Flatulence & The Spiritual Life

 

A warning that today's blog may be triggering, so to speak, for some. Recently, I came upon an article about flatulence and specifically the importance of what is described as the "fart walk." According to Forbes magazine: 

Walking or any type of physical activity can help get the gastrointestinal tract moving more. This, in turn, could aid digestion and prevent the accumulation of gas and bloating. At the same time, your working muscles could then pull more sugar from your bloodstream to serve as fuel, which could then help better regulate your blood sugar levels.

I laughed out loud at this piece, although not so much that I lost control. Another article (I do my research) wonderfullly described this practice as "crop dusting." While we learn over time that flatulence is an indelicate subject and a rude reality, tell that to children. We've had some funny conversations with our grandchildren on the subject, and of course they consider fart jokes hilarious. There are children's authors whose success involves a fair amount of farting. 

By this point you may have dismissed these ponderings as frivolous, if not sacrilegious, yet the early Christian creeds wrestled with the paradox of Jesus being fully divine and fully human. So does this include...?

The article got me thinking about the absence of any detail in the gospels or Paul's letters about the practicalities of bodily functions as they travelled to and fro. Jesus and his disciples, Paul and his companions, did a lot hiking together without benefit of franchised rest stops, so how or where did they do their business? And young guys being guys, farting would have ensued after meals. We read in scripture that Jesus was accused of being a glutton by religious leaders, so food in, gas out? 

To my surprise there is a book on the subject called Jesus Farted: The Vulgar Truth of the Biblical Christ with this blurb: 

If Hercules laboured, Achilles sang and Atlas shrugged, then Jesus Farted. Simon Perry, a Biblical Scholar and Chaplain at the University of Cambridge, claims that if you cannot hear Jesus fart, you cannot hear his biblical voice.

By focusing on the vulgarity of the historical Jesus, Perry alerts the listener to a radical Jewish voice that history has sought to silence. The author's crude but beautifully written prose obliterates the popular notion of a saintly, pious, religious do-gooder. When the smoke has cleared, the Jesus left standing is revealed as a dangerous political, economic, and ideological threat to the imperial machinery of his day and ours.

Okay, maybe a bit much. I doubt that I'll ever lead a study group on the Spirituality of Flatulence although those of you who have practiced yoga will be aware of  Pavanmuktasana the "wind pose" which involves hugging your knees towards your chest and then rocking them from side to side, helping to release trapped gas. 

Now I wonder if we need an apocryphal gospel including  the previously unrecorded moments akin to the bean-eating fart scene in the film Blazing Saddles. It was muted by some networks when it was eventually shown on television. 

Happy and gassy trails to all of you!