USING MOVEMENT TO BE A POSITIVE FORCE IN LIFE

It's your "move' on on the chessboard of life.

In her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, poet and essayist Annie Dillard quotes a humble woman who said, "Seem like we're jest set down here, and don't nobody know why? Asking why we exist has been an inexhaustible question for both philosophers and common people.

What is it all about?

Dillard adds her own twist to the woman's comment: "Some unwonted, taught pride diverts us from our original intent," she writes, "which is to explore the neighborhood, view the landscape, to discover at least where it is that we have been so startlingly set down, even if we can't learn why." She shifts the question from "Why in the world do we exist?" to "Where in the world are we going?"

If indeed we so-called Christians are living in a time of exile or dislocation when things are uncertain, it is an opportune time to ask, Where are we?...Where are we going?  If we are to know where we are, it makes sense that we should explore the neighborhood.

Most people would say we are "set down here" to explore. Why else would each one of us have a brain to think with? But think again.  The primary purpose of the brain is to choose and regulate our movement; it is also designed to direct the movements of other living things and objects. Under the brain's direction, three sets of movable body parts function -- 1) legs, feet and toes; 2) arms, hands and fingers; 3) face, neck and tongue. "It is not our feet that move us along," attests the Chinese proverb, "it is our minds."

Perhaps a different kind of movement
but a good question nonetheless. 

The word animus means "mind" and it is the root word from which are hewn the words animal and animation (betchu didn't know that, as a certain American president would say). Our everyday expressions contain other words indicating a cessation in movement, from deadline to deadbeat, dead ball to deadlock. Movement is associated with life. For instance, in our neurological makeup, we are designed to crawl, climb and leap. When movement stops, life ends -- it is as simple as that.

More than we realize, movement is connected to learning.  A naural process, it is now understood to be essential to learning, creative thought and higher level forms of learning. With movement, the neural wiring in one's body is activated and the whole body becomes part of learning.

John Melinda. author of Brain Rules, calls physical activity "cognitive candy". As Ella Fitzgerald used to sing, "It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing."

Consider this too...Movement is central to an understanding of mission in our lives. In other words, "send out."  Movement, then, is a significant part of both biblical content and spiritual living. We learn from the Bible that Jesus inspired one of the first movements, subsequently named "The Way."  The movement had no doctrines, no consensus on how to live, no prescribed liturgy to follow, no physical location for cohesion (like Rome), just the incredible impact Jesus had on the lives of his followers and the conviction that his spirit moved them along.

When the time came to support the movement, four small books called Gospels were written, with the purpose of showing how the young man from Nazareth was relevant to those who lived outside of Palestine a generation after his death.

As I suggested previously, only the living can live. Where and how we move is a matter of individual choice. Sydney Carter, who wrote the hymn "The Lord of the Dance," composed songs that depict life as a journey. Interestingly, he once remarked: 

"Everything is traveling: there is no way out of it. But there are different ways of doing it.  You can travel inertly like a stone which is hurled in the air. You can travel reluctantly like a dog which drags against the lead. You can embrace the necessity of traveling; you can leap and dance along.

The kingdom of heaven (if you like) or God: it lies ahead of us, yet it travels in us too...We are pulled in two directions, and we have a choice. We are privileged or condemned to be free. We can drag or we can drag along."

As Carter proposes, we can live our lives in one of three ways: inertly, reluctantly or freely. Our lives can be inert, uninspired, a passive going-through-the-motions with no thought or choice of our own that thrusts us forward. Or we can move reluctantly; that is, only if we are nudged or badgered.  Our heart is either not in it or less that half in it. The third movement is freedom, being a willing and engaged participant.  We dance with the stars. 

It is my contention that movement favors opportunity, new beginnings and exploration of possibilities where we are willing to try things we never thought of trying before. In spite of what you may think, you are never too old. Remember, once you stop moving, it is game over.

Are we people of the way or in the way? Are we ready to explore the neighborhood?

We are set down here to move as adventurers blazing new paths in all aspects of life -- for the good of all. We never get anywhere by standing still, or living in the past.

Be a force that helps a worthwhile movement to move forward!...Better still, start your own movement and seek others to join in!!! You'll think of something if you look around your neighborhood.