This is My Body: Embracing God Through Re-Membering Ourselves

Fri 1 PM | Healing Arts

Hannah Shanks

Bodies are important to God. As Christians we hold tight to Jesus—God made flesh. We follow a God who chose the name “God WITH us,” and that with-ness included a body. But many of us have been taught that God values our bodies only for how healthy, chaste, fair-skinned, pretty, or thin they are, or how well they fit within standard notions of gender and sex. We struggle to feel at home in our own skin. This workshop begins with the radical premise that God values our bodies and what we do with them. Combining storytelling, discussion, & active reflection, we will invite participants to own the messages that they have been told about their bodies—wounds inflicted at the hands of God’s people—& encourage them to consider how God is calling them to deeper communion with their whole selves. The session will move in multiple parts: storytelling, partner/group discussion, and a small service of reclaiming our bodies with tattoos reading “This is My Body.”

Hannah Shanks

Hannah Shanks is an assistant professor of social work and director of the social work program at Greenville University, Greenville, Illinois. She is a storyteller and has participated in the St. Louis chapter of Listen to Your Mother, a live reading series and video sharing company. Hannah is a member of Anam Cara St. Louis, an intentional ecumenical community formed around a shared Rule of Life and weekly observance of prayer and communion.
hannaheshanks.com

Sessions:
130 This Is My Body

Session #130