Mrs. Teabody Bids You to Flesh Out Your Stick Figure

March marches on, doesn't it? Last week at this time Mother Nature was showing us here in Pennsylvania much of what she knows about creating havoc with wind. Needless to say, we were impressed. Perhaps distressed. Definitely stressed. I like calm. I like electricity. I was glad when the storm was over, but the storm and subsequent power outage reminded me of the forces of Nature of our planet and our place on it.  Of course many things about the world are outside our control; that being said, we still make deliberate choices about our behavior and our interaction with the world and the other humans whose paths we cross. Some of these choices are not wise.

Face it: we often CREATE problems for ourselves. We overindulge in food; we push our bodies too hard or not hard enough; we abuse our organs with excesses of all kinds and we abuse our bones with our awkwardness,  our lack of care or  by pushing  our physical boundaries. And we do every bit as much damage through our emotions: anger and jealousy that push aggression and lead to behavior that harms people around us. While we don't hear the phrase Your body is a temple very often any more, your body IS a temple, and what happens to your temple depends at least in part on what you do to it. Or with it.

Yesterday morning I had a doctor's appointment regarding a suspicious patch above my right eyebrow, and as I waited for my doctor to show up in the examining room, I wandered over to an anatomical chart much like the ones included here. I do this every time I have a chance because looking at any anatomical chart always leaves me with a sense of wonder about creation, about getting to be a human being, about all the ways we don't respect this intricate and beautiful vessel that is our body, about A FORCE that is ever so much more powerful than anything we can dream up in our tiny little packet of grey cells.

If you created a human being, what would it look like? If you are like me, perhaps your creation would look very much like a stick figure.

 In fact, any attempt to render a working model of what a human being is in all its intricacy for most of us would be--let's face it--pathetic. I barely know with any degree of accuracy where my internal organs are. How they function and do so with such incredible dexterity is almost outside my comprehension. But NOT outside my appreciation.

Please take a moment to simply look at your hand. Now. Lift it up; turn it around. Regard it from every angle. What you see in front of your eyes is a miracle--so far beyond our poor powers to design. Curl it into a fist. You could punch somebody's lights out with THAT, couldn't you? Now, flatten and open it in a gesture of giving.  You could help lift somebody up with that couldn't you? The human body -- every aspect of it - - is a GIFT.  How are you using your gift?  We use our gifts to propel our own egos, assert ourselves above others through accumulation of material wealth, assert our power over those who are weaker but we MUST bear in mind that we are all of us humans. And it lies in us to use all these wonderful, amazing gifts we have been granted to make this planet better. Maybe it's time for all of us to start acting like the miracles we are instead of like the stick figures we have allowed ourselves to become.