Wellness works for me. Wellness suggests to me well-being, general goodness in one's state of being.
Health... I am reading as the opposite of sickness or illness, and when I think illness I think chronic illness, which leads to a whole different set of questions and a whole different problem.
Maybe it's that health as the opposite of sickness conjures up images of my girlfriend's medical texts and anatomy labs and I have difficulty connecting that to what we do in church on Sunday.
So my question is How is physical health a spiritual issue?
I will readily admit: I suck at honoring my body most of the time. If I could live in my head and didn't need to eat or sleep or move?
So talk to me about God and health and sickness and exercise and diet and all the things that are components of your idea of a healthy lifestyle and tell me how they are also part of your spirituality.
Or tell me, why does God want
Or tell me, what does being healthy entail?
God created the world, the messy muddy embodied world, and called it GOOD.
ReplyDeleteGod knit together our cells and our sinews and our hair follicles, well before we were air breathers, and God wants us to love all those parts of ourselves just as much as God loves them. God says, "This is my gift to you: the lungs you have, the air you breathe. This is my gift to you: the legs you have, the ground on which you walk. This is my gift to you: your sense of smell, your sense of taste, your teeth, your tongue, your stomach. This is my gift to you: the fruits of the earth, none of which are forbidden you."
Yes, yes, I'm eliding the problematics of bodies that have limitations that prevent the people living them from experiencing the fulness of life at the level they desire.
But I will say that God looks at me exercising and rejoices at Her child growing stronger. And God looks at you receving the Communion Elements and rejoices at Her child being fed and sustained and nourished.
God Incarnated, met us in the messy sticky sweaty bloody fragile bodies that we are, because God loves us and because bodies are important and valuable.
Jesus opened up the table to all, broke bread with all, fed crowds of people over and over again, because food is life and Jesus came to bring us abundant life that shall be with us even unto the end of the age.
And God fed the Israelites during their 40 years in the wilderness because humans cannot live on the Word of God alone. We eat the Word of God, like Ezekiel did, and it is as sweet as honey, and we eat this Word in our hearing of the Scriptures and in our receiving Communion and in our daily lives as everything we have is a gift from God.
I love you, bff. (I had this suspicion you would answer, and was all ready with, "Okay, but answer like you know why I'm asking the question." Which you do, magically.)
ReplyDeleteThank you.
(Abiding Peace folks, obviously, you are invited to respond to the question too.)
We live in a society that is fast pace and sometimes it's difficult to balance time.
ReplyDeleteTwo years ago I noticed that my energy level is not like the battery bunny anymore. I h-a-d to slow down. I looked at my lifestyle and made some changes to be more healthy. Outside my family, and working, I was voluntering in 3 different areas. Also I was taking classes at Maplewoods College. My body was saying slow down, I was gaining weight (eating junk on the go), and etc....I felt stressed out and not focused.
I had to change to be more healthy.
It was learning to say no to people and not feel guilty. Aso I am trying not to be perfect. My OCD kicks in and I can't stop. I'm better than I was at a younger age. You see having children changed me. I remember hearing from other mothers say how they wished they spent more time with the kids when they where younger. I took the time to do that. The house chores and laundry got put off hold. I took my kids to the park, climbed trees, played in the mud, snow, made plastic creepy crawlers etc....
What does healthy have to do with it? I see people my age die of heart attacks, cancer, and have other health problems. Yes, we have genes that are in the family that can't be avoided but this is what it means to be healthy to have a longer life -
To live a healthy lifesyle means to take time out to care for my body, through diet and exercise, limit to what I do (less stress), sleep, spend time with family and friends (good for mental health), and don't over work. Have fun and laugh. Take chances.
Spiritual health connects with the body because the body is the storage vessel of the soul. The spirit and soul connects and is eternal. How a person lives and reacts is a reflection of the spirit in them and vise versa. Spiritual health can be through worship, prayer, meditations, reading the Bible, walking in the woods. Other people of different faiths chant, light chandles, go to tea gardens with Buddha statues. All forms of faith to everybody is unique and their spiritually is expressed to what they feel or need.
I believe God wants us to enjoy life and take care of our own bodies. It is so important to take care of ourselves before caring for others.
To be healthy means to spend less time on the technology (T.V., computers, phones...)and exercise instead. Or go for a walk in the neighboorhood listening to the birds. To be healthy means to balance the time wisely, putting priorities first. Some things won't get done.
With commercials on bigger size meals that look so good it's easy to pick the food up instead of spending time cooking a balance meal in the kitchen. Planning ahead does help. Also don't have any snack foods around the house.
Life is short. Make every moment count. God blessed us with a country that has healthy water, good sanitary conditions, stores with tons of vegetables and fruits. There's help out there with exercises, weight loss diets and eating healthy cookbooks.
The key is disipline. That's a different subject all together. Maybe next week.
Yes, I played hooky from church today. I needed that slower day to get things done. One week left before school starts and teachers are showing up. There's alot going on at work.
And you know what, I really needed it - physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Missed everyone, but I will see you next Sunday.