Decisons, decisions, decisions...

Sorry I'm a day late on this posting, but I had to make a lot of chili yesterday for a church-wide yard sale that kicks off tonight. Being an inclusive faith community, we made 3 different kinds of chili - meat, vegan and gluten-free vegan. Yes, no animals were injured in the making of our vegetable chili (in case you were wondering). All that having been said, I wasn't able to sit down with two thoughts to rub together until now.

Health, wellness and wholeness are often (always?) characterized by our decisions. We decide where to live, how to live, whom to live with, where to work, what to eat, etc. Myriad decisions make up our daily life, no matter what age we are. These decisions lead to our health and to our individual and collective dis-ease. Yet, we are living in a time where both personal and communal "wisdom" suggest that we are not to be held accountable for these decisions nor their very preditable outcomes. Thus, the fact that I might choose to drink alcohol to excess, eat every meal at a fast food franchise, smoke nicotine, watch endless T.V. (NCIS is compelling) is not really my fault, nor the result of my world view, rather I'm being acted upon by forces beyond my control and therefore I am a victim.

Interesting isn't it? I've worked my whole adult life with folks who suffer from mental illness - to a greater or lesser extent. One of the definitions of mental illness that I've found useful in being in relationship with people is that mental illness is the act of doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results! Hmmm, maybe we as a culture and people are all a bit mentally ill employing this definition. This is not meant in any way to demean the mentally ill, or to lessen the burden of mental illness or the suffering of those afflicted and their families, rather it is a means of broadening the reach to show that all of us suffer from our decision making when it comes to our health, wellness and wholeness (HW2).

We find ourselves bemoaning the fact that we don't have a very good health system, yet when someone tries to think outside the box to revamp it, we over-react and vote them out of office to maintain the status quo. We find every reason in the book to not change the approach to our HW2, because we don't want to have to change. Every day 2400 Americans die (1 every 37 seconds) from the complications of cardiovascular disease (Circulation, 1/27/2009 issue), yet we don't look at this as an emergency because no one writes about it in the newspaper, or in a Blog that we follow, or states it from a talking head on the evening news. Most of the leading causes of cardiovascular disease are modifiable through increased moderate exercise, change in diet, etc. In fact, if those decisions were modified and the leading causes eliminated, every American's life would be extended an average of 7 years!!!

Continuing the same old thinking and expecting different results is not working. Maybe out HW2 will improve when our ability to make decisions improves? Here's hoping for that wisdom to come and transform us.

Peace,
Dan