Lenten Journey: Aspects of Spirituality – Health

 

As we explore these aspects of spirituality, I am in debt to one of my mentors, The Reverend D.Jo Lowell. D.Jo was my immediate supervisor when I first started working as an addiction/recovery chaplain at the Center for Dependency, Addiction, and Rehabilitation (CeDAR) at UCHealth. Her family was among the early European pioneers who came to Colorado in covered wagons in the 19^th century so wagon wheels have provided significant imagery and meaning for her.

Although many wheels operate on a similar principle, when you think of a wagon wheel, the spokes of the wheel stand out for the purpose of D.Jo’s metaphor. At the center of a wheel is the hub but radiating from that center are several spokes which support the frame of the wheel, the rim, upon which the weight of the wagon is carried. For D.Jo, spirituality was not ONE thing, standing all alone, disconnected from all else. Instead, a person’s spirituality was at the hub of many spokes which radiated from that hub, giving strength to the hub but also to the wheel itself. If any one spoke on a wagon wheel is weakened or broken, the rest of the spokes have to carry more of the weight which, in turn, strains each of those spokes until another one is weakened or broken… and so on and so on.

So, it is in our best interest to tend to the multiple spokes of our spirituality rather than rely on ONE aspect to carry the weight of the whole.

The next aspect of our spirituality that I want to explore is, on the surface, a simple one but it also gives insight into the variability of this notion of strength and weakness or brokenness. This aspect of our spirituality is our physical health.

On the one hand, this is the most direct and simple aspect of our spiritual health. This is literally about your physical health and well-being. However, this is not “how strong or fit are you?” because we live on a spectrum of health and fitness both compared to others and within the span of our own lives. It is not my intention to compare or judge the person who is a world class marathoner with a person who lives with a chronic illness. Rather, I want you to explore how do you support and make the most of the health you have.

In the world of substance abuse, addiction had already compromised the health of the people I worked with. To look at the spiritual aspect of health is to look at the ways that you give conscious attention to your physical health, making decisions that support your health and well-being and seeking out the support you need to cope with the challenges you may be facing.

When I was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2019, my physical health was partially defined by the fact that I had a cancer growing in me, I underwent a major invasive surgery to remove as much of that cancer as possible, and that was followed by seven months of chemotherapy that took me through cycles of relative strength and devastating exhaustion, fatigue, and more. But my physical health was also defined by the ways that I cared for myself and allowed others to care for me.

I walked, first up and down the hall of my hospital room immediately after my surgery and later around the local shopping mall. I ate healthier foods that gave me greater strength through the chemo routine. I slept when I needed to sleep. Those are the things I did for my own health.

But I also let people support me. I let go of all modesty so that my nurses could give me the physical care I needed. When one of my nurses offered to walk with me on the first night after my surgery, I said, “Yes” and then leaned on her as much as she would bear and I needed so that I could succeed in those first important steps. My friend, Sue, and her son drove me to the mall and walked laps with me both as moral support and also because I don’t think I was allowed to drive yet. My sister, a naturopathic doctor, offered me a diet and supplements that would help strengthen my body for the next chemo cycle and the next and the next. And my wife stepped up and became a single working parent on days when all I could do was sleep.

So, as you assess your physical health, this is not a question of whether you can run a marathon. This is a question of how are you tending to your physical well-being and seeking out the support of others. Are you eating consciously both for physical health and for pleasure? Are you getting the sleep you need when you need it? Are you giving yourself permission to make yourself a priority in your life and allowing others to support you?

For those wrestling with addiction, these questions often amounted to “Are you actively poisoning yourself or making a decision to fight the addiction? Are you eating regularly or skipping meals to pay for a fix or because your addiction has interfered with your ability to sense hunger? Are you sleeping regularly or staying up all night during binges?” For those not actively struggling against addiction, the distinction between tending to your health and sabotaging your health may not be so striking but being conscious and finding support are parallel.

So, how are tending to your physical health and seeking the support of others on this journey? What changes can you make to give yourself permission to tend to your health and find support? And how might strengthening this aspect of your life, strengthen your spiritual life?

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You are welcome to take this journey in solitude in your own personal journal or share your reflections. If anything that you do makes you think you might want to continue a journey using Spiritual Direction, now or in the future, you can make an appointment with me through my website: 

www.RedRocksSDC.com