Yesterday, speaking of Sex and the Church, I hinted at the fact that the word “sex” is code for power and is also code for sensuality.
Church officials for the most part love power or at least are good at exercising it; otherwise they can’t remain in their place. Sex is code for power because human hierarchical relationships have a hidden sexual structure. Hidden, that is, until somebody reveals it. I am not talking about specific sexual relationships — which may or may not be existing — but about the sadomasochistic structure of all kinds of domination and submission dyads within the human species. Therefore, also within the Church, whenever blind obedience is requested.
Even today, as I have learned in my role as a spiritual counselor, the repression of sexual desire is a powerful tool of power and domination within the Catholic Church. The overt renunciation of sexual life — whether or not coupled with hidden sexual relationships — keeps vesting the individual priests or nuns with power, even though the same people are also controlled by their “superiors” acting more or less consciously like a sadistic dominus or domina. Sex is a powerful signifier, regardless of the actual performance of sex acts.
But sex also is code for sensuality. In the Catholic Church, the outward ban on sexuality corresponds not only very often to domination patterns, but also to the negation of the meaning and value of sensuousness and sensuality. The word “flesh” with its adjectives “fleshly” and “carnal” come to mind as catalysts of the disregard for the sensual, sensuous, and sexual aspects of human life, which in extreme cases has become a sort of hate of the bodily life of humans.
The history of the negation of the sensual by Christians is long and complex. One of course wonders how this can be for a religion that claims to have at its center the Incarnation of God in human flesh: “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14). Many theologians in the 20th century and in the first quarter of the 21st century have tried to tackle this seemingly monstrous contradiction.
Matthew Fox has emerged early on as one of the main authors in this field, mainly for his direct, provocative, and perceptive positions, often couched in alluring and poetic ways. I would like therefore to offer for your meditation the following paragraph from Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh:
One things about flesh is its transitoriness. All flesh dies. Like the grass, as the Scriptures say. This means that all flesh is only with us for a while. One more reason not to ignore it or to take it for granted or to fail to take delight in it. Flesh is for joy and wonder and delight. This is Sabbath — to take note of the flesh in all its abundance and uniqueness and softness and firmness and color and sound and smell and taste. To enjoy it — which is not the same as exploiting it or controlling it or abusing it or making a pleasure-object of it. The object is to enjoy it. To pay attention.
Matthew goes very far, by comparison with some of his colleagues, when he says: Flesh redeems. How can he say that? At most, in traditional Christian parlance we say that flesh is redeemed, which often means purified and de-fleshed. His reasoning is that flesh can become a redemptive force when we acknowledge the new history of the cosmos with its (approximately) 13 billion years and counting. When we know it, we become grateful and reverent toward our bodies, toward food, toward flowers, toward forests, toward soil, toward other animals and birds and fishes and toward other human beings. Gratitude and Reverence heal. They redeem. (…) Flesh redeems because it awakens awe and wonder and delights. Awe is redemptive.
Banner Image: The Word becomes flesh every day: “Mother’s Love.” Photo by Andrae Ricketts on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
Do you agree that flesh can be redemptive? How is that the case for you?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society pp. 39, 43-44
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
WHEE! We, wee All the Way Home: A Guide to Sensual Prophetic Spirituality
Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic–and Beyond
Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest
Prayer: A Radical Response to Life
