To Have Health…

In facing a fatal illness, one of Dostoevsky’s characters has some searching things to say about health: “Oh, now I don’t care, now I’ve no time to be angry, but . . . how I used to dream . . . how I longed to be turned out into the street . . . to be deserted and utterly alone, without lodging, without work, without a crust of bread, without relations, without one friend in a great town, hungry, beaten . . . but healthy . . . then I would show them.” The poignant utterance on the matchless blessing of health suggests much that is sobering.

Ill health may come, of course, through unavoidable misfortune; but it can also come, unfortunately, from neglect, indifference, indulgence, uncontrolled appetites and harmful habits, and a variety of avoidable circumstances and situations⎯and this is the more pity, since this wondrously functioning physical frame, given us by God, is precious beyond price. What fine, interacting function there is between spirit and mind and body, and all else that makes up a man! No one can fully define it or draw sharp lines of separation, but whatever is temporal, whatever is eternal, there should be intelligent use, intelligent care toward healthy, happy, effective, functioning, without cluttering mind or spirit or our physical faculties with what is known not to be good for man.

We have an obligation to know the laws of health so far as we can and to live temperately with prudence and thanksgiving, with respect and gratitude, avoiding anything that would make us less than wholesomely alive or responsibly alert. It is utter unwisdom to do what would make us less that our healthiest and happiest.

Respect, caution, and common sense should keep us from indulging or abusing or ignoring the wondrous, finely functioning physical faculties that God has given us⎯the only ones we will ever have within the limits of this life.