Live right now

The national public radio station I wake up to every morning is on a health kick this year. It and its affiliated TV station have a "Live Right Now" program running, with webspace broadcasting healthy ideas for Canadians (this week's is "Stretch it out") and a reality TV show called "Village on a Diet," in which the villagers of Taylor, British Columbia have pledged to collectively lose a ton of weight in an effort to be fitter.

Good for them, I say. Nothing like getting our bodies in good physical shape. But what about our lives?

Today was my day at St. Vincent de Paul's clothing room. As I unpacked bag after bag of donated items, I was thinking about what it would take for society to be in excellent spiritual health. And when I got home and started looking through my email, I came across a column written by my friend/cousin Ron. It really resonates with my moodlings about spiritual fitness:

http://www.ronrolheiser.com/columnarchive/?id=618

If we really want to live right now, and not just physically, it would seem that we need to put aside preoccupation with wealth, competition and things that do violence to our relationships with each other and the planet, and focus on caring for widows, orphans and strangers, work for "the survival of the weakest," and spend our lives being "justice with love."

Physical fitness without spiritual health is pointless, as our bodies aren't the eternal part of us. And like Cardinal Sin says, justice without love is baloney, after all.