MY BODY IS HOLY
I believe in the resurrection of the body, and Life Everlasting.
The Apostles’ Creed
I am an expert in the field of aging, having just turned 96, and, fortunately, being in good health. My sight is good, my movements slower, my steps careful, and my hearing bad. The best hearing aids still keep me out of a general conversation, but enables me to have good person-to-person contact.
My day-to-day routine suits me: in bed before 9.30 pm, up at 7.30 am, and usually sleep quite soundly.
My wife, who died 4 years ago, trained me well for independence. Living alone, far from my 5 children (the nearest is Toronto, some 225km away), I am very fortunate that almost each week one of them visits, especially the oldest of my three daughters, who comes every other week from Tuesday nights to Thursday afternoon and arranges the necessary appointments for medical and other purposes. My other two daughters live in the USA.
I quit smoking, and started running.
My long life is, I believe, due to my routine. I quit smoking in 1961 when I saw one of my clients die of lung cancer, and vouched not to die in that manner, so I banned cigarettes and started running, which I replaced with walking a few years ago, and still do faithfully almost each day: 4,000+ steps, for 40 minutes. I believe that my body is God’s personal gift to me, which makes it holy, and requires my utmost consideration. That’s why I eat well, vegetarian, and, thanks to my church affiliation, I have 3 social contacts each week. Loneliness kills: books too are good friends.
Statistics.
Over the past century, life expectancy at birth in Canada has risen substantially to 79.8 years for males, and 83.9 years for females, but now, I read that the increase in the overall age in the Western world has stalled, and is even decreasing in the USA where men, on the average live 74.8 years, and females 80.2.
In the world of statistics, Hong Kong ranks first with an average age of close to 90, while Canada is #20 on the list. I imagine that this is partly due to the deplorable state of health of our first-nation population, and the stress immigration takes on the many people: Last year Canada admitted ONE million newcomers.
Our village has a large clinic: 3 doctors and lots of support staff, nurses and nurse practitioners. It’s all free, fully tax supported, due in part to a 13% HST – Harmonized Sales Tax.
We are aging, and so in our planet.
We are not the only ones growing old: so is the planet: It too is up for renewal. This week I read that 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded: an international team of researchers has discovered that the amount of carbon absorbed by land has temporarily collapsed and that forests, plants and soil absorbed almost no carbon. That makes the outlook worrisome.
There are warning signs at sea, too. Greenland’s glaciers and Arctic ice sheets are melting faster than expected, which is disrupting the Gulf Stream Ocean current and slows the rate at which oceans absorb carbon. For the algae-eating zooplankton, melting sea ice is exposing them to more sunlight – a shift that could keep them in the depths for longer, disrupting the vertical migration that stores carbon on the ocean floor.
Yes, we live in a finite world.
Every day we read of species under threat of extinction. Every day we notice more dangers, more hurricanes, more destructive unnatural disasters. Soon Florida, the winter destination of many, may become uninhabitable, as well as parts of Africa, where drought is forcing people to relocate.
And then there is the economy. All parts of the economy operate in cycles. In fact, individual people, individual businesses, and individual governments all have finite lifespans. We now seem to be coming to the end of an economic cycle. We don’t know precisely how this will end. We do know, based on history, that the downward part of the cycle will likely take years to resolve.
Yes, the earth is holy.
Karen Armstrong, in her book, SACRED NATURE, outlines how through human history, religions have regarded the earth divine. Bonhoeffer saw creation as an extension of the Creator, just as Bach and his music are one. Psalm 24 says it so beautifully: “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Everything that belongs to God is holy: you, I, the trees, the soil, the seas, the air, the animals: we all reflect God’s greatness. That’s why I believe in the resurrection of the body, and Life Everlasting, and that in a perfect world.