Honoring The Body: Meditations On A Christian Practice

Book Summary

"Here is a book we have needed for a long time, a book that will help Christians-- who affirm that 'the Word became flesh'-- overcome their baffling historic aversion to the body and learn to honor it. Stephanie Paulsell is a wise and compassionate guide, and she has given us the most compelling treatment of this topic I've ever read. May her insights be received, and embodied, by many." -- Parker Palmer, author, "Let Your Life Speak "and "The Courage to Teach " ""Honoring the Body" is an elegantly written book. It is filled with wisdom, insight from the Christian tradition, and incisive analysis of a crucial yet vexing practice of Christian life. It also is eminently practical, a call to transformed thinking and living. I heartily commend it." -- L. Gregory Jones, author, "Embodying Forgiveness," and dean of Duke Divinity School "As I read through Paulsell's book, I found myself laughing one moment and crying the next, and what's even more amazing, throughout it all, I found myself thinking, thinking deeply and in new ways about not only great 'theological truths' but about little things like how I bathe, why I run, and who set the dinner table. A remarkable and rare book." -- Serene Jones, author, "Feminist Theory and Christian Theology: Cartographies of Grace," and associate professor of theology at Yale Divinity School "A profound, passionate, and exquisitely 'simple' Christian meditation on the messy and beautiful facts of embodied human life." -- Kathryn E. Tanner, author, "Theories of Culture, The Politics of God, "and "God and Creation in Christian Theology, "and professor of theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School In this exquisite and sensitive book, author Stephanie Paulsell draws on resources from the Christian tradition to show how we can learn to celebrate the body's pleasures, protect the body's vulnerabilities, and develop the practices that will ultimately transform our troubled relationship with our bodies to one of honor and joy. A practical resource, Honoring the Body weaves together scripture, history, and lively stories that can help us recover and sustain an appreciation for ourselves as physical beings.

Book Details