Positive Health, Again

WED., AUG. 31, 1983, 7:41 AM
SPRINGFIELD, MED. LIBRARY

This evening you have finished another class in which you had the opportunity of explaining and illustrating the idea of positive health. You did well enough but you also know you can profit from comments on this that I would offer. Hear, o son, and learn.

You have emphasized that this positive focus is not a modern invention… in various forms it has been a part of Western heritage for centuries. Continue to reinforce this. Also tell that I, as Jesus, did teach a positive way. Do a little research and document this; a handout sheet would not be out of place, certainly.

From My perspective, and yours, this positive health is based in the spirit. As a secular teacher you must continue to buffer this knowledge and acknowledge more widely accepted interpretations, but always be ready to give the “best” answer, should someone be truly inquiring. The spirit is most fully in touch with all the other dimensions. The spirit moderates emotional responses that could diminish functioning, while it encourages emotions that are part of the motivation for a fuller life. The spirit has unmeasurable but real effects on body systems and balances. A strong spirit just prevents certain departures from health and hastens recovery when there is some journey into ill-health, in its many forms.

Spirit is extremely important in human interaction or social health. (That is the import of your Human/Spiritual Interaction Wellspring, remember.) With strong spirit a person has more desire to do for others, to appreciate them and learn from them. Such behavior, when it is genuine, tends to bring positive responses from others… more cooperation, more willingness to share, more easy give and take.

This influence of the spirit on social relations should be most obvious… more so than the influence on the mind or the intellect. In some ways mind and spirit do work against each other, and this is part of a positively healthy life rhythm. The spirit must gently oppose the mind’s desire to limit knowledge to matters and ways it can process. But when spirit and mind are in good relationship, the mind can step aside and let revelation in, and then can process it and perhaps accept what it could not have without spirit’s influence. Paradoxically, when the intellect is guided by spirit it usually can accomplish more, and with more learned, remembered, and utilized, total positive health is inevitably increased.

Spirit also brings greater appreciation of environments, and can actually serve to transform an environment so that it seems more friendly and compatible, less hostile and antagonistic. The person of spirit rarely perceives that an environment does not have some good possibilities. Continue to love the heat and humidity of summer, the changes that fall brings, the cold and dreariness of winter, and the slush that comes with rebirth in spring. Continue to love your garden, despite its gross imperfections.