Bodies, Bellies and Bibles
Artist and practical theologian Vanessa Chamberlin describes the work of putting our physical selves in the stories of scripture.
10 min read | This post is adapted from the final issue of Passio Magazine: our limited print edition which came out twice a year. You can order a copy, and most back-issues, in our shop.
“You Westerners all have bird energy,” my Tibetan ex-monk friend told me, making a line with the side of his right hand along his chest and then twitching it upwards to give the impression of fast moving, shallow thoughts.
“You need to learn live from here” — he grasped his belly firmly with that same open hand.
It was September 2001, and I had recently arrived in McLeod Ganj, an Indian-Tibetan town that drapes itself along a high ridge in the foothills of the Himalayas. It’s where the Dalai Lama and his government still live, in exile, and I had arrived with the intention of teaching English for four months.
I did that. And it was a huge privilege. But it was in the context of something even deeper happening for me. As if my encountering the quiet strangeness of Tibetan culture, in the context of the kaleidoscopic beauty and seeming chaos of wider Indian life, allowed the God that I myself had grown up with to sneak back in to my life, like a draft of wildly fresh water from the local mountain spring.
India, just by being India, was giving us bird-like westerners permission to unfold and admit our spiritual hunger. And, to my amazement, I found myself wanting to talk with and ask people about Jesus, simply because, for the first time in my life really, no-one else was doing so.
But it wasn’t the Jesus I knew in the UK. The Jesus I found myself talking and asking and wondering about in those foothills — whilst walking through lines of coloured prayer flags in the depths of the forest, celebrating Chanukah with my new Jewish friends, listening to stories of people returning from months of meditation in mountain caves — that Jesus had His hand firmly on His belly. He was rooted in the earth.
Fast-forward 23 years, and I am asking a group of young adults that are standing in a circle, each holding a small stone in the hand of a raised arm: “where are you looking now?”
We are in the midst of a ‘somatic bible study’, where I invite people to place their bodies in particular roles in whatever story we are encountering. In this case it is the story of the ‘woman caught in adultery’, which we have chosen to call ‘the man and woman caught in adultery’, drawing attention to the absence of the man in the trial that ensues.
Before the woman was dragged in to the temple, the story tells us that Jesus was sitting teaching the people that had come to hear Him, so a group of the young people are sitting in front of the young woman that has volunteered to ‘be’ Jesus for this bible study.
Having read the passage together at the start of our session, the group demarcated the shape of the temple in the room, decided on the direction of the Mount of Olives (from which Jesus had walked earlier that morning) and the whereabouts of the adulterous affair (somewhere in the opposite direction).
This meant that, in accordance with their map, when the scribes and Pharisees drag the woman to the temple, they have to walk three sides of the outline of the building they have created in order to get to the entrance. And this gives us time to ask questions about the situation.
“What is the woman wearing?” They pause in their walking and look at the woman that three or four of them have their hands on at that moment. They look up at the text that is projected on the wall. “Well… perhaps she’s wearing nothing. If we’ve caught them in the act, then we may not have allowed her time to get dressed. And if our point is to make this as dramatic a situation as possible, it may be that, for the sake of our own dignity, we’ve allowed her to put on some underwear, but other than that she just has the blanket that was on the bed wrapped around her.”
We let those words hold us and become co-ordinates of our time together. But between the words, we let our imaginations roam
“So you mean you men are leading a virtually naked woman through the early morning streets of Jerusalem, towards the temple, with only a blanket to cover herself, whilst you pull and yank her on? That’s pretty distressing right? To witness. And to experience.” One of the young people throws a blanket to the woman, who this time is being played by a young man, to wrap around herself, as a way to remind us of her nakedness at this point in the story – or rather in their telling of the story.
When I host these Bible studies, I invite whoever I’m working with — young people, older people, people of faith or none — to trust, for the time we are together, that every word in the story is intentional. We let those words hold us and become co-ordinates of our time together. But between the words, we let our imaginations roam.
The group continue walking around the temple and, once they appear through the entrance, presumably adjusting their eyes to the darker inside, the seated group that have been listening to Jesus look up towards the newcomers. And they witness a strange sight. Well-known religious leaders and law makers standing in (we imagine) their smart robes with a dishevelled looking woman trying to hold the blanket tight around her seemingly naked body.
The seated group instinctively move back to make space for the new arrivals, who begin to make a circle around Jesus, blocking the view of the original group, some of whom now stand up so they can see what’s happening.
Bodies. We notice it becomes very much about the positioning and the movements and the responses of bodies. Using our senses. Noticing our feelings and instincts. Becoming aware of our bellies.
“What’s happened now? Where do you want to position yourself? Do others in the temple notice this scene? What does it smell like in there? What kind of noises can you hear? Why are you even there?” The group that had been listening to Jesus have now become witness to the trial that is unfolding before them.
I ask them whether they have any questions for the new arrivals at this point. “Yes, I do, I want to ask the Pharisees why the man isn’t here.” A pause. Then one of the Pharisees speaks up. “Oh we know him. And we’ve known about his affair for ages. This isn’t really about them. It’s about catching Jesus out. So we’re just using the woman. There was no need to use him too. He’s our friend.”
Clearly this is made up. Some of the young people frown, wondering whether it’s ok to invent these details when handling a sacred text. I remind them that we are making things up all the time to fill the gaps, we just don’t realise it, and I encourage them to stay in the warm body of the story.
We look back to the text projected on the wall, at which point one of the Pharisees pushes the woman (gently of course — they are representing the bodies in the stories, not genuinely acting the scene) in to the centre of their circle, setting her ‘in the midst’.
I then ask the whole group, “where is your attention right now?”
Every single one of them, including Jesus, say they are looking at the woman, who is steadying herself so she doesn’t fall from the push, whilst trying to keep the blanket from exposing her naked flesh.
I ask the woman how she feels, with all eyes on her, and an increasing number of arms raised with stones in clenched fists, ready to throw them at her. Some of the original group have reached for stones being offered by the Pharisees and now stand with their arms raised too. They haven’t had much time to think about it, but are caught up in the drama.
Scared. Vulnerable. Exposed. Shamed. Violated. Shocked. Unsafe. Sad. Betrayed. Angry. Frozen. I want to cry but I can’t because that would make it worse. I’m looking for another woman but I can’t see any. That’s an amalgamation of the various responses I’ve heard from the ‘woman’ over the years that I’ve hosted this study.
And at just this moment of peak exposure, vulnerability and shame, ‘Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear’.
I ask them again, “where are you looking now?”
And a chorus of voices says “at Jesus.”
I was trained to embody Bible stories like this by my friends Bob & Gracie Ekblad,1 and have been adapting them for different kinds of groups since.
They have spent the majority of their adult lives reading the Bible with people on the margins of society around the world, most often with those we incarcerate.
This was the first story I enacted with them, back in 2010. And, as I stood with a stone in my hand, ready to throw it at the woman ‘in our midst’, feeling something of the power and social cohesion that comes from creating a scapegoat, Bob asked us “who do we tend to throw stones at today?”
“Child abusers. Bankers. The Police. Dictators. Rapists. Racists…” the list went on and then the group fell quiet.
When reading in jail, Bob shares that the inmates often assume that Jesus will be on the side of the law. The prison guards. The courts. The legal system. And again and again they are amazed to find that the warm body of Jesus stays close to ‘them’ in the story.
I love inviting people to engage their own bodies in these stories. To be the religious leader, Jairus, whose privileged life momentarily falls apart when Jesus turns his body away from him to tend to the needs of a socially outcast bleeding woman. To be a body in that crowd straining to see what’s going on. To be the Samaritan woman who arrives at a well in the heat of the day to collect water and finds Jesus there, alone and very inappropriately asking her for help. The towns folk who in the meantime have to decide whether to sell bread to His disciples… with whom they are not meant to associate.
But I am always most interested in what happens when we let the body of Jesus speak for itself in these enactments.
Jesus’s body bending down to write in the sand at this particular moment removes the glare of attention from the terrified woman. What skill. What tact. Care. Grace.
His body then holds that attention… absorbs it… transforms it… as He stands and tells those accusing her “he who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”
Jesus’s instincts model an entirely different way of being in the world.
And then, instead of shaming the stone-throwers by allowing the gaze of the room to fall on them, as would be expected in such a moment, we are told that He “stooped down and wrote on the ground” again, drawing the eyes of the room with him, allowing the accusers to slip away, convicted, but not shamed.
This is exquisite behaviour.
Masterful. Gracious. Wise. Spacious. Redemptive. Authoritative. Infuriating (it offends our need for vengeance). Strange.
And, if read without an awareness of bodies, it is behaviour that can easily be missed.
Jesus is kind. Even when He is fierce. He is empathetic. To friends and enemies. Accused and accusers. This is good news. It makes Him strong, not weak. His strategy here is more efficient than one who would lecture, bully, accuse, or shame.
His instincts allow Him to become host of this space in a way that allows Him to model an entirely different way of being in the world. As I’ve said in other places, Jesus is a walking apocalypse, and His body reveals that to be the case, not just when it is literally cracked open on the Cross, but in its every day movement through His world.
It gives me hope that there may be value in those of us with ‘bird-energy’ placing our open hands on our bellies and practicing engaging with scripture from there. Letting the Bible teach us tactful, embodied strategies for how to relate across difference and treat our enemies and accusers with dignity, whoever they are, and whatever they’ve done.
Vanessa Chamberlin is an artist, writer, spiritual director and practical theologian. You’ll find her writing at The Tuning Fork on Substack, and can read about her spiritual direction and hosting practices at rockdove.org.uk
You can read about Bob & Gracie Ekblad’s work at www.tierranueva.org and www.bobekblad.com.
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