“Are you okay Ollie?” she asked.
“uhmm… not really.” I replied.
“Oh… are you feeling unwell physically, spiritually or emotionally?” she asked raising her brows in concern.
“I’ve been sick for the last 3 or so weeks; I’ve been having a persistent sinus infection.” I replied softly. Thinking that the distinct separation between the physical, emotion and spiritual is not quite right, I continued, “but usually when I’m sick everything else seems to be affected as well.”
“Well… yes…” she replied hesitantly.
This conversation took place in church last week. I know she meant well but I was a little disturbed. She seemed to have a compartmentalized view of a person and life. I think that this reductionist compartmental view of a person and priorities in life is quite predominant in contemporary society. It’s like when you go to church or pray; it’s a spiritual activity. When you go to your workplace; it’s a secular activity and you are just earning money to meet daily needs. Rest and exercise goes into the physical compartment; but when you sacrifice sleep to do church related work, it’s spiritual. Going into full time professional ministry is highly spiritual. ((As an aside, it is not the role that makes you Godly; it is the Godly person behind that makes the role Godly)).You see where this is leading.
I think compartmentalizing is not right. The Jews concept of “Shalom” in Jesus’ time meant more than just “peace”; it meant “wholeness” or “integration”. The understanding was that all of life was to be integrated under God. All of life is interdependent. God is at the centre and this should flow into all of life. We need to live with integrity; not live fragmented, compartmentalized lives and faith.
Having a compartmentalize view will tend to cause us to lead fragmented lives. We will live with increased pressure to balance all the various priorities as we seek to lead the life we were called to. We will try frantically to balance all our priorities. As “spiritual” Christians, we will seek to do more and more “Church” work, sometimes at the expense of relationships, family and health. Doing Kingdom work is good, but His Kingdom is more then the church. Family, relationships and health are also important in God’s eyes.
Not only will this compartmental view lead to increased fragmentation and pressure, it will justify us not living out our faith in all of life. For example, since work is secular, we can think that it’s okay to play by the rules of the world; we’ll compromise our faith and beliefs a little here or there, after all what can we expect? It is secular work. Or if we do not compromise, we live small lives, not living to the fullest where God calls us. We hide our faith. Or as students, we either separate our faith from our school life or withdraw from the sphere of school-life, focusing more on “church” and other “spiritual” activities. There is no separation between the secular and the sacred. All of life is spiritual and sacred under God.
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” - Teilhard de Chardin
What are we to do then? We need to be wide awake as to how to live our faith in all of life. We need to engage the various spheres of our priorities, living integrated lives of faith. Through it all, we know we are not alone.
Ollie
March 2007
