HEALTH is one of the most important dynamics of human existence. The word “health” has several meanings & variations. Presently this dynamic word and process is caught up in the massive changes occuring in our lives and institutions. We can say there is a revolution in the understanding and practice of health and healthcare. Changes are inevitable. Revolutions are likely. Transformations are possible and necessary. Organized religion, and individual congregations need to be actively involved and share the leadership in the transformation of health and healthcare.
Health has been understood as a physical dynamic. Yet the need for awareness and inclusion of spirituality in this dynamic is slowly becoming apparent. For centuries health was the province of the church, with folk remedies, shamanism and witchcraft as sidebars. When science became legitimized, the practice of medicine became the dominant resource and profession in managing illness and physical impairment. The church moved aside and settled for offering prayers, comfort and ritual healings. When mental health became a recognizable entitly, both medicine and the church made room for this therapeutic treatment of the mind/brain. With medicine and psychology dominating the understanding of human health, the church became a minor resource in maintaining the popular understanding and experience of health, and the close relationship between physical and mental health became accepted. Now there is an emerging awareness that the health of the human spirit/soul is equally important in full health, which the church tends to call “wholeness.” However, the church is poorly prepared to participate in what sometimes seems like a competition among the three healthcare professions to define and dominate the understanding and practice of healthcare. For it seems to offer only the traditional resources of prayer, comfort and ritual healing.
The concept of wholeness is emerging as a opening for the church to posit a model of human beings as a composite of a physical body, a brain-mind, and a spirit or soul. The interdependency of these three components is now demonstrable, as medicine and psychology slowly yield to the reality that religious faith and practice both modify and enhance the understanding and experience of health. We can now say that healing and health are not complete without the participation of all three professions, each in its appropriate way.
Some have called the relationship between spiritual health, mental health, and physical health “the healthcare triangle.” This metaphorical configuration of the relationship between these three healing-health modes can be helpful. It reminds us that if one side of a triangle is weak or missing, there is no longer a triangle, or at least the triangle becomes distorted and no longer provides the supportive strength, or has the structural integrity we expect from triangles. A strong triangle formed by cooperative and creative interaction between the professions is the best model for healthcare and health available.
In order for the church’s participation as a full partner in healthcare to occur, we must define wholeness as more than our standard three resources. We must teach the meaning of spiritual health, and help demonstrate that a healthy spirit contributes to the health of the body and mind. Further, the church must help emphasize and practice the emerging realization that prevention of illness and impairment is at least as important as treatment, comfort and healing.
It seems as if medicine and psychology are better prepared to manage their respective domains in health than is the church. We are generally limited to encouraging ill and impaired persons to seek aid from medical practitioners and mental health therapists than to develop the full potential of spiritual resources. Yet we can offer and demonstrate salvation in all its forms, love as the mystical and demonstrable practice of caring, teaching the model of Jesus the Christ as our reference point for physical touch, and disciplined morality, along with contemplative meditation, and inspiring relationships. Also, of course, we can provide the celebration of of Holy Communion, worship, prophetic preaching/teaching, spiritual expressions of the arts, and leadership in the struggle for peace and justice. Moreover, we can also share in administering adequate resources for nutrition among the needy, and learning and recreation, as well as the shared efforts in ecological health. We may call this impressive list of spirual resources that the church can provide the “Good Stuff” of full health and wholeness. And in order to have the Good Stuff, we must learn to identify and limit the “bad stuff” that distorts and sickens.
Perhaps the most significant contribution of the church is a constant reminder that we are all human beings having a spiritual experience that involves the body and mind. Yet it transcends these by lifting human experience to its highest joys and possibilities through the evolutionary connection of our soul/spirit with God our Creator.
We have not legitimized the church’s new/old role in defining and providing for wholeness, unless we are willing and prepared to do battle with Evil. For evil in its many forms is a potent infection, mental disorder, and spiritual vulnerability induced by the second most powerful spiritual entity in God’s Creation. Medicine deals with infection, injury and physical healthcare. Psychology deals with mental disorders, disease and distorted thinking. The church, when at its best, battles evil in all its emanations by offering traditional resources for spiritual health, but it also, in its prophetic expressions, confronts evil in its individual and planetary forms.
All of these potential healing and enriching resources of the church ( the “Good Stuff”) are notably weak, hesitant and ineffectual as we frequently submit to the “Bad Stuff”–evil, immorality, apathy, confusion, prejudice, and lack of spiritually inspired leadership, by clergy and laity. As the practice of medicine continues to transform itself into more effective treatments, and psychology begins to transform itself by recognizing the close connection between mind and soul, so the church can rise to its new opportunities to transform itself into an effective antidote for evil, and a potent force for wholeness in both healthcare and prevention of disabilities and practices that separate us from God and each other. Revolution is already stressing all three healthcare professions. Yet their visionary efforts are beginning to reflect the skills of transformation, which can take the energy and disruptions of revolution and turn them into healthy and effective ministrations.
THE SIMPLEST GUIDELINES FOR BODY-MIND-SPIRIT WHOLENESS
For the BODY:
I. Eat Smart
Smaller portions
Right stuff
II. Drink Water
No additives (flavored drinks such as soda, coffee, tea, beer, et al, are acceptable in modest amounts)
6 to 8 glasses/day
III. Exercise More (& Sleep More – the great healer)
Choose right exercises
Adjust exercises & recreation to circumstances
For the Mind:
IV. Think Free (Focus on the “Good Stuff”)
Expand Awareness (Think “outside the box,” and even get rid of the box when it limits our health and growth)
Openness to Reality & GOD-ness, and freedom from dogmatism
For the Spirit (Soul):
V. Pray High
GOD Is Bigger Than We Think– and spirituality has no limits but our own
Seek GOD’s Purposes, as well remedies for our needs
”Good Stuff,” versus “Bad Stuff,” one will become dominant. We get to decide.
Posted by glrediger 
Posted by glrediger 
Posted by glrediger 