Body and Soul

Life continues to conspire against me, against giving me time to write, and to do so many things I would like to do. Alas, how hard it is to embrace Emerson's words, which I championed on this very blog, "...there is time enough for all that I must do...." But there is, there is; I need only to keep reminding myself of it, and chipping away at the massive monolith that is my to do list.

I want to go back to the quote from one of John Wesley's letters, which I wrote about two posts ago. Here's the quote, with particular part I want to focus on today highlighted.

“…I am afraid of nothing more than of growing old too soon, of having my body worn out before my soul is past childhood. Would it not be terrible to have the wheels of life stand still, when we had scarce started for the goal; before the work of the day was half done, to have the night come, wherein no one can work? I shiver at the thought of losing my strength before I have found [it]; to have my senses fail ere I have a stock of rational pleasures, my blood cold ere my heart is warmed with virtue!”

"Of having my body worn out before my soul is past childhood." Those who have studied the life of John Wesley might almost laugh at this. Who, in church history, other than John Wesley developed his soul when young, yet had many years of strong body and active service ahead of him? Who shunned leisure, and ministered so fervently that he changed a nation? Yet, Wesley wrote these words in his young adulthood, when he was 28 years old, unmarried, fairly new in his university teaching career. His Georgia mission and his Aldersgate Street experience were years away. The Methodist movement was a single, struggling club, subject to more derision than to praise. From Wesley's perspective when he wrote those words, he had a legitimate concern. We know, however, that he did what he needed to overcome that fear, and developed his soul into maturity and maintained it so for decades, long before his body wore out.

All of us should have a legitimate fear of this happening to us, of not developing our soul--our mind. I have heard it called "Biblical illiteracy", and it is rampant among church-goers. How many have really dug into the scriptures and learned what they have to say? Too few, I'm afraid. The proliferation of modern entertainments crowd out soul-development time. How easy it is to go from radio on the drive home to network news during supper to a game show to a sitcom to a drama to the Internet to computer games, and find myself exhausted and to bed too late to have the rest I need to optimally function the next day.

I'm fortunate, though, that God seems to have given me an inquisitive mind and abilities to articulate and to work with both grand concepts and minutia. Digging into the scripture, into non-scriptural books related thereto, into books old and new, secular and sacred, is just about the greatest discretionary pleasure I can think of. Well, add to that writing about them. Has this writing bug infected me for the purpose of dovetailing a love for these writings of others with writing of my own? The Bible study I'm currently working on for our adult Life Group has been an incredible blessing and joy. I titled it "The Dynamic Duo: Lessons from the Lives of Elijah and Elisha." I pulled ten events out of their lives (could have done closer to twenty, but I thought this about the right number for our class), and have been intensively studying the passages, then developing the lessons each week, both teacher's notes and student handout. I taught lesson 5 last Sunday, and just finished lesson 7 prep last night. I should be able to complete the remaining three lessons in the next week, putting me ahead of schedule and giving my substitute all he needs to teach on May 11 and May 18, two weeks when I believe I'll be away.

But, as I've been preparing this lesson series, thoughts for three or four more Bible study series have come to mind. I have captured those thoughts most briefly (a title on a page, waiting for a skeleton on which to put meat and sinews), and have them ready to work on next. Maybe, just maybe, this is the direction my writing should be going in. In the process of doing what will hopefully enlighten others, my soul is being developed.

My body, now--well, that's another subject.