Offensive?

I was sorting through many of my "favorite images" today. It occurred to me that many of them I hesitate to use on this blog. They have partial nudity. I find them beautiful. Yet I am well aware that some may be "offended" by them. Therefore I fore go using them to illustrate my points on the value of motherhood, the beauty of authentic womanhood, or the truth of the complementarity of the sexes. I'd like to share more of them but I'd always feel the need to explain their purpose...

It is funny how easily we are trained to accept magazine covers like this one as "acceptable", while at the same time shunning a nursing mother into a bathroom stall to feed her baby! We gladly sit in front of the "boob tube" and watch "Housewives" act like pigs, and young single women live lives filled with casual sex in "The City". But scan past the National Geographic channel and catch a glimpse of an African mother topless with a baby strapped to her back working in the fields and suddenly we're HORRIFIED!!

So many here in America have lost all sense of what our bodies are FOR. People certainly haven't a clue that their bodies have a deep spiritual/theological meaning! For goodness sakes most women I know don't even feel comfortable with their own breasts being used for their intended purpose - feeding a baby! Tim, told me a story of a woman he spoke with once. They were casually exchanging pleasantries about one another's families. It came up that I nurse our babies. He told me that the woman looked shocked and a little uncomfortable with that notion to which he asked "Don't you breastfeed?" "Oh NO! these are only for my husband!" as she pointed to her own breasts. Well folks, that sums it up then doesn't it?

We haven't a clue what our bodies are for anymore. In fact we have completely separated our personhood from our bodies. It's as if we imagine them to be just another accessory or gadget we can use and manipulate to gain the maximum amount of production and pleasure. We keep them "tuned up" and make sure they're "up to date" and when they get old and worn out we gladly throw them out like trash. The irony is that at the same time that we devalue our bodies by using them simply as objects we only objectify them further by holding them up to be worshipped and adored as if they are gods!

Only those who understand that our bodies, our flesh, is an essential part of our spiritual identity can appreciate their own body as a key to understanding their very purpose here on earth. Our bodies MEAN something. Something important and amazing and mysterious. Don't we all want to know what that is? Are people satisfied with "Last Chance for Hot Sex" as an acceptable "goal"? Don't we want better? The Truth will set you free - read JPII's Theology of the Body.

Only in a world that's lost its understanding of Truth, what is truly beautiful can "offend" and what truly offends is found to be acceptable.