| Sunny Side Up Nov. 24, 2004 �2004, Kathleen Gibson Trying to stay balanced If you happened to see me staggering home yesterday, hear this: I wasn't drunk. Let me explain. The Preacher and I attended a diabetes seminar recently. Diabetes camps in his family genes and there we find valuable tools for taking charge of one's own health. (Have you heard that eating a half teaspoon of cinnamon a day could lower your blood sugar significantly? Or that peanut butter may decrease your total cholesterol?) But I blame the presenter of the 'Improv and Stress' workshop for my embarrassing staggering. She reminded us that health problems create stress, which raises blood pressure, which compounds health problems, which increases stress, and round we go again. One way to diminish that cycle, she said, is to de-stress by recapturing the spirit of play. It seemed a cozy theory until she roused us from our comfortable round tables, divided us into five clumps and ordered us to act like happy noses or angry hair or crazy knees and two others I've happily forgotten. It got worse. She then asked us to growl, squeal, squeak, shout and giggle the names of those body parts while she directed us like a maestro. She gyrated across the stage, arms thrashing, like a blindfolded octopus on uppers. I'd already retreated to the safety of my seat, but I'd been assigned to the 'happy nose' clump, after all. "Nose," I whispered, then shouted, long, high, short, low. "Nose, nose, nose, nose�" The Preacher - and many others - sat, arms folded, lips sealed; like Presbyterians at a Charismatic healing meeting. It was all distressingly stressful. We weren't very good sports, and I felt badly afterwards. Later that evening, I realized something: the lady was right. Most adults, including me, have forgotten the pleasure of uninhibited physical play. Instead, on couches, in arenas, stadiums and studios, we make a pastime of watching others who haven't. That thought has pestered me. So returning from a walk yesterday, I stopped at a school playground. Plunked myself onto a swing, leaned back and started pumping. Up, up I flew, under a sky that resembled pale blue watered satin threaded with gauze ribbons. Back, way back I leaned, my happy nose twitching in pleasure. Upside down, the sky seems twice as beautiful, have you noticed? Still flying, I sat up - too fast. The blue sky blackened and dissolved into earth. Cedars uprooted and swirled above me like moving black claws. Every slippery thing inside me churned. Eyes clamped shut, I clung to the chains. Prayed the swing would stop, that I would live. It did, and I did, and that's why I staggered home, holding onto things - trees, buildings, my stomach� I'd played too hard, but I wasn't drunk, honest. Just experiencing the initially uncomfortable side-affects of a different approach to physical well-being. New followers of Jesus Christ, seeking spiritual balance, stagger about a bit at first too. If you're an old 'soldier of the cross,' pray for grace not to judge and love to come alongside. ?You can respond to this column at [email protected] Return to 'Just_as_I_thought' home page |
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