Spiritual Fitness Center: Establishing and Maintaining

Read: Romans 12:4-6

In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't. (The Message)

Friends, relatives, associates, and neighbors, we are faced with a crisis in the United States referred to as health care. A new congressional season has started on every level of government in our nation. On the federal level a huge battle is set to be on the rise to attack the incomplete, some think incompetent, "universal health care reform" of the President Obama Administration. While it is no attack on the man, it is often taken to be because he represents welcomed change in human relations in the United States of America across racial lines. At the same time, however, he has not been able to pull off the hoped for change in political wars. He is surely a Democratic political leader in our democracy, when the majority had hoped for a transformative leader to bring union in the midst of diversity.

It is at times depressing and surely stressful for us. Even those in the school of psychological and theological studies, and practitioners of mental and familial health care find ourselves at odds with siblings and loved ones about the actions coming from the White House. Interesting, indeed, is how addressing health care can be so stressful that it adds to matters of disease in human bodies. We are in need of well being to fight off diseases hindering the best bodily functions. My brother, Bernard, rightfully issued a call for us to reach for heaven for we may at least land among the stars. Being "sea faring" men, we know President John F. Kennedy to have been correct...following the stars we will reach our destination. What is the concern? Too many are trapped in the valley of life - depression, anxiety, stress, etc. Our desire is for no one to be left behind as we soar through the skies.

In the valley of life, there are dry bones not of animals, they are human. On the average, it has been postulated by those of science, there are 206 bones in a human body. From the skull to the toe there is bone structure. In order for the bones to live there is need for muscles, a brain with various cerebral components, and other aspects of sinew into which may be given the breath of life. The reality of life is to be found within the structure of the body. In agreement with the Apostle Paul and others of faith, I believe the relevance of the Church today to be in the same structuring.

The purpose here is not to address all of the historical and theological positions on the Church as the Body of Christ or the Body of Christ as symbolic in the Church. No effort is given to support Catholicism in making the Church the "universal sacrament of salvation." The intent is to bring union in diversity by establishing and maintaining a spiritual fitness center in our local church in Huntington, New York. A place where people of God can come from any background and find unity in search for healthy spiritual living within the body given by God, which we call the Church, composed of various parts called human beings. In the Christian context, it is my ultimate pastoral desire to lead and witness the formation of spiritual fitness within the Body of Christ.

"Let us rejoice then and give thanks that we have become not only Christians, but Christ himself. Do you understand and grasp, brethren, God's grace toward us? Marvel and rejoice: we have become Christ. For if he is the head, we are the members; he and we together are the whole man.... the fullness of Christ then is the head and the members. But what does 'head and members' mean? Christ and the Church." (Saint Augustine)

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us and forgive our spiritual weaknesses and obesity, and grant us restoration through spiritual fitness in the Kingdom of God. Amen.

Luonne Abram Rouse, LMFT