The Broken Body

Wholeness, healing and hope amid a broken and suffering world are the themes of this powerful prose-poem.

A comprehensive, objective, scholarly and yet easy-to-read presentation of the differences, both historical, theological and liturgical between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. The ideal complement (or even antidote) to such books as Upon this Rock; Jesus, Peter and the Keys; Two Paths; The Primacy of Peter; etc. Discusses Peter's Primacy and Succession, Ecclesiology, Infallibility, the Filioque, Celibacy, etc.

In the tradition of William Styron’s tour de force Darkness Visible, The Body Broken is a gorgeously told and intensely moving account of one woman’s extraordinary odyssey into a life of chronic pain–and of the unyielding resilience of the human spirit. At age nineteen, Lynne Greenberg narrowly survived a devastating car crash. When her broken neck healed–or so everyone thought–her recovery was hailed as a medical miracle and she returned to normal life. Years later, she seemed to have it all: a loving husband, two wonderful children, a peaceful home, and a richly satisfying job as a tenured poetry professor. Then, one morning, this blissful façade shattered–the pain in her neck returned in the most vicious way. A life with physical agony ensued. Greenberg realized that she had been living for years on borrowed time. As she and her family navigated an increasingly complicated web of doctors and specialists, Greenberg taught herself to fight her own battles–against a medical system ill-equipped to handle patients with chronic pain, and against the emotional pitfalls of a newly restricted life. Drawing on her family’s support, her own indomitable spirit, and an intense connection to the poetry she taught, Greenberg found the strength to return to a productive and satisfying–if irrevocably changed–life. This deeply personal saga takes us to the heart of a family’s struggle to survive a crisis, and shows us how, at the most profound levels, such an odyssey affects a patient’s marriage, the ability to parent, family, work, and friendships. The Body Broken is a powerful, lyrical story of one woman’s remarkable determination and breathtaking courage, as she puts mind over matter in the struggle to reclaim her life.

Some fundamental aspects of the lived body only become evident when it breaks down through illness, weakness or pain. From a phenomenological point of view, various breakdowns are worth analyzing for their own sake, and discussing them also opens up overlooked dimensions of our bodily constitution. This book brings together different approaches that shed light on the phenomenology of the lived body--its normality and abnormality, health and sickness, its activity as well as its passivity. The contributors integrate phenomenological insights with discussions about bodily brokenness in philosophy, theology, medical science and literary theory. Phenomenology of the Broken Bodydemonstrates how the broken body sheds fresh light on the nuances of embodied experience in ordinary life and ultimately questions phenomenology's preunderstanding of the body.

The starting point of Ann Oakley's fascinating book is the fracture of her right arm in the grounds of a hotel in the USA. What begins as an accident becomes a journey into some critical themes of modern Western culture: the crisis of embodiment and the perfect self; the confusion between body and identity; the commodification of bodies and body parts; the intrusive surveillance and profiteering of medicine and the law; the problem of ageing; and the identification of women, particularly, with bodies - from the intensely ambiguous two-in-one state of pregnancy to women's later transformation into unproductive, brittle skeletons. Fracture mixes personal experience (the author's and other people's) with 'facts' derived from other literatures, including the history of medicine, neurology, the sociology of health and illness, philosophy, and legal discourses on the right to life and people as victims of a greedy litigation system. The book's genre spans fiction/non-fiction, autobiography and social theory.

A fascinating collection of essays exploring a fresh contemporary approach to the person and doctrine of Jesus Christ How should Christians think about the person of Jesus Christ today? In this volume, Sarah Coakley argues that this question has to be ‘broken open’ in new and unexpected ways: by an awareness of the deep spiritual demands of the christological task and its strikingly ‘apophatic’ dimensions; by a probing of the paradoxical ways in which Judaism and Christianity are drawn together in Christ, even by those issues which seem to ‘break’ them most decisively apart; and by an exploration of the mode of Christ’s presence in the eucharist, with its intensification,‘ breaking’ and re-gathering of human desires. In this sequel to her celebrated earlier volume of essays, Powers and Submissions, Coakley returns to its unifying theme of divine power and contemplative submission, and weaves a new web of christological outcomes which remain replete with controversial implications for gender, spirituality and ethics. The Broken Body will be of interest to those working in the fields of systematic theology, philosophy of religion, early Christian studies, Jewish/Christian relations, and feminist and gender theory. ‘Fusing biblical and patristic theology, analytic philosophy, and spiritual tradition, Sarah Coakley has produced a fascinating, inspiring, and compelling account of Christ’s identity, and its importance for questions of life.’ Professor Mark Wynn, University of Oxford ‘Coakley argues that good Christology arises only from intellectual and spiritual postures learnt by encountering Christ openly. This volume subtly and powerfully facilitates such encounter, with God and, in him, with our neighbours, especially the Jewish people.’ Professor Judith Wolfe, University of St. Andrews ‘Everything we have come to expect from Sarah Coakley is here in this extraordinary collection: wonderful clarity; startling and fruitful comparisons, within and beyond the theological canon; a brisk defiance of feminist conventions that in turn sharpens and deepens feminist analysis; a resistance to cheap theological certainties; and an abiding faithfulness, anchored in Christ, borne aloft by the Spirit. Christology is here shown to embrace abjection and jouissance, to advocate sacrifice that is itself the end of patriarchal violence, and to demand a eucharistic sharing that is incomplete without solidarity to the outcast and the poor, themselves the face of the living Christ. In these essays Coakley exemplifies the semiotic richness of priest and scholar, a breaking open of theological reserves that will transgress, startle, renew, instruct. This is sacrifice, re-made.’ Professor Katherine Sonderegger, Virginia Theological Seminary How should Christians think about the person of Jesus Christ today? In this volume, Sarah Coakley argues that this question has to be ‘broken open’ in new and unexpected ways: by an awareness of the deep spiritual demands of the christological task and its strikingly ‘apophatic’ dimensions; by a probing of the paradoxical ways in which Judaism and Christianity are drawn together in Christ, even by those issues which seem to ‘break’ them most decisively apart; and by an exploration of the mode of Christ’s presence in the eucharist, with its intensification,‘ breaking’ and re-gathering of human desires. In this sequel to her celebrated earlier volume of essays, Powers and Submissions, Coakley returns to its unifying theme of divine power and contemplative submission, and weaves a new web of christological outcomes which remain replete with controversial implications for gender, spirituality and ethics. The Broken Body will be of interest to those working in the fields of systematic theology, philosophy of religion, early Christian studies, Jewish/Christian relations, and feminist and gender theory.

Using the Benedictine practice of lectio divina, or holy reading, as a way of reading an illness, as a way to relate better to one's body and soul.