Immeasurable Wellness

We measure physical health with lots of numbers —blood pressure, body fat percentage, cholesterol readings. Spiritual health doesn’t lend itself to numeric assessment. We can’t quantify spiritual wellness, but we can point to some of the characteristics of spiritual health.

In spiritually centered people, we often find an intimate and trusting relationship with their Higher Power. Their God is seamlessly woven into their lives and knows them completely. Many scriptures tell us about an intimate relationship with a God who knits us together in our mothers’ wombs, counts the hairs on our heads, and calls us by name. Knowing that we are never alone and that we are surrounded and supported by a God who wants what’s best for us helps ground our spiritual well-being.

People in good spiritual health often focus on gratitude. Even in the most difficult of circumstances, they are able to claim life’s blessings. Giving thanks in all things is a core tenet of spiritual health.

Spiritual wellness includes the ability to accept life’s hardships. A spiritually healthy person may not understand why a tornado hits a depressed county, why she lost her job during an economic downturn, or why her child has a disability, but she accepts the challenge with faith that God will walk with her and see her through. This doesn’t mean she accepts everything passively. Working to change what can be changed — homelessness, hungry children, unjust public policies — is often a characteristic of spiritual conviction.

Kathy Hearne was a Nashvillian of great spiritual health. She helped start The Rape and Sexual Abuse Center (now the Sexual Assault Center), Reconciliation, The Housing Fund, and the YWCA Domestic Violence Program. Kathy, who has also worked for the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, the Tennessee Hunger Coalition, and the Tennessee Network for Community Economic Development, was committed to justice for people living in poverty, people who were often pushed to the margins and forgotten. Her photography, exhibited at Watkins College in a show called Holding Cell #6, revealed the anguish of jailed women.

In August, Kathy entered hospice care after an intentional decision to end treatment for colo-rectal cancer, which had spread to her lungs and brain. Her courage came from faith in a God, Who sustained her in life and Who took her by the hand in death. This loving God was embodied in the care offered by her husband Steve, her daughter Brenna, and the chorus of friends who wanted to be near Kathy to witness her strength and inherit her passion.

Kathy accepted the mystery of life and death, all the while giving thanks for her 57 years. She embodied spiritual health all the while living with physical illness. Kathy didn’t talk much about religion; in fact, she talked more about faith’s questions rather than its certainties. Her favorite prayer was written by Thomas Merton, a Catholic monk who expresses spiritual wandering and doubt:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you, and I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.
And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road although I may know nothing about it.

Having been a wanderer while searching for God’s right road, Kathy was all the more confident in a steadfast God who would guide her through the unknown — on the road to death and life everlasting. Merton’s prayer continues:

Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death,
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Spiritual health may not be measurable, but it has distinctive signs and can be recognized in others and, at times, in ourselves. In sickness and in health, may we have faith that we are not alone and may we experience the peace of being held by a gentle and loving God.