Body, Mind, Spirit

Whether we are gardening, cooking, or making love, our best moments are when everything in us---body, mind, spirit---coalesces into a single whole.  The psychologists tell us to "be present in the moment," to "to be where we are."   One thing that yoga teaches us is to line up all that is within us --- body, mind, emotions, spirit.  We cannot 'do' yoga while ruminating about other things; if our body breathes, our mind breathes, our spirit breathes---all as one unit.

We have all had the experience of being in a classroom while our minds are a million miles away, usually trying to resolve an emotional issue.  We are distracted, divided, unsettled.  Again, how many of us have been in church, but impatient for the service to be over so we could be someplace else? 

Sometimes, as in knitting or in gardening, occupying our bodies with physical activity allows the mind and spirit the freedom to come together as one, to be at peace.  We are "in the moment" precisely because we are "where we are" and nowhere else.  If someone asks what we are doing, we can truly say, "I am gardening" or "I am knitting"---we are gardening and knitting our lives at that moment.

When the circles of our lives pull apart, we dis-integrate; we feel unsettled, restless; we cannot make everything in us line up.  We are here, but wish we were someplace else---or our minds are someplace else.

When the Lord says to us, "Peace, Be Still," He commands our minds, emotions, bodies, and spirits to have integrity---that is, to line up with one another into one whole unit.  This experience can happen in prayer, and the experience can draw us again and again into prayer until we become addicted to peace.

About a year ago, while I was praying, I heard in my spirit these words:

"You are not to worry about anything, whether physical, financial, or spiritual."  I wrote the words down and stuck them in the book I was reading at the time.  Even though I cannot today find the book with the piece of paper, the words have never left me, and I recalled them during the time I went through the experience of being diagnosed with lung cancer and having surgery:  You are not to worry about anything.....

It is so good to hand over one's life to the Lord and not to be pulled apart by worry and concern.  There is a unity and a peace that passes all understanding, that nothing can take from you.