The Intimacy of Devotion

 


Where did David go?, you might ask...I hope you've asked. 

I'm up this morning at home for the first time in twelve days, jet-lagged and sleep deprived after a wonderful vacation on four of the nine islands which make up the Azores archipelago. They are part of Portugal, situated in the Atlantic, 1500 kilometres from the mainland of Europe. Our flight home was delayed by 27 hours, but the airline put us up in a nice hotel in the downtown of Angra do Heroismo, a beautiful town on the island of Terceira. It's great to be retired and have no worries about getting back for work

We walked by the sea, had coffee in an outdoor cafe, and visited a convent, of all places. It is a remarkable historic site established in the 1540's for the Poor Clare Sisters, a Franciscan order. The nun who took us on the tour was a lovely woman who spoke very little English, but we figured out how to communicate with the important stuff.

She took us to the Baroque chapel where the public congregation sat on one side of what looks like a medieval portcullis -- a gridwork of iron bars -- while the sisters sat, segregated on the other side. What was even more jarring was the room where nuns would meet with family who came to visit. This area also had bars, a double set far enough apart that there could be no physical contact. This denial of any sort of intimacy was heart-breaking to ponder, a severe asceticism which no longer exists but was prevalent for those in Roman Catholic orders in the past.



After we left we talked about how inhumane and soul-destroying these practices were, in a misguided understanding of total devotion to Christ. We know that Jesus touched people when he healed them, and he also healed a woman who violated social conventions when she touched him. We were never meant to be exiled from our bodies or intimacy because of our Christian devotion. Sadly Roman Catholicism isn't the only stream of Christianity to view physical intimacy with suspicion. Evangelicalism has often promoted a bizarre purity culture which was hypocritical and destructive. Now we are seeing how Christian conservatives in the United States are giving a free pass to male leaders, including the president, for predatory sexual incidents while insisting that women be "pure." 

Jesus, born of a woman, whose body was anointed by women in death, save us all.