Healthy Body, Healthy Soul?

Late last month, I picked up my buzzing cell phone to a welcome surprise: a photo of my seven-week-old nephew, Jayden, with an irritated expression on his face and a tiny black shirt printed with a white rib cage on his little tummy.

Combining wit and wherewithal, for Halloween my sister and brother-in-law dressed the newest member of the Taylor family as a Hungry Taylor. Jayden’s ensemble was a nod to my family’s legendary ability to ignore a gently rumbling stomach until it coasts past the stage of shaking hands and distractibility, stopping only after it yields the floor to snarling irrationality. (Jayden’s irritated expression was a very true-to-life touch.)

Down to a member, all six of the Taylors can chart a correlation between plunging blood sugar and soaring irritability. It’s bad enough when we’re apart from one another, but the problem is compounded exponentially whenever two or three are gathered. In fact, when I look back on our shared life, I strongly suspect that a specific epoch of family crisis might have been staved off with a box of granola bars.

My nephew’s costume was a hilarious reminder of this familial quirk (though we’re hoping he’ll break the cycle). At the same time, I was reminded of what happens when I ignore my body’s needs.

I’ve occasionally treated my body like it’s the machine that carries my brain around. When I’m feeling particularly spiritual, I substitute “carries my soul around” in that sentence. It’s not that I’ve ever intentionally mistreated my body. But like many people, I sometimes let good habits slide. And like many people, my uber-busy life provides a ready excuse for letting my sneakers gather dust, eating dinner out of a white paper bag, or staying up too late. Again.

Recently, when my doctor suggested that I’d feel more rested if I slept more, I suppressed the urge to snarl something pithy and brittle about Captain Obvious and the value of medical school. (Now that I think about it, I’d skipped breakfast that morning.) Still, the simplicity of his “prescription” made me thankful to be a healthy person who needs to develop healthier habits. And I committed myself to getting back on track.

The holidays are not the easiest time to re-establish healthy routines. But I can’t help but wonder if we’d all be a little saner, feel freer to enjoy ourselves, and reflect more deeply on the gift of a Savior who clothed himself in flesh if we cared more closely for our bodies.

I’m interested in hearing from you: How do you maintain healthy habits during your busiest days? What solutions have you found for the challenge of maintaining good health during the different seasons of your life? And do you ever sense a connection between the care of your body and the health of your soul?

Oh, and if you think of it, I’m taking recommendations: I’ve got to find a healthy granola

Real Hospitality

The word hospitality brings to mind women-targeted magazines and TV shows like Real Simple magazine and the Martha Stewart show. I anticipate that Real Simple magazine arriving in my mailbox each month. When I get it, I’ll often sit and read it cover to cover. I love the new recipes, decorating ideas, and simple home remedies for cleaning. I’m not trying to give the magazine free publicity—I just love it. But why the connection in my head to these types of media and hospitality? Maybe because women tend to be the party throwers and organizers.

I think we’ve been somewhat deceived by our culture’s understanding of hospitality. In our culture, it’s more about throwing dinner parties with the coordinating dishes, napkins, placeholders, and centerpieces. But how often can you do this? Probably only a few times a year. While inviting people into your home is certainly part of hospitality, we’re missing the eternally deeper message of the word.

In Romans 12:10–13, Paul challenges us to “[be] devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” The words that stand out in these verses are devote, love, honor, share, practice. We’re encouraged to be an example, serving the Lord in selflessness, joy, hope, patience, and faithfulness. How would it affect the way we spend time with people outside and inside our homes if we practiced the kind of hospitality Paul describes with the words above? Would it matter if we had our fancy dishes, a spotless house, or the perfect meal?

Inviting people into our lives can be a challenge, since we live very individualized, private lives. There’s a reason most new homes are built with larger master bedrooms and smaller living room spaces. We choose to live alone for many reasons. I don’t have time; I need to “relax” after I get off work; I’m with people all day; I’m running the kids around all day, the last thing I want to do is have someone over to our house of chaos.

How do we move past the sometimes lazy, simplistic hospitality known by our culture, and biblically invite friends, neighbors, and strangers into our lives and our homes? We have to decide that the house doesn’t need to look perfect, leftovers will suffice for a meal, and we don’t have to suffer or rejoice alone in our life experiences.

Paul’s definition of hospitality speaks of living transparently in our interactions with others. To reveal the things we hope for, are afflicted with, and have spiritual fervor for, and practice those things with joy, patience, and faithfulness. We are to serve others with honor and love others above ourselves. No matter the condition of your house, the point is to create a safe place for people to come and share life with you. And hopefully, sharing life with them, whether it’s tidy or messy, will bring them closer to Christ through us.

The Message translates 1 Peter 4:8–10, “Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless—cheerfully. Be generous with the different things God gave you.” How could we affect our neighborhood, apartment building, book club, workout class, or study group for Christ if we devoted ourselves to them in love, being generous with our time and things?
Would the world look at Christians differently? God has called us to be hospitable if it comes naturally to us or not. Let us live transparently—continually inviting people into our homes and our lives—so that others might experience the community of the church and feel welcomed into a spiritual family with God the Father.

Music Review: Awaken the Dawn

There are some Christian musicians who release albums, sing, and perform. Their music blesses their listeners. Then there are artists who touch not only individuals but the church through their music. Keith and Kristyn Getty are the latter. Like its predecessor, In Christ Alone, Awaken the Dawn features strong melodies and scriptural lyrics, earning its place as one of the most cohesive, thoughtful, and accessible worship albums of the decade.

The title of the album draws its meaning from Psalm 57: “Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn. I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples” (Psalm 57:8–9). The motifs of worship as awakening, God calling all people, and ecclesial unity are evident throughout the album. Because of their thematic intentionality, the Gettys have created a focused body of songs that compels the listener to worship through the vivid imagery.

While several of the tracks, like “Still,” are deeply personal, the majority of the songs are richly communal and intended for corporate worship. The intimacy of the body of Christ is seen most in “Behold the Lamb (Communion Hymn)”:

“The wounds that heal, the death that brings us life paid the price to make us one.”

When we share in Jesus’ suffering, we become united with our brothers and sisters. This unity stretches to the global church, now in spirit and one day as part of the heavenly worship we will physically share. “All Around the World” is an evocative minor song testifying to this tension that some theologians call the “already and not yet”:

“Truth will not be bound by walls upon the earth.
From every language, art, and deed, God calls his people forth.
All praise to the King of the new Jerusalem,
Where all of the saints with one voice will worship the Lamb, will forever worship the Lamb.”

Keith and Kristyn Getty always strive to write songs that are accessible and “sing-able,” bring Christians together in praise, and outlast trends in worship music. They seek to write melodies that, as Kristyn Getty said in an interview with Leadership Journal last year, are not “bound by any generation or style . . . [songs that you can] dress and arrange it in so many different ways. You can sing [them] with the piano and a leading vocal, or without all those things.”

As a worship leader, I know this works not just in theory, but in practice. Each song from Awaken the Dawn that our worship team has introduced to our congregation is easy to sing, versatile, and works with different types of instrumentation. One of my favorites for corporate worship is “Come, People of the Risen King”:

“Come, young and old from every land -
Men and women of the faith;
Come, those with full or empty hands -
Find the riches of His grace.
Over all the world, His people sing -
Shore to shore we hear them call
The Truth that cries through every age:
‘Our God is all in all!’”

Because many of the Getty’s melodies on Awaken the Dawn are strongly rooted in the Celtic folk tradition, the production of some of the songs left me wanting an organic approach: less electronic drums and orchestration, and more exploration into folk instrumentation. The melodies and the lyrics stand firmly on their own, so these extra attempts and flourishes are unnecessary.

If a “successful worship album” is defined as a body of songs that urges the listener or worshipers to praise Jesus Christ through fresh biblical imagery and compelling melodies that are structured, yet simple, Awaken the Dawn is a treasure for the church. Like classic old hymns we still sing today, these modern-day hymns combine memorable melodies and robust theology that break down barriers of age, denomination, and musical education. Keith and Kristyn Getty have given us songs that Christians will be singing around the world for many years to come.

Listen to "What Grace Is Mine" from Awaken the Dawn below for FREE!

Not Minding Our Manners

“Genuine love minds its manners.”

So said a church sign that I drove past recently. When I saw it, I cringed.

Sure, the mantra seems nice enough. Living this way is easy, safe, and doesn’t offend others. But is it true? Are Christians simply called to follow the rules, avoid confrontation, and love others by keeping our mouths shut?

Paul told the church in Corinth that love is kind; is not rude or boastful (1 Corinthians 13:4–5). The love we show the world is a mirror of Christ’s love working in and through us. We narrate the redeeming story of Jesus for others, sometimes even without words. Our behaviors, our attitudes, our very lives bear witness to the reality of the gospel. In this way, our outward kindness becomes a powerful tool communicating the love of Jesus.

This profound Christ-like love, though, is richer than our cheap, cultural definitions of “niceness.” It is deeper than minding our manners. It is far better than a superficial smile that doesn’t accomplish anything meaningful or lasting.

Shallow love does not rock the boats of our comfortable hearts. But the love of Christ is tumultuous and wild: it unearths ugly things in us and transforms us into a people of this fierce grace. Jesus emblazons our dull, dusty hearts with vibrant new life, a life we are called to share as we are continually refined by God.

Jesus changed people with his love. He changed their bodies. He brought sight where there was darkness, movement where there were brittle limbs, and life where there was death and destruction. He changed hearts of stone. Never worried about minding his manners, Christ disrupted a culture of mores and rules. He was a revolutionary for love, all to reconcile us to God (2 Corinthians 5:19).

We are also changed when we experience God’s love. This change means we love what God loves, and we see the world as he sees the world. We take up his ministry of reconciliation. Just as Jesus sorrowed for the needy, we weep for the lost, the destitute, the sick, the prisoner, the orphan, the widow, and the lonely.

This perspective shift moves us into action. Instead of just minding its manners, genuine love screams “No!” in the face of injustice while praying and working for redemption. Love is never rude, but it is also never silent. St. Augustine said that real love “has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.”

What do you think? How have you experienced genuine love that transforms you, from Christ or from others? Why is just minding our manners or being nice a truncated view of the love God offers? How do you show this real love to the world?

The Monthly Visitor

I’m grateful for my period. And not just because it proves the possibility of new life and distinguishes me as a woman. I’ve actually become thankful for the emotional instability that sensitizes the handful of days surrounding my menstrual cycles.

For the first years of my period, I noticed few symptoms of pre-menstrual syndrome. But I remember sitting alone in my dorm room my freshman year of college and crying about—literally—starving children in Africa. Even I was caught off-guard by the experience. My period started three days later.

I’ve continued to grow more emotionally fraught around the time of my period. Much of my emotional instability during this time feels pathetic and can quickly become embarrassing. It’s hilarious, actually, as I like to think of myself as laid back, secure, self-actualized. I suppose there’s benefit to having that mirror shattered on such a regular basis.

But present within my spectrum of extreme emotions is sadness. Just sadness. And sometimes this sadness isn’t disembodied or irrational. It’s appropriate sadness: sadness for things and situations that deserve to be grieved.

As much as I wish I weren’t this way, my MO is generally out-of-site-out-of-mind. I’m present where I physically am; I think about the people I see and physically interact with; my mind is on my most immediate surroundings. I forget people and situations with which I don’t closely or regularly engage. But there’s this reliable time when I feel sad, and my sadness has a way of drawing my mind to places where sadness fits—and usually places outside of myself. It’s not always as abstract as Starving Children in Africa. I find myself reflecting on difficult family situations back home and weeping over them, or I’ll remember friends or even friends of friends who are suffering illness and fear, and I sit and feel sadness for them, imagining being in their shoes.

Now, this reflection and grief occurs alongside me breaking down in frustration and tears when my husband, Chris, says he’d prefer to stay home and get some reading done rather than accompany me to the grocery store. BUT—easy for me to say, I know—I’ll take the whole package. As I’ve begun to find the true sympathy in this cacophony of feelings, I find I’m ushered into deep communion with my God on behalf of others.

Paul tells us in Romans 12:15 to “rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.” He uses these simple symmetries to emphasize our true existence as a body—the body of Christ. Though we go through our own days on our own legs, we are, as Christians, intimately linked with every other redeemed creature, and as humans, with humankind. In this chapter, Paul gives many examples of how we’re to live as the body—and how we are to live with even our enemies. I typically read this string of commands as service opportunities—ways to benefit someone else, ways to live in the power of Christ.

But I think Paul’s challenges are for our own good as well. The truth is that identifying with others in our various emotions—and may I particularly emphasize pain or grief—is not only an act of service to the subjects of our sympathy. In grieving with those outside of us, we’re doing the life-giving work of connecting ourselves to a body so large and diverse that we’re sure to find a home there. When in my sadness I sit and pray in solidarity with another, I’m not sitting alone anymore; I’m joining myself with other lives. This work of identification, as difficult as it might be in the tumultuousness of womanhood, can truly edify and minister to the body—our own selves very much included.

How can we use the particularly delicate time surrounding our menstrual cycles to minister to others? How can we lasso benefit from our spectrum of emotions? Each woman experiences this time differently, and I’d love to hear your unique reflections.