Loved Into Aliveness: A Theological Anthropology

Last year, as part of my Master’s in Counseling Psychology, I had to think, feel, research, and write about what it means to be a human, fully alive. There are two things that I know to be true: That our earliest experiences with our primary caregivers nurture our coming aliveness and lay the foundation for us to learn and know about ourselves, other people, the world around us, and what being a human is all about, and that we can only invite and know as much of another’s aliveness as we are able to invite and bear our own aliveness.

With this in mind, here is my answer (currently) to the question, “What does it mean to be a human being fully alive, in relation to god, self, and others?”

Embodied Soul: A Theological Anthropology

            Can you spend your entire time on this planet without ever being fully alive? What does it mean to be fully alive? We come into this world filled with innate goodness. Infants do not have to be taught how to feel, how to love. But this innate potential for being and feeling fully alive must be nurtured and birthed into life, both physically and metaphorically, by other human beings; otherwise, it exists, frozen and stagnant, in isolation, and flourishing remains just a hopeful longing. I believe a person fully connected to their body is a human being fully alive; embodying their soul (their heart, their face, and their voice), connected to and inseparable from past, present, and future, and brought into life first by a Divine Creator who with wonder and delight invites us to belong to each other in interdependent relationship. Through stories, scholars, poets, musicians and artists, this essay will explore what it means to be an embodied soul, through the coming alive of oneself in one's own body via the concept of a needs-based sense of self, rooted in developmental needs being met, concurring alongside and in interdependent relationship with others and an interdependent relationship with God through the presence of life around us.

Embodied Self: Loved Into Existence

Where do we begin as humans? How do we become who we are, authentically, fully ourselves, embodying all of who we are, flourishing and fully alive? How do we embody our souls? To understand this, we must go back to the very beginning of our existence: infancy, and even earlier, to our mother’s womb. Donald Kalsched, a prominent psychoanalyst writing on early infancy development and trauma, says, “The innocent soul, reaching out for experience, is met by a reasonably empathic environment, and the soul takes up residency in the body (secure attachment).”[1] Our first experiences of aliveness must be tenderly held by another human being in order to become embodied. An infant’s first home is not in fact the house they occupy, but that of another human, both literally the home of our mother’s womb, and later the physical home of our mother’s arms.  This embodied love from our earliest caregivers invites us over and over again to the slow indwelling of the soul in the body. In order to become fully alive, to indwell our own bodies, an infant must experience “their mother’s love, tenderness, and care calling them into existence.”[2]  If we do not experience this love, tenderness and care embodied in that of our first loving human relationships, dissociation from our own aliveness takes place, as a natural and only possible solution. Our soul cannot become embodied, for “it is only when all goes well that the person of the baby starts to be linked with the body and the body functions, with the skin as the limiting membrane.”[3]

 The Robot and the Bluebird tells the story of a robot with a broken (missing) heart. He tries ever so hard to fix himself but is eventually discarded to a pile of scrap. At first, he tries talking to the other pieces of scrap, saying “My heart was broken, you know.” But absent of a heart themselves, they do not answer him. Seasons pass, and after some time, a tiny, singing bluebird on the brink of death, desperately seeking shelter, appears in the middle of freezing winter. “‘There’s a space where my heart used to be,’ the Robot says gently, ‘You can stay there if you like.’” So the sweet, singing bluebird takes up residency in the body of the robot, at his invitation. He leaves the pile of scrap behind, with a warm, breathing, singing, live bluebird as his heart, ‘and the bluebird lived in his heart always.’”[4] Are we the robot, or the bluebird, or both? This disembodiment between our souls and our bodies can happen at any point in our lives, and full aliveness and flourishing can seem hopeless. Fortunately, our living souls are always seeking the warm, inviting embrace of our own bodies in order that we might be fully alive.

But what exactly is the soul? First, I will say that the soul is our own inner spark of aliveness, that which makes us, well, us. The soul is everything that makes us feel alive. Comprised of our inner knowings, desires, thoughts, feelings, and emotions, encompassing sorrow, pain, joy, longing, anger, despair, desire. The soul exists in and occupies the liminal space between real and imagined, tangible and intangible, light and dark, difference and sameness. Kalsched writes in Trauma and the Soul, “Traditionally, the soul is always a creature of both worlds – divine and human, time-bound and eternal, mortal and immortal. Straddling these two worlds, the soul is the seat of our dual destiny and home to what Shakespeare called our ‘immortal longings.’”[5] Donald Winnicott, a famous pediatrician and psychoanalyst who was particularly influential in the fields of developmental psychology and object relations, and who often wrote about relationships, dependency, and child development, speaks of the concept of the true self, which is the indwelling of the psyche (soul) in the soma (body), “from which come spontaneous gesture and personal idea…Only the true self can be creative and only the true self can feel real.”[6]

According to both Attachment Theory and Object Relations Theory, the environment and relationship between an infant and his or her caregivers impacts how the infant grows and develops into him or herself. In Healing Developmental Trauma, Laurence Heller and Aline LaPierre write that “to the degree that children’s core needs are attuned to and reasonably satisfied, they feel safe, trusting of the world, and connected to their bodily and emotional selves. They grow up experiencing a sense of well-being, regulation, and expansion.”[7] All humans flourish into full aliveness and embody their true, authentic selves when they have been in and are in attuned relationships where their needs are met. When we are connected to our emotional and bodily selves, we flourish. As Hillary McBride, a psychologist specializing in embodiment says, “Our emotions are in service to us flourishing, and they have something to teach us.”[8]

When we speak of flourishing, embodiment, and aliveness, it is perhaps necessary to say that this is not restricted to a certain age, gender, type of body, economic status, culture, or race. We are not fully alive or flourishing because we are white, or able bodied, or male, or straight, or wealthy. All of our bodies are good and all of us deserve to be fully alive. This is our birthright. McBride writes, “It is systematically oppressive, and simply untrue, to say that a body is good only when it is physically able, in full health, or developing in a certain way.”[9] Rather, we flourish as we gradually come to embody our own souls, in our own good bodies just as we are; through relationship with others where our needs are met.

Embodied Together: Community

We are living in a time of extreme isolation and loneliness, disconnected from our authentic selves, the sacred, natural world, the Divine, and our fellow humans. Robin Wall Kimmerer writes, “Philosophers call this state of isolation and disconnection “species loneliness” – a deep, unnamed sadness stemming from estrangement from the rest of Creation, from the loss of relationship. As our human dominance of the world has grown, we have become more isolated, more lonely when we can no longer call out to our neighbors.”[10] We humans are experience dependent; meaning that we cannot be or become all of who we are, an embodied soul, fully alive, without good enough experiences with other human beings, starting first with our primary caregivers. As Hillary McBride says, “Embodied experience is undeniably the most powerful channel of change.”[11] Winnicott speaks of the mother's face as a precursor to a mirror, suggesting that first, when a baby looks at their mother’s face what they are actually experiencing reflected in her face is themselves.[12]

How do we invite others into flourishing and aliveness? How do we embody our souls, together? Anam Cara is Gaelic for “soul friend,” a kind of relationship where masks and pretensions fall away, where our whole self is welcomed, and love can be taken for granted.[13] A community where we welcome, embrace, and see each other as fully alive, embodied souls brings communal flourishing. Embodied community is found through embodied relationship where we can embrace our dependency on each other and invite one another’s unique, authentic selves to exist, thus allowing for both difference and sameness. We came to this world needing our basic needs met in intimate relationship. While our society would have us believe otherwise, this need actually never changes throughout our time on earth. As we received both tangible nourishment and intangible love while at our mother’s breasts and from her very body, so to we both offer and receive this nourishment and love through rituals of gathering for meals together. In community with one another where we can welcome our neediness and dependency, we find both ourselves and each other as fully alive, different, embodied souls. Through rituals of play, rest, eating together, and caring for one another, both our difference and sameness is invited and something new is created in relationship as we learn we belong to each other, not in spite of our differences but perhaps because of both our differences and our sameness. “Rituals, especially around food, create a bounded space where we are meant to come together in relationship. It is fortuitous our stomachs need refilling so often so we have a chance to connect repeatedly…rituals preserve connecting spaces where shyness diminishes and we can be more wholly ourselves in each other’s presence.”[14]

Deborah MacNamara, a developmental psychologist and attachment expert, writes specifically on three age-old attachment rituals in order to foster connection and relationship around food: collecting, bridging, and matchmaking. Collecting is about activating another’s attachment instincts and inviting them into our relational presence. “Our aim is to get at the forefront of their attention and present ourselves as their caretaker.”[15] In preparing food and a gathering space for our friends, we take turns collecting each other and caring for one another, inviting one another to be cared for and loved. Food, lovingly prepared and offered as a connecting bridge between our separateness and differences, can foster rest and belonging.[16] Matchmaking, “connecting people through introductions and focusing on areas of sameness between them,” opens the doorway to deeper relationships.[17] We were never meant to work for love, but to rest in it, and this should not change simply because we are a certain age. Inviting others into relationship through the gathering ritual of eating together offers a place of flourishing through rest and attachment in one of the earliest ways we first experienced intimate relationship. Laughter and silence, two needs we receive and embody from earliest infancy, both can be found in sharing a meal together. Both laughter and silence are invitations for our souls to inhabit our bodies, together. Parker J. Palmer, a Quaker author and activist writes that, “the soul loves silence because it is shy, and because silence helps it feel safe. The soul loves laughter because it seeks truth, and laughter often reveals reality. But above all, the soul loves life, and both silence and laughter are life-giving.”[18] Our infant souls hear the primal language of silence and laughter, and come to indwell our bodies, over and over again.

“I want to plan your whole birthday for you this year, if you’ll let me,” my dear friend held both my hands in hers as she leaned forward, with tender eyes that held my heart. “I know no one has ever planned anything to celebrate you, at least not in ways that see and know you. And I also know that this is something you need and deserve.” I never knew when my birthday was until entering foster care at the age of fifteen. Years of experiencing repeated failed attempts at obligatory “celebrations” of my birthday by people who never really saw or knew me, combined with my resistance to receiving care from anyone, made her offer incredibly risky. Yet I knew and trusted that my friend would love me well in this, even as I also knew I would never have asked her to. The only thing she had me decide was what food (tater tots, my favorite), and who would be there. Surrounded by a small group of friends from my little island, I had never felt so loved in my life. The avalanche of grief that hit me afterwards was unexpected, as my friend stayed with me after everyone left. I collapsed in her arms and grieved years of uncelebrated birthdays and the pain and loss surrounding that.

Western culture has long touted ideas of independence, individualism, self-sufficiency, and productivity, in stark contrast to community and dependence. A song came up on my Spotify release radar the other day, the singer crooning a chorus of “Oh, I want you, I don’t know if I need you.”[19] Multiple dating profiles state that they are looking for someone who is “independent” and “self-sustaining.” One of my favorite TV shows, Blackish, features a successful Black anesthesiologist, Bow, and her husband, Dre, who works in marketing. While they are attending a formal event celebrating her accomplishments, Dre says, “Seeing you kill it with these VIPs all night by yourself made me feel like you didn’t need me.” Bow responds, “Oh babe. I don’t need you. I choose you.”[20] This idea of being independent and not needing each other, but instead choosing each other again denies our inherent human dependency on one another, in part because what happens to those of us who are not “chosen”? Winnicott wrote often on both dependence and independence, and in his view “individual maturity implies a movement towards independence, but there is no such thing as independence. It would be unhealthy for an individual to be so withdrawn as to feel independent and invulnerable. If such a person is alive, then there is dependence indeed!”[21] Eva Feder Kittay, a feminist disability scholar and care ethicist, advocates for an embodied dependency, locating dependency, connection, and vulnerability at the very center of human subjectivity. She writes, “We human beings are the sorts of beings we are because we are cared for by other human beings.”[22] With care, dependency, vulnerability, and love at the center of our humanity, flourishing as embodied souls then becomes a shared human experience we are all moving towards together.

Embodied Divinity: Here

Where is God? In the midst of all of our pain and suffering, where is God? It is easy to imagine and believe that we know of some sort of God when all goes well, but how do our souls, in the liminal space of light and dark, joy and suffering, unfold in relationship to a Divine Creator? Might She be in this liminal space with us, embodied Herself? We live in a disembodied society with a disembodied God found almost anywhere, but we did not come to a disembodied God, community, and self on our own. McBride traces this disembodiment from hundreds of years ago. Western philosophy and religious thought propagated something like this: the soul and the mind are distinct and separate from the body (Plato). Truth is held only in the mind, and needs, desires, and limitations are held in the body.[23] The body is something bad to be mastered, controlled, and conquered in favor of the mind. This hierarchical train of thought came from a patriarchal and colonialist belief system which was then imposed upon Scripture. Good versus bad, man over woman, mind over body, white is better than Black, non-disabled is better than disabled, straight is better than gay, colonizer is better than colonized, all are saying the same thing: “bodies are bad, but some are more or less so than others.”[24]

If we learn who we are from being in relationship with others, then surely a disembodied God will only lead us to a disembodied self. Kalsched, again speaking of the soul, writes “Moreover, the soul is understood to develop from its original oneness with the divine, to an evolving condition of ‘twoness’ as it gathers worldly experience and ultimately to ‘threeness’ as it re-relates again to its spiritual origins.”[25] But if we came from a disembodied God, then the only path for us is to be disembodied. In looking for and understanding our own embodiment, to understand and know that God is also embodied can lead us towards flourishing. God is found embodied through those whom She has created and loves in all mystery: humans, animals, and the natural world; all living things. Sally McFague’s metaphorical language is revolutionary: “In what ways would we think of the relationship between God and world were we to experiment with the metaphor of the universe as God’s ‘body,’ God’s palpable presence in all space and time?”[26] She goes on to suggest God as “mother (father), lover, and friend.”[27] This model of the world as God’s body brings an imaginative presence of God dwelling in and through everyone and everything, and if this is so, then God is always present with us and we are not only always in the presence of God, but we are always held and fed by Her, just as a newborn infant with their mother. Here we find the image of God as ever-present love in relationship. This is a refreshing and freeing perspective, for to imagine the world as God’s body brings us into embodied relationship with God, ourselves, and others. If we look into the face of another and see God’s face, if we look down at our own good bodies and see God’s body, if we plant our feet firmly upon the dirt of this earth and know we are held by God’s good body, that an embodied God has needs as well as we who are embodied also have needs, flourishing becomes possible for all. How we care for and see ourselves, our neighbors, the earth and all that is in it, naturally changes from the perspective of an embodied God, who is intimately present here and now with us. Religious studies scholar Diana Butler Bass writes, “The biblical narrative is that of a God who comes close, compelled by a burning desire to make heaven on earth and occupy human hearts.”[28]

Conclusion

 “You are good, you are good, you are good. You are always, always good,” I whispered these words over and over again to my four-year-old foster son, holding his sobbing body as he alternated between trying to punch and hug me. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! You are never be my Tace Mommy!” He nestled his face into my shoulder as he screamed and cried his pain into the world. Gradually, his sobs turned into quiet sniffles, and I sank to the floor with him in my arms, exhausted. It had been almost four hours of not fighting him while he tore through the house, leaving books, toys, and anything he could get his hands on in his wake. He cuddled in my arms and drifted off to sleep. Johnray and his two-year-old brother, Linden, had been found in dog cages, covered in both scars and fresh wounds, in an abandoned house. This little one had every right to scream and rage, even beyond the fact that he lacked the developmental ability to do anything else when faced with any emotion. He was much like a newborn infant, and often needed to be in relationship just as he was, like a baby. What do we do when confronted with another human, someone with a body, a face, a heart, a voice, an embodied soul like our own? If we dare to acknowledge the embodied presence of another human, if we dare to embrace our own embodied self, everything will change. Suddenly, there is another human, filled with life and aliveness, standing before us and we cannot turn away, no matter who is before us.

The movie “Children of Men,” tells a dystopian story of human infertility.[29] There have been no new humans born for over twenty years, and society is in despair. Without new life being born into this world, all of humanity will cease to exist. A woman miraculously becomes pregnant, and the film follows her journey to safety, carrying the last hope of humankind continuing on. The entire world is at war, and the woman gives birth in a war camp, surrounded by explosions and gunfire. As the baby girl is carried out to safety, hidden in the folds of her mother’s cloak, she screams as only a newborn can. All around them as they walk through the gunfire to escape, the fighting dies down. In the face of a newborn, the last hope for humanity, neither side can continue fighting. Can we hold this same care for all of our fellow humans, no matter their age, and see every person as precious and valuable, just as they were when they were new to this world? As therapist and author Katherine Sleadd says, “A community has the power to kill or to heal, to sustain or to starve. There is no middle ground.”[30]

Just as an embodied God holds us in all tenderness and love, may we hold our fellow humans; embodying our own souls and inviting embodiment of every precious soul we come across. For our neediness and dependency doesn’t change, even as our bodies grow and age. May we all scream and rage, weep into the soft folds of another’s body, laugh until our bellies ache and our breaths gasp for air, and run with exhilaration and delight into the arms of someone who loves us. May joy leap unbounded from your eyes and face towards the face of another, and your laughter fill the skies. May your body, may you be held, ever so tenderly now as you were or should have been when you were new; for you are still new.

Bibliography

Bass, Diana Butler. Grounded: Finding God in the World-A Spiritual Revolution. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2015.

 Blackish, 2020. Season 6, Episode 18, “Best Supporting Husband.” Directed by Eric Dean Seaton. Aired March 17th, 2020, on ABC.

Cuaron, Alfonso, dir. Children of Men. 2006; Venice: Universal Pictures, 2007. DVD.

Eekhof, Judy K. Trauma and Primitive Mental States: An Object Relations Perspective. London and New York: Routledge, 2019.

Heller, L., & LaPierre, Aline. Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship. North Atlantic Books, 2012.

Kalsched, Donald. Trauma and the soul: A psycho-spiritual approach to human development and its interruption. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Kittay, Eva Feder. Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2015.

Lucas, David. The Robot and the Bluebird. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2007.

MacNamara, Deborah. Nourished: Connection, Food, and Caring for Our Kids (and Everyone Else We Love). Vancouver, BC: Aona Books, 2023.

McBride, Hillary. The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness, and Connection through Embodied Living. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2021.

McFague, Sallie. Models of God. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1987.

O’Donohue, John. Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1997.

Palmer, Parker J. A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life: Welcoming the Soul and Weaving Community in a Wounded World. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2004.

Winnicott, D.W. Home Is Where We Start From. Essays by a Psychoanalyst. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1986.

___. Human Nature. New York: Routledge, 1990.

—-. Playing and Reality. London and New York: Routledge, 1971.

—-. The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. New York: Routledge, 1965.

[1] Kalsched, Donald. Trauma and the soul: A psycho-spiritual approach to human development and its interruption. (New York: Routledge, 2013), 17.

[2] Eekhof, J.K. Trauma and Primitive Mental States: An Object Relations Perspective. (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), 68.

[3] Winnicot, D.W. The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. (New York: Routledge, 1965), 59.

[4] Lucas, David. The Robot and the Bluebird. (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2007).

[5] Kalsched, 16.

[6] Winnicott, 148.

[7] Heller, L., & LaPierre, Aline. Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship. (North Atlantic Books, 2012), 31.

[8] McBride, Hillary. The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness, and Connection through Embodied Living. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2021), 160.

[9] McBride, 134.

[10] Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2015), 208.

[11] McBride, Hillary, 43.

[12] Winnicott, D.W. Playing and Reality. (London and New York: Routledge, 1971), 151.

[13] O’Donohue, John. Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom. (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1997), 12.

[14] MacNamara, Deborah. Nourished: Connection, Food, and Caring for Our Kids (and Everyone Else We Love). (Vancouver, BC: Aona Books, 2023), 227-228.

[15] MacNamara, 229.

[16] MacNamara, 233.

[17] MacNamara, 238.

[18] Palmer, Parker J. A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life: Welcoming the Soul and Weaving Community in a Wounded World. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2004), 153.

[19] East Pointers, single, I Want You, December 29, 2023.

[20] Blackish. 2020. Season 6, Episode 18, “Best Supporting Husband.” Directed by Eric Dean Seaton. Aired March 17th, 2020, on ABC.

[21] Winnicott, D.W. Home Is Where We Start From. Essays by a Psychoanalyst. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1986), 21.

[22] Kittay, E.F. Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency. (New York: Routledge, 1999), 625.

[23] McBride, 215.

[24] McBride, 216.

[25] Kalsched, 16.

[26] McFague, Sallie. Models of God. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1987), 60.

[27] McFague, 62.

[28] Bass, D. B. Grounded: Finding God in the World-A Spiritual Revolution. (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2015), 13.

[29] Children of Men. Directed by Alfonso Cuaron. (2006; Venice: Universal Pictures, 2007), DVD.

[30] Katherine Sleadd (@katesleadd), May 29, 2024.