This article is an effort to deconstruct narratives regarding the body. Body theology as developed by James B. Nelson forms the basis for a literature study as well as an exploration of an embodied pastoral anthropology, within the context of a postfoundationalist practical theology and an openness to interdisciplinary dialogue. Qualitative interviews and the body-mapping process were used within the context of narrative research to narrate people's stories regarding their bodies in relation to their spiritual journey as well as to increase an awareness of a holistic, embodied spirituality.

In 1989, Brian Wren wrote the following hymn, 'Good is the Flesh':

Good is the flesh that the Word has become,

good is the birthing, the milk in the breast,

good is the feeding, caressing and rest,

good is the body for knowing the world,

Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Good is the body for knowing the world,

sensing the sunlight, the tug of the ground,

feeling, perceiving, within and around,

good is the body, from cradle to grave

Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Good is the body, from cradle to grave,

growing and aging, arousing, impaired,

happy in clothing, or lovingly bared,

good is the pleasure of God in our flesh,

Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Good is the pleasure of God in our flesh,

longing in all, as in Jesus to dwell,

glad of embracing, and tasting, and smell,

good is the body, for good and for God,

Good is the flesh that the Word has become. (Wren 1989)

This hymn was dedicated to James Nelson. According to Richardson (2003:86), this hymn sums up the message of body theology: God's Word has become flesh 2000 years ago and continuously becomes flesh in our experience of the present. The work of James Nelson was also the initial inspiration for this research. How do people, especially those from a Reformed tradition, experience their own bodies and embodiment? How can a body be deconstructed? In which way does body theology assist in this process of deconstruction and create a deeper awareness of our own embodiment, an awareness that we do not only have bodies but also are our bodies? The starting point within the tenets of a postfoundationalist theology and a narrative approach is a specific and concrete context, in this case the specific bodies of co-researchers as lived and experienced in a concrete situation. This is also the viewpoint of Williams and Bendelow (1998:3) who investigated the need for an 'embodied' sociology in contrast with prevalent social theory according to which the tendency is to talk and write about the body in a 'disembodied, typically male way' and for a new approach of theorising from lived bodies.

The narrative metaphor and social constructionism

Freedman and Combs (2002:14) write that Michel Foucault was always interested in marginalised discourses, the stories that exist on the periphery of society. These stories have the possibility to undermine the excessive power of the dominant metanarratives in society. According to Freedman and Combs (2002:13), Foucault argued for an inseparable link between knowledge and power. In a society there are discourses/metanarratives that determine what knowledge is supposed to be true or proper or possible. This then means that the amount of power people have in society is dependent on their ability or their access to the discourses that shape their society. Freedman and Combs (2002:14) themselves believe that 'in the most marginalised and disempowered of lives, there are always lived experiences that lie outside the dominant stories' and see their work as helping people to recognise the 'influence of restrictive cultural stories in their lives, and to expand and enrich their own life narratives'.

Social constructionism means that we interpret the world through the perspective of the societies we are imbedded in. Our lives are constituted by the stories that circulate in society. Demasure and Müller (2006:416) write that social constructionism has again highlighted the importance of the pastoral relation, because it has indicated how meaning is created in relation to others. They feel that marginalised voices are given the space to be heard as dominant stories in society are exposed, when people realise how they were created and what consequences their lives have.

A postfoundationalist theology

In the multidisciplinary use of the concept of transversality there emerge distinct characteristics or features: the dynamics of consciousness, the interweaving of many voices, the interplay of social practices are all expressed in a metaphor that points to a sense of transition, lying across, extending over, intersecting, meeting and conveying without becoming identical.

(Van Huyssteen cited in Müller 2008:4)

Interdisciplinary dialogue

Van Huyssteen (2007:422) maintains that transversal reasoning means that we have to be alert to degrees of transversality and that different theological approaches could have different degrees of success in interdisciplinary dialogue. It is, however, most important that theology and sciences can share concerns and can converge in their methodological approaches on specifically identified problems.

Phenomenological research in practical theology

In Merleau-Ponty's highly concrete 'phenomenology of the flesh,' the human body in all its forms of behaviour, not merely in speech, becomes the carrier of meaning, and as such the carrier of tradition, passing on its culture, its history, its life. Against this background it is revealing to engage briefly with scholars from different disciplines on issues of embodiment and its crucial role in theology and science.

(Van Huyssteen 2006a:276)

Phenomenology as a partner for theology can open an interdisciplinary conversation on fundamental concepts such as 'life' and 'reality'. A critical element is that research should be done with an open awareness, with 'an ignorant eye' and through sensual perception.

What is body theology?

Punt (2005:371) identifies three distinct patterns that contributed to the conceptualisation of body theology, namely, (1) process thought (seeing the world as ever becoming and its nature as relational and not dualistic), (2) liberation theology (the justice of God unfolding through individuals' bodies and in the lives of the oppressed) and (3) feminist theory (human experience identified as the creation of theology, with the body as the site of experience). Isherwood and Stuart (1998:10) write that the body has always been highly symbolic and that it is the way through which a person and the community express themselves. They then find it hard to understand that throughout the ages, the body has been despised and rejected rather than loved and celebrated. Nelson (1979:20) calls it a 'false spiritualisation' if I do not realise the profound extent to which I am my body. If this embodiedness is underplayed, when the body is not experienced as fully personal, interpersonal relationships are diminished and the world becomes foreign and external. The other statement of Nelson (1979:22) that influenced my interviews with co-researchers was that the way we feel about and perceive our own bodies influences the way we perceive and feel about the world and God. This then feeds back on our understanding of our bodies.

Body alienation and sexual dualisms

the vulnerable, fickle body was inevitably dysfunctional and with its passionate eruptions that have to be resisted, evoked attempts to control and regulate the body in order to preserve the order and fabric of society.

(Punt 2005:366)

Murphy (2006:37) maintains that biblical teachings based on dualism have been a result of poor translation and that there is no clear teaching on the metaphysical make-up of a person. In spite of this, throughout Christian history, Christians lived with the dualism between body and soul, mainly as a result of cultural influences. Murphy is of the opinion that a physicalist anthropology can lead to the reformulation of theology and that this can only improve our relationship with God, with the earth and with its inhabitants.

In her fascinating article on touch, Traina (2005:16-17) writes how gender stereotyping in cultures plays an important role in the expectation of and permission for touch. She found that women's body images are more harmed than those of men by low levels of affectionate touch at present and during childhood. Touch is often interpreted as sexual contact. In Euro-American culture, romantic attachments are the basis for families, and this then is the only reliable source of firm touch that is socially accepted. Ironically, 'the same romanticism that seems to breed this need for touch also sexualise touch and therefore increasingly forbids it' (Traina 2005:18).

Sexual salvation

You are accepted, the total you. Your body, which you often reject, is accepted by that which is greater than you. Your sexual feelings and unfulfilled yearnings are accepted. You are accepted in your ascetic attempts at self-justification or in your hedonistic alienation from the true meaning of your sexuality. You are accepted in those moments of sexual fantasy which comes unbidden and which both delight and disturb you. You are accepted in your femininity and your masculinity, for you have elements of both. You are accepted in your heterosexuality and in your homosexuality, and you have elements of both. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted as a sexual person. If that happens to you, you experience grace.

(Nelson 1979:78)

Traina (2005:11) writes that 'good' touch is a social affirmation communicating 'I accept you' and 'I affirm you'. She maintains that children have a right to touch that is crucial for their healthy physical and psychological development and that all people have the right to the amount of touch they need for physical and psychological health and for the relief of suffering. Nelson (1979:80) continues to discuss the dynamics of self-rejection and self-acceptance in the growth towards greater wholeness. This correlates strongly with the psychodynamics of shame and guilt.

The church as sexual community

that the move to find sexual identity as incarnational is a move towards radical human equality which itself is inherent in an adequate understanding of the doctrine of the imago Dei.

(Nelson 1979:248)

Murphy (2006:141) refers to 'bodily identity' to explain that a person's identity will be understood in terms of the person's own body. Imago Dei is not an abstract concept. Van Huyssteen (2006a) writes that

...the image of God is not found in some intellectual or spiritual capacity, but in the whole embodied human being, 'body and soul'. In fact, the image of God is not found in humans, but is the human, and for this reason imago Dei can be read only as imitatio Dei: to be created in God's image means we should act like God, and so attain holiness by caring for others and for the world.

(Van Huyssteen 2006a:320)

Nelson (1979:261) is also of the opinion that when sexuality gets trivialised, one fails to recognise the 'intricate, subtle, and far-reaching ways in which it permeates current social issues'. The irony is that these issues of three decades ago are still so relevant and are still pleading for 'significant alleviation of their injustices'. Nelson (1979:263) writes that a holistic vision of sexuality can lead the church to respond more effectively to important sexual dimensions in far-reaching social issues such as social violence, racism and ecology.

An embodied pastoral anthropology

It is a realisation that our destiny lies on this planet. We have rediscovered our earthly bounds. Soul is indivisibly part of body; mind and body are one. We are God's co-creators and we can do something about our earthly plight. ... Neither the secular nor the spiritual side of our lives can be ignored: both need to be explained, structured and interpreted. We have to take responsibility for human nature, come to terms with it and accommodate it.

(Du Toit 2006:1258)

Looking at Christian theology, cognitive neuroscience and philosophy, Murphy (2006:ix) is of the opinion that there is no additional metaphysical element to the body such as a mind, soul or spirit. We are our bodies. Such a 'physicalist' standpoint does not negate that we are intelligent, moral and spiritual. Murphy (2006:69-70) writes that both biblical studies and neuroscience point towards a 'physicalist account of the person', meaning that humans are not a mixture of matter but are purely physical organisms. This does not mean that any higher human capacities are nothing but brain function. She uses the term 'nonreductive physicalism' to explain that if there is no soul, these higher human capacities can be explained in another way.

In part they are explainable as brain functions, but their full explanation requires attention to human social relations, to cultural factors, and, most importantly, to our relationship with God.

(Murphy 2006:69-70)

Lakoff and Johnson (1999:568) write that in a short space of time, cognitive science gave us a way to know ourselves better in our physical being, 'flesh, blood and sinew, hormone, cell and synapse'.

Introduction

This article made me very keen to explore the possibility of using body mapping in my own research. I wanted to try and understand some of the ways in which people make sense of the world in and around them through their bodies and was curious to find out whether the body-mapping process could help to tell the story of such a journey within the framework of narrative therapy. I structured my research around quantitative interviews based on two photos I had chosen and the body-mapping process. Keeping in mind the concept of feedback loops in narrative research, I conducted a follow-up interview with each co-researcher.

Body mapping was done with the second group of co-researchers after I had conducted interviews in group format around the two photos. I wrote a narrative letter to each respondent as a way to interpret the interviews that I had conducted with them around their experience of the two photos as well as the body-mapping process. In this I was led by the work of Freedman and Combs (1996) with regard to letter writing:

Letters not only thicken the story and help the people we work with stay immersed in it, but also involve us more thoroughly in the co-authoring process, giving us an opportunity to think about the language and the questions that we use. We find that in writing letters we have ideas we might not have had otherwise. This may be because we write letters from a reflecting position.

(Freedman & Combs 1996:2008)

I was furthermore influenced by the guidelines that Meyburgh (2006:35) used in narrative analysis. In identifying the underlying narrative themes, she asked what the person was trying to tell her.

Thereafter she analysed the text to understand how experiences were narrated within the timeline of the past, present and future. Then she looked at the context of the narrative, searching for clues, metaphors and cultural discourses and at the end, she tried to grasp the meaning that was constructed with the participant and what it meant to her. I kept a journal as well in which I reflected on my experience during the process of doing narrative research as well as on my thoughts and feelings in writing this research report. I also partook in the body-mapping process, which brought to mind the concept of participatory action research.

What is body mapping?

Meyburgh (2006:19) refers to Jonathan Morgan who describes the end products of body mapping as holding strands of art therapy, narrative therapy and body work with the potential to become a participatory qualitative research tool. Meyburgh (2006:15) writes that there are a variety of therapies, for example adventure therapy, dance therapy and movement therapy, that use embodied techniques and that the basic tenet is 'to move away from exclusively talking therapies by incorporating experiential and embodied means of healing and integrating mind-body techniques'. Meyburgh (2006:17) is of the opinion that trauma recovery involves the 'processing of implicit memories that are non-verbal and held in the body'. Alternative methods such as body mapping are then used to process these memories by retelling them but without retraumatising the person. I find the concept of 'implicit memory' quite fascinating. Meyburgh (2006:13) refers to Rothschild and Mae-Wan Ho to explain the difference between explicit and implicit memory. Explicit memories are those that are conscious and that enable us to tell stories and put experiences into words so as to construct chronology and to extract meaning. Implicit memory is unconscious and procedural. Body consciousness exists prior to brain consciousness, which is associated with the nervous system. Body consciousness has a memory linked to a proton jump conduction that is faster than the conduction of electrical signals via the nerves. Recent research indicates that traumatic memory is stored unintegrated with other memories in the limbic system, bypassing the cognitive system. Meyburgh (2006:14) writes that the limbic system also regulates arousal, survival behaviours and emotional expression. The disconnection 'between body and soul' is one of the most important effects of trauma, and she refers to shamanic cultures in which the shaman calls the spirit to return to the body. I do find this image of the shaman to be a striking metaphor for the facilitator, in this case the narrative therapist and/or practical theologian, trying to journey holistically with the body in telling its story, bridging the mind-body dichotomy.

I used the 'Living with X' body mapping facilitator's manual by Jane Solomon as the basis for the creation of body maps for my research. This is a process whereby the outline of each participant's body is traced on a sheet of paper. Thereafter a self-portrait, hand and foot prints, different colours and symbols are painted onto the body map to tell some of the stories on the 'outside' and 'inside' of each participant's body. I paid close attention to the metanarratives influencing various symbols used on the body map.

In an article at the back of the novel Lighthousekeeping, Jeanette Winterson (2005) writes that storytelling is

a way of navigating our lives, and that to read ourselves as fiction is much more liberating than to read ourselves as fact. Facts are partial. Fiction is a more complete truth. If we read ourselves as narrative, we can change the story that we are. If we read ourselves as literal and fixed, we find we can change nothing. Someone will always tell the story of our lives - it had better be ourselves.

(Winterson 2005:20)

PHOTO 1:

Reflections and suggestions

On acceptance and rejection

On patriarchal heterosexism

On giving the body a voice

On promiscuity and touch

as a source and site of resistance against 'terror and tyranny', for body knowledge trespasses over all sorts of boundaries including the boundaries established by traditional academic theology ... and the boundaries of hetero-patriarchy. ... it is therefore inevitable in a society which devaluates the body that the body should become a site of resistance.

(Stuart 1998:99-100)

Meyburgh (2006:70) correctly writes that the body-mapping process does not offer the same 'embodied experience in therapy' with, for example, touch and sight that therapies such as dance or movement therapies would do. This is so. Once again, we would like to point to the significance of touch in general as well as in therapy. Traina (2005:3) writes that people ordinarily need touch in order to flourish, that 'affectionate, firm, appropriate touch is a human need and a moral right'. Touch is a form of communication and it would be worthwhile and fascinating to research the use of touch in narrative therapy.

On bodily awareness and integration

On a postfoundationalist embodied anthropology, phenomenology and interdisciplinary dialogue

On the value of body mapping in narrative therapy and research

On the role of the church

This journey of integration can also be facilitated by the language used in the church in relation to the body and to sexuality by using words to increase the perception of the goodness of the body and teaching the dynamics of self-acceptance and growth towards wholeness rather than using words depicting the experience of our body-selves as dirty, shameful, sinful and fragmented. The church can perhaps be more alert in its teaching regarding the imago Dei and the Incarnation, being aware of the way it has been distorted in the past and taking seriously how this is not just restricted to a part of a person's spiritual identity but pertains to the whole embodied human being. This is crucial if one takes seriously some of the implications of body alienation/disconnection:

• racism

• heterosexism

• homophobia

• social violence

• indifference to ecological issues

• depression

• self-hatred

• rejection

• toxic guilt

• identity confusion

• eating disorders

• stress.

On imagination and mystery

In his novel The body, Hanif Kureishi explores the idea of personal identity and the extent to which we are rooted in our body. He writes about a middle-aged playwright who is offered the chance to trade his ageing, sagging body for a youthful, attractive body. Kureishi (2002:34) then portrays something of how the body is socially constructed:

If other people's bodies get too much for you, you can stop them by stabbing or crucifixion. You can shoot or burn them to make them keep still or prevent them from saying words which displeases you. If your own body gets too much - and whose doesn't? - you might meditate yourself into desirelessness, enter a monastery or find an addiction which channels desire. Some bodies are such a nuisance to their owners - they can seem as unpredictable as untamed animals, or the feeling can overheat and there's no thermostat - that they not only starve or attempt to shape them, but they flagellate of punish them.... The older and sicker you get, the less your body is a fashion item, the less people want to touch you. You will have to pay. Masseurs and prostitutes will caress you, if you give them money. How many therapies these days happen to involve the 'laying-on of hands'? Nurses will handle the sick. Doctors spend their lives touching bodies.... Priests and politicians tell people what to do with their bodies. People always choose their work according to their preferences about bodies.

(Kureishi 2002:34)

In contemporary society, the body has become a consumer item. The emphasis is on appearance and presentation. The body has become pliable through plastic surgery, tissue engineering and bionic and gene therapy with cyberspace changing the format of human embodiment. Ammicht-Quinn (2004:72) writes that one of the main features of contemporary lifestyle is being occupied with the body, with an entire industry to serve the needs for wholeness, beauty and salvation that traditional religious institutions fail to satisfy. Is it possible for the church to try and address these needs if it is still deeply embedded in a soul-body or mind-body heterosexist dualism? Is there then some value in these words of Ammicht-Quinn (2004)?

...if incarnation is one of the key words in Christianity, if we realize Jesus' bodily impartiality and his bodily-rooted gospel then the proverbial Christian suspicion and mistrust towards the body appears in a new light. The New Testament's message can be read as a bodily-rooted and bodily-experienced message of salvation. The discredit of which the body and bodily well-being has been brought uproots the gospel. The occidental Christian suspicion and mistrust towards the body seems to be a huge and tragic misunderstanding in Christianity.

(Ammicht-Quinn 2004:79)

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