You don't trust what you don't know. It is paradoxical that a culture like ours, which promotes an almost pornographic obsession with the appearance of the physical body, could encourage a pervasive ignorance and mistrust of it. Sex education, or the lack of it, provides an excellent example. This subject is still controversial within most school districts in the United States today, despite dramatic increases in teenage incidence of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Need another example of the lack of awareness about the body? Ask a number of people where the pancreas is. You may find yourself directed to a local restaurant down the block.

What can you say about a population that may know more about the structure and the function of the automobile than it does about the workings of the human body?

It's hard to love when you feel guilt and shame. For all of our scientific sophistication, the sad fact is that many of us sense that our bodies are somehow inferior to our minds. Some parts of the body are felt to be shameful; some of its processes considered dirty."

Young children know nothing of shame and guilt. But once learned, these feelings will surface throughout life. It takes some active involvement to overcome these influences, to reestablish a trust, a love, a sense of reverence for the body.

After all, the human body has, over the past two hundred million years since mammals first appeared on earth, developed into a truly amazing vehicle.

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