#catholicism tw

megpie71:

star-anise:

I’m having a weird month and finding it increasingly hard to disentangle modern narratives about bodies, lifestyle, health, and diet from medieval Christian versions of the same. It’s all melting and turning to soup inside my brain.

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For anyone reading along who hasn’t worked this out already, this is because they’re all coming from the same place: a deep and abiding taboo on physical pleasure which got tangled up with and in Christianity good and hard good and early in the history of the religion, and hasn’t yet been unpicked.  Basically, if your body likes it, it must be sinful - and therefore you’re not allowed to do it unless you approach it in the properly penitential mind-set.

This is, incidentally, where modern sex-negativity, fat-phobia, “health” culture and capitalism all draw from - the core idea that you are not put on this planet to enjoy yourself, but rather to suffer in pursuit of spiritual salvation.

It’s the asceticism. The idea that by denying yourself sensual pleasures, you can achieve spiritual goals.

And yes, on some levels, being able to prioritize theoretical or moral good above personal wants is extremely important. It’s important to save some food for winter instead of eating it all now, or to let someone else have something you like because they need it more.

But asceticism often ends up not being about the theoretical good your self-denial will achieve, but about the self-denial being good in itself. It is more moral to eat a restricted diet than a permissive one.

I was taught that exercise has to be painful, and so it always was for me. I’ve been trying to teach myself how to ask things of my body without punishing it.

Gym teachers always said, “Keep up that stretch until you can really feel it,” so I always pulled on my arms and legs until my muscles started to screech and contract in horror, and I’d finish a “warmup stretch” tenser than I began it.

We were told, “No pain, no gain,” and taught how the right amount of exercise creates tiny tears in your muscles and aches the next day, but that’s how your muscles grow stronger. I wanted to be good and strong and moral and get an A in gym, so I had a specific bush I’d hide behind during cross-country runs to cry.

It was halfway through the 2km route. I’d drop to the ground and massage a knee that felt like it was on fire, calf and hip muscles that were solid as rock and tender to the touch. I used that bush because if I stopped out in the open, the gym teacher would come back from her 7k run and tell me to get up and keep going when I was still in agony. She would dismiss the gym class early on those days, but only if everyone was in from their runs, so before I turned the last corner I stopped to wipe the tears and snot off my face, so I could face the stares of a gym full of people who’d been irritatedly waiting for me for the last 20 minutes.

I thought I’d done so good, even if I didn’t get the results I wanted. I’d had the right attitude.

I’ve had to teach myself how to adjust every exercise I do around the abnormalities in my skeleton. To recognize which parts of my everyday pain are unusual and medically worrying, and to figure out when I might be damaging my joints or overstressing my immune system. To relax inside of a yoga pose instead of straining every muscle in my body towards it. To stretch within my body’s limitations instead of beyond them. To pace myself in my exercise, understanding that “110% effort” isn’t a reasonable expectation, especially not when you’re disabled.

And also

There’s an element of asceticism that disdains vanity, pride, and avarice. Of classic discourses about women that say the worst thing you can be is a vain, silly, coquettish, capricious, demanding, greedy, decorative, useless, dependent, attention-seeking trollop. Church fathers and radical feminism both agree: Whatever you do, don’t be like her.

So what I learned was to be the opposite of that. Don’t ever want to be pretty or try for it; accept that people will judge you on your looks and find you wanting. Don’t ever want to be liked or respected; don’t be angry when people treat you badly; don’t ever demand things of other people for something so selfish as your little ego. Don’t chase after boys or think you’ll ever be able to expect one to take care of you emotionally.

I tried to live by those rules, and for my pains, I got… royally fucked up in ways that are still affecting me 20 years later.

So I’ve been trying to navigate a world that wants to tell me, every time I turn around, how goodandrightandhealthy it is to deny myself things. Building elevators chide me for not taking the stairs. Financial advisors admonish me to give up the $5 latte I apparently drink every day. Billboards tell me how happy I’d be if I gave up every food except some new juice cleanse. “Pain management” clinics insist I’d be in less pain if I learned to embrace it.

I’ve embraced the pain for so long, I don’t know what my life would turn into if I finally pried all my fingers off of it.

I’m having a weird month and finding it increasingly hard to disentangle modern narratives about bodies, lifestyle, health, and diet from medieval Christian versions of the same. It’s all melting and turning to soup inside my brain.

• Which Hairshirt is Best? Our Experts Weigh In.

Wow! You Won’t Believe This Man’s Incredible Penitential Routine

• Turn those old pilgrimage badges into a cute craft!

Dry Lent Doesn’t Have to Be Dull: 11 Tasty Vegan Treats

• Sun, Sand, and Salvation: One Woman’s Amazing Pilgrimage Story