Dear Friends,
This month, I’ve decided to use this space to write a stewardship article, but not the kind of stewardship article you might expect.
In the church, when we use the word stewardship, we typically think of money and specifically how much money one gives to support the church and its ministry and mission. If we think more broadly, stewardship also includes the offering of our time and talents to support the church’s work. Stewardship of the earth, our responsibility to care for creation, is another way we often use the word within the church.
But the word stewardship, in the most general sense, means the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care. I would suggest this definition offers us a helpful way to think about our health. In other words, if we look through the lens of stewardship, we have these bodies which have been entrusted to our care by God; and as a matter of good stewardship, it’s imperative that we care for them as well as we can.
As St. Paul writes in his First Letter to the Corinthians: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” (6:19-20)
Granted, Paul wrote these words in the context of his warning against sexual immorality. Yet, the point he makes can rightly be applied more broadly. Our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, there is something holy about even our bodies. And it is essential that we take care of them.
We know that caring for our bodies means getting enough sleep, eating a healthy diet, and getting enough exercise. I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s been difficult getting enough exercise during the past winter and this spring, which has too often felt like winter. Therefore, it would help me to jump-start the exercise piece of caring for my body. Toward that end, I look forward to restarting Walk and Talk, a program which we began last fall.
On the following dates, I invite you to join me and your First Pres friends at 6:00 p.m. for an hour of exercise as we walk the path around the Duck Pond on East Ridgewood Avenue:
Mondays, May 16, 23; June 6
Thursdays, May 19, 26; June 2, 9
So, put on your walking shoes and join us for some exercise, fresh air, and conversation! And one more thing: Bring a friend!
Grace and peace, Bruce
Comments