anything in English since I wrote my last Russia blog post a month and a half ago, and I haven't written anything very thoughtful/intelligent/halfway-academic since all of those final papers in December.

This is not to say that the thing I am writing right now is very thoughtful/intelligent, but it is meant to set me on a sort of trajectory. To set out a goal, at least, because I love goals and can't really function without them.

This summer I do not plan to write essays about/inspired by every book I read. My reading is far too scattered (and my reactions too embarrassing) for that to work out now. The focus of this summer is a little different, anyway. I'm at school, working five part-time jobs, surrounded by people I love and within not-too-distant reach of other people I also love, and most of all trying to find a suitable bridesmaid dress. You would be surprised at how much time and emotional energy the latter pursuit demands. But none of those are truly good subjects for blog posts, so I'm looking a little deeper, and also higher: God.

Okay, most likely theology.

There is a difference between writing about God and writing about theology. The first often is theology, as it is "a study of God," but to write about theology would have to be something like theologyology, or "a study of studies of God."

Currently, I am reading a good bit of theology. Some Tim Keller here. Some John Calvin there. Some Catechism of the Catholic Church on the side. And everywhere I look I am confronted with and fascinated by the way people understand God, and the way that understanding changes them.

And that, dear readers (if you are existent anymore), is my plan for the next few weeks. I will probably not get to 10,000 words, which is okay, but I might get a handful of useful ones out, and that will be good at least for my thinking if not for anybody else's.


Topics on the Dock:

• The flesh. Because I seem to have it.
• Modesty. That is, the virtue.
• Prayer. Especially the extemporaneous kind.
• (whatever comes next in The Institutes)

5 things to do when snowed in at a hotel

You would think this is an uncommon occurrence.

No, this is the second time in 13 months that I have experienced being stuck inside one of these sprawling buildings without pantries, any rooms to call my own, and most of the "stuff" that normally inhabits my life.

Last time we were moving from Maryland to Ohio, and we knew we'd be in a hotel for a week, but we didn't know there would be a blizzard.

This time it's just my dad and me. We've been trying to get home from my uncle's wedding in Iowa for almost 48 hours now... 48 hours that have taken us through 3 hotels and 275 miles. And almost all of those miles were in the first 4 hours. We've been here a bit west of Chicago since noon yesterday, all of the roads in Indiana are closed, it's well below zero (Fahrenheit!) outside, and we're getting a bit antsy.

So, here: Things To Do When You're Snowed In At A Hotel.

1. Eat frozen custard. We did this. Twice. It's so good. It's warm enough inside that it's acceptable, while cold enough outside that it feels like an adventure.
2. Watch Sherlock. I introduced my dad to the show. We've watched two episodes so far; I think we'll watch the third one tonight.
3. Embroider. Good thing I brought my craft bag with me. My bed is a mess of thread and needles... hopefully I won't get poked during the night.
4. Do laps. When one has been sitting for 24 hours, it might be time to walk. When there's a windchill of -40, it might be time to stay inside. Thus: laps. Hallway, stairs, hallway, stairs, repeat.
5. ...while reading. Ever wanted to perfect your simultaneous-walking-and-reading skills? Now is the time. (And if you, like me, perfected this skill as an elementary school student walking home from the bus stop, it's just good fun.)

If you have any other ideas, please tell me. To the best of my ability, I will do all of them.