Health at the Crossroads

Christian Science Committee on Publication for Indiana - Media and Legislative Liaison

The Ultimate Spiritual Fitness App by Debra Chew for The Chattanooga.com

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free-bible-studies-online-word-of-godWe all want to feel and look our best. Popular fitness culture provides many, often competing, solutions for physical health and appearance. But what if the goal were not only to look and feel our best, but also to actually BE our best? My colleague, Debra Chew, writing for the January 25, 2016 edition of The Chattanoogan.com, describes a spiritual discipline and lifestyle that she calls “the ultimate spiritual fitness app.” So, read on. Get inspired. Get motivated. Get fit…in every sense of the word. Here’s Deb:

In the first few days of the New Year, much discussion centered around steps walked, hours slept, and heart rates. It seemed almost everyone I knew got a fitness tracker for Christmas. While I found it quite interesting that this device could actually calculate steps walked, calories burned and quality of sleep, I had to wonder: if fitness trackers help us stay motivated and improve our body’s fitness by tracking exercise, food, weight, and sleep, isn’t it equally important to find a way to help us stay motivated and improve our spiritual fitness?

An advertisement for FitBit reads: “Meet the Ultimate Fitness App.” If that’s true, then I suggest the ultimate spiritual fitness app is the Bible.

Spiritual fitness could be defined as having a strong set of spiritual beliefs, principles or values and consistently living them. The Apostle Paul instructed Timothy to keep spiritually fit in I Timothy 4:7: “exercise thyself rather unto godliness.” JB Phillips translates that, “take time and trouble to keep yourselves spiritually fit.” Paul goes on to tell Timothy that “while bodily training  is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”

Paul isn’t saying we shouldn’t be physically active, but he is stressing the importance of exercising our spiritual sense of things as diligently and regularly as athletes exercise their bodies, so that we can grow spiritually….

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Defining Health by Bob Clark for HypeOrlando

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@GlowImages Models for Illustration only
@GlowImages
Models for Illustration only

How do you define health? Freedom of movement? A holistic sense of well-being? Absence of pain? Here in Indiana, there are many pain clinics, most recommending a variety of drugs and physical therapies to regain a sense of pain-free health. My colleague, Bob Clark, writing for the September 29, 2014 edition of HypeOrlando, has found a great definition of health. When his hips began to give him a lot of pain, he put that definition into practice.  Here’s Bob:

For many centuries before ours, the Anglo-Saxon word “hal”, the root word of health, had several inter-related meanings: healthy, whole, holy and healing. And if you were from the Latin speaking part of the world the words “salus” and “salvatio” meaning health and salvation, were just as inseparable. In other words, health, healing, salvation and spirituality were all part of the same package and were almost universally understood as such. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad or backward thing.

Looking for a simple contemporary definition of health, I did a quick web search recently and uncovered this “Brainy Quotes” definition from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind.” Author and healer, Mary Baker Eddy, spent much of her life (1821-1910) searching for a better way to realize and experience health. Her absolute statement about health being God-based rather than matter-based came directly from her own experience and Bible study, and to some degree had its origins in that earlier time when health and holiness were realized as flip sides of the same coin. She may have also envisioned a future movement away from the monopoly of drug and surgery based medicine….

I’ve been thinking about Eddy’s definition of health for quite a few decades now and often try it on for size to see if it works for me. I’ve found that it does. Here’s an example:

About a decade ago I began to have a lot of pain in my hips…

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Health: Baby Boomers and the Zumba Craze by Cynthia Barnett for The Cary Citizen

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@San Diego City College
@San Diego City College

Fitness! Exercise! Active lifestyles! Sure, those seem to help in the quest for health, but what is the nature and source of true health? My colleague, Cynthia Barnett, writing for The Aug. 4, 2014 edition of The Cary Citizen, to look away from the body for better health.  Here in Bloomington, Indiana, with a population of 45,000 college students, there are hundreds of fitness, dance, and health classes offered every day.  Are you ready for a Zumba class? Weight-lifting? While such activities may be fun and feel rewarding, Cynthia shares a healing that helps us to see more clear what Health really is. Here’s Cynthia: 

It’s no surprise that most participants are twenty or thirty-somethings with some middle-aged moms enjoying the classes, too. But what about the older ladies and men? Is vigorous exercise too much for baby boomer bones?

As a boomer myself, I had to find out. I signed up for classes to experience the sensations of Zumba. After I started, there was an article in a local newspaper about baby boomers and their exercise habits– featuring my Zumba class. The writer assumed that “old bones” and joints would have a lot to contend with– mishaps expected and other therapies to be recommended. Suffice to say, what I read was a bit of a downer.

Better Health Through Spirituality

However, many health experts question these assumptions about age and other body-based theories, turning instead towards a mindset. Dr. Dean Ornish implies love is the answer to better health, even reversing age symptoms. Dr. Lissa Rankin predicts that spirituality, not biomedical models, will have a stronger role in our health practices. Many other respected practitioners share this view.

It’s not a new idea. Pioneer health writer Mary Baker Eddy, based on her extensive healing practice, says to look away from the body for better health. Men and women of “riper years and larger lessons ought to ripen into health…,”she believes, reflecting her understanding of life as an outcome of the divine.

Optimistic View Of Older Exercisers

Likewise, our local YMCA directors are hopeful when it comes to older exercisers…

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