Troubled Bodies: Metaxu, Suffering and the Encounter With the Divine

Abstract

The body is the canvas on which the female experience is painted and through which female identity is often understood. The female body is a slate on which a patriarchal story has been written, scarred onto the flesh. For Simone Weil metaxu was simultaneously that which separated and connected, so for instance the wall between two prison cells cuts off the prisoners but was also the means by which they communicated by knocking on that wall. Could the body be that metaxu all at once separating us and connecting us to the Divine? The nature of metaxu is that it offers a route not just for the individual soul but for the souls of others to travel. If all peoples renounce their outer shell -and by this I do not mean their bodies but rather the bodies or clothes or ideals written upon those people by patriarchy or capitalism or colonialism -if those real bodies come to the broken body of Christ [which is stripped and scarred] standing in solidarity with and mimicking this broken body, without the things which have been put upon their bodies but with scarred flesh showing, then this is where metaxu is possible for here we see a renouncing of 'self' as created by patriarchy and all that is left is a space that is the place where we are authentically self and God dwells. Our Troubled BodyOur bodies are troubled. Our body is troubled. It's undeniable, there are troubles that infuse our bodies, troubles written upon our bodies, troubles shaping our bodies. My sisters' bodies all around the world are troubled, this body we call women is troubled. Troubled by violence, by silence, troubled by illness and images, bodies troubled by political systems, troubled by breathing in lies; my sisters are troubled in their bones, in their bodies.