18-Inch Gap
Sermon
Life Injections
Connecting Scripture to the Human Experience
... love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength...
In an interesting twist, the talk was well received by some patients, not so much because of the point, but because my opening comments helped alleviate fears in regard to their bizarre mental behavior. They hadn't realized that what they experienced was not far from the "norm" when it comes to surgery.
__________
Several years ago, we had a celebrity patient here at Sisters Hospital whose name will go unmentioned. He was here for surgery. It went well and he was placed in one of our step-down intensive care units. Later that night, he ran into all kinds of problems, none of them medical. The person in question began to hallucinate and we had an awful time trying to convince him that things were different from the way he saw them.
That's not, I'm afraid, an all too uncommon post-surgical experience. Every once in a while the drugs used for pain control or some other surgically-related problem wreak havoc with people's minds and they begin to think they're somewhere else. Their bodies are in a hospital bed, but their minds are back at home sitting at a desk or lying on the bed, carrying out some chores. Thank God it is just a temporary problem. Once the drugs in question are out of their system, they're back to normal with hardly a recollection of their strange behavior.
When you come right down to it, we've all had that kind of experience. No, I'm not referring to how we might have behaved following a surgical procedure. I'm not talking about having hallucinations, I'm talking about the experience of being somewhere physically and being somewhere else mentally. Call it daydreaming or a lack of concentration, we've all had the experience of having our minds drift off to another place while our bodies were secured at a meeting or at a function or in a church pew or in the midst of some routine activity.
The disconnection of mind from body is often at the heart of many a problem. The reason we might be sick, the reason we might be unhappy, the reason we weren't able to accomplish something, the reason we're feeling empty inside can often be traced to that disconnection. When the mind is not in sync with the body, when they're going in two different directions, many negative things occur and many positive things fail to happen. The same holds true when we factor in the heart and soul as well.
The ancient Greeks used to set up in the middle of their cities centers which they called asplexia. Under one roof was housed a gymnasium for the well, a hospital for the sick, and a temple to serve both. It proved to be a treatment center for the body, mind, and spirit. The Greeks believed that the three were interwoven, that all three needed to be on the same page when it came to healing as well as when it came to wellness. Interestingly enough, here we are thousands of years later and we are just now coming to that conclusion, we are just now realizing the wisdom of those ancient Greeks.
A look at the shelves of our bookstores attest to that. Whether it be the works of Dr. Deepak Chopra or Dr. Bernie Siegel or Dr. Norman Cousins or Joan Boryszenko, one reads of case after case in which the root cause of the illness lies within a conflict between the body, mind, and spirit. They've even spawned a new branch of medicine called psychoimmunology which sees the resolution of that conflict as one of the key ingredients for healing.
In a book called Sound Mind, Sound Body,1 Dr. Ken Pellitere reviewed the lifestyles of some of the most successful, the most vibrant, the most dynamic, the most healthy individuals in the world today. In each and every case, it was quite clear that the heart, the mind, the body, and the soul were all on the same page. The individuals in question were running their lives with all those cylinders moving in unison, propelling them in a positive direction and being nurtured and cultivated along the way.
So whether it be illness or wellness, the key ingredients are the same. The mind, the body, and the soul all play a crucial part. You find that to be true as well when it comes to what someone is able to achieve and accomplish.
There has recently been a great deal of controversy surrounding IQ tests. A certain professor in a book called The Bell Curve2 has stirred up a hornets' nest. As it turns out, the whole book is nonsense because the reality is that one can never comprise a test that measures intelligence. Furthermore, even if it could be done, it wouldn't mean anything because it would only measure one part of the person and not the whole person.
Time and time again, we've seen very intelligent people amount to nothing when it comes to life. We've seen people, whose brain knowledge far surpasses their peers', failing to achieve any of their goals for life. Intelligence means very little if along with it one doesn't also have enthusiasm, drive, emotion, desire, integrity, and honor. What holds true for illness and wellness holds true for success as well. Mind, heart, body, and soul must be nurtured, groomed, and harnessed for success ever to be possible. If any of those integral parts of the self are not on the same page, chances are strong that one will never accomplish what one sets out to achieve.
The expression "missing the mark by eighteen inches" is used in the business world. It's the reason given for why many people with great leadership potential and great talent never realize their potential. Eighteen inches is the distance between the head and the heart. All too often you find people saying the right things, knowing the right answers, and having all kinds of ability, but their hearts are not in it, and that makes all the difference in the world.
When I coached baseball, I always said that I wished I could do heart transfers because I coached many players who had all the physical tools necessary to be magnificent pitchers, catchers, or shortstops but didn't have the enthusiasm or the desire or the spirit to make it happen. On the other hand, I coached many a player who was all heart but who had very little physical ability. More often than not, he would start ahead of his more physically endowed counterparts. On more than one occasion I couldn't help but think how things could be different if I transferred the hearts. Boy, what a team I would have had! I would have had major league prospects on my roster.
Whether it be intelligence, physical ability, talent, or whatever, it all means nothing if there isn't the integration of body with mind, if there isn't the closing of the eighteen-inch gap between the head and the heart. And that goes as well when another important component is left out of the integration. There have been many people who have closed that eighteen-inch gap, who have done a good job combining their physical ability, their intelligence, and their heart; but they forgot to include the soul, and that's the most important piece of all.
An important meeting took place in 1923 at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. It involved a group of business tycoons. Together these men controlled unfathomable sums of wealth and for years the media had trumpeted their success stories. On that day in Chicago, they assembled to enjoy their mutual success. What made the meeting memorable was what happened in the years that followed.
Samuel Insel, who was the president of the largest electric utility company in the United States, went on to become a fugitive from justice and he died literally in exile in a foreign country. Howard Hopsen, president of the largest gas company in the United States, would eventually find himself in the care of psychiatrists who committed him to an asylum for the remaining years of his life. Leon Fraser, president of one of the world's largest banks, went on to commit suicide. Albert Fall, who in 1923 was Secretary of the Interior to President Harding, would end up in jail many years later and be granted a pardon so he could die at home. I could go on with a list of the others at that meeting, but their stories are the same. All of these successful people closed the eighteen-inch gap between the head and the heart. They employed body, mind, and spirit in the pursuit of their goals. But they had no scruples; they were ruthless. They never took into account justice or integrity or fairness or compassion. Their families were left on the sidelines as they pursued their goals. They had it all together but they left out the soul and in the end they paid the price.
When Jesus was questioned in today's Gospel as to what was the most important commandment, the most important rule for life, he began by proposing that we love God with all the parts of the self. We must love God, not only with our minds, not only with our hearts, but with all of our minds and all of our hearts and all of our souls and all of our strength. He knew that if we integrated all those aspects of ourselves in our love for God, we would more than likely do the same for our love for life. By having all the parts of ourselves on the same page, we would realize health, we would realize success, we would realize fulfillment, we would realize inner peace. If any of those parts was disconnected from the whole, we probably would not realize any of it.
The next time you are out driving and your mind wanders and you make the wrong turn, be grateful that you didn't have an accident. Let it serve as an example of the importance of keeping body and mind on the same page, and not just body and mind, but soul and heart as well. Let it serve to inspire you to close any eighteen-inch gap that might be hurting your life.
____________
1. Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier, Sound Mind, Sound Body (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994).
2. Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve (New York: Free Press, 1994).
In an interesting twist, the talk was well received by some patients, not so much because of the point, but because my opening comments helped alleviate fears in regard to their bizarre mental behavior. They hadn't realized that what they experienced was not far from the "norm" when it comes to surgery.
__________
Several years ago, we had a celebrity patient here at Sisters Hospital whose name will go unmentioned. He was here for surgery. It went well and he was placed in one of our step-down intensive care units. Later that night, he ran into all kinds of problems, none of them medical. The person in question began to hallucinate and we had an awful time trying to convince him that things were different from the way he saw them.
That's not, I'm afraid, an all too uncommon post-surgical experience. Every once in a while the drugs used for pain control or some other surgically-related problem wreak havoc with people's minds and they begin to think they're somewhere else. Their bodies are in a hospital bed, but their minds are back at home sitting at a desk or lying on the bed, carrying out some chores. Thank God it is just a temporary problem. Once the drugs in question are out of their system, they're back to normal with hardly a recollection of their strange behavior.
When you come right down to it, we've all had that kind of experience. No, I'm not referring to how we might have behaved following a surgical procedure. I'm not talking about having hallucinations, I'm talking about the experience of being somewhere physically and being somewhere else mentally. Call it daydreaming or a lack of concentration, we've all had the experience of having our minds drift off to another place while our bodies were secured at a meeting or at a function or in a church pew or in the midst of some routine activity.
The disconnection of mind from body is often at the heart of many a problem. The reason we might be sick, the reason we might be unhappy, the reason we weren't able to accomplish something, the reason we're feeling empty inside can often be traced to that disconnection. When the mind is not in sync with the body, when they're going in two different directions, many negative things occur and many positive things fail to happen. The same holds true when we factor in the heart and soul as well.
The ancient Greeks used to set up in the middle of their cities centers which they called asplexia. Under one roof was housed a gymnasium for the well, a hospital for the sick, and a temple to serve both. It proved to be a treatment center for the body, mind, and spirit. The Greeks believed that the three were interwoven, that all three needed to be on the same page when it came to healing as well as when it came to wellness. Interestingly enough, here we are thousands of years later and we are just now coming to that conclusion, we are just now realizing the wisdom of those ancient Greeks.
A look at the shelves of our bookstores attest to that. Whether it be the works of Dr. Deepak Chopra or Dr. Bernie Siegel or Dr. Norman Cousins or Joan Boryszenko, one reads of case after case in which the root cause of the illness lies within a conflict between the body, mind, and spirit. They've even spawned a new branch of medicine called psychoimmunology which sees the resolution of that conflict as one of the key ingredients for healing.
In a book called Sound Mind, Sound Body,1 Dr. Ken Pellitere reviewed the lifestyles of some of the most successful, the most vibrant, the most dynamic, the most healthy individuals in the world today. In each and every case, it was quite clear that the heart, the mind, the body, and the soul were all on the same page. The individuals in question were running their lives with all those cylinders moving in unison, propelling them in a positive direction and being nurtured and cultivated along the way.
So whether it be illness or wellness, the key ingredients are the same. The mind, the body, and the soul all play a crucial part. You find that to be true as well when it comes to what someone is able to achieve and accomplish.
There has recently been a great deal of controversy surrounding IQ tests. A certain professor in a book called The Bell Curve2 has stirred up a hornets' nest. As it turns out, the whole book is nonsense because the reality is that one can never comprise a test that measures intelligence. Furthermore, even if it could be done, it wouldn't mean anything because it would only measure one part of the person and not the whole person.
Time and time again, we've seen very intelligent people amount to nothing when it comes to life. We've seen people, whose brain knowledge far surpasses their peers', failing to achieve any of their goals for life. Intelligence means very little if along with it one doesn't also have enthusiasm, drive, emotion, desire, integrity, and honor. What holds true for illness and wellness holds true for success as well. Mind, heart, body, and soul must be nurtured, groomed, and harnessed for success ever to be possible. If any of those integral parts of the self are not on the same page, chances are strong that one will never accomplish what one sets out to achieve.
The expression "missing the mark by eighteen inches" is used in the business world. It's the reason given for why many people with great leadership potential and great talent never realize their potential. Eighteen inches is the distance between the head and the heart. All too often you find people saying the right things, knowing the right answers, and having all kinds of ability, but their hearts are not in it, and that makes all the difference in the world.
When I coached baseball, I always said that I wished I could do heart transfers because I coached many players who had all the physical tools necessary to be magnificent pitchers, catchers, or shortstops but didn't have the enthusiasm or the desire or the spirit to make it happen. On the other hand, I coached many a player who was all heart but who had very little physical ability. More often than not, he would start ahead of his more physically endowed counterparts. On more than one occasion I couldn't help but think how things could be different if I transferred the hearts. Boy, what a team I would have had! I would have had major league prospects on my roster.
Whether it be intelligence, physical ability, talent, or whatever, it all means nothing if there isn't the integration of body with mind, if there isn't the closing of the eighteen-inch gap between the head and the heart. And that goes as well when another important component is left out of the integration. There have been many people who have closed that eighteen-inch gap, who have done a good job combining their physical ability, their intelligence, and their heart; but they forgot to include the soul, and that's the most important piece of all.
An important meeting took place in 1923 at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. It involved a group of business tycoons. Together these men controlled unfathomable sums of wealth and for years the media had trumpeted their success stories. On that day in Chicago, they assembled to enjoy their mutual success. What made the meeting memorable was what happened in the years that followed.
Samuel Insel, who was the president of the largest electric utility company in the United States, went on to become a fugitive from justice and he died literally in exile in a foreign country. Howard Hopsen, president of the largest gas company in the United States, would eventually find himself in the care of psychiatrists who committed him to an asylum for the remaining years of his life. Leon Fraser, president of one of the world's largest banks, went on to commit suicide. Albert Fall, who in 1923 was Secretary of the Interior to President Harding, would end up in jail many years later and be granted a pardon so he could die at home. I could go on with a list of the others at that meeting, but their stories are the same. All of these successful people closed the eighteen-inch gap between the head and the heart. They employed body, mind, and spirit in the pursuit of their goals. But they had no scruples; they were ruthless. They never took into account justice or integrity or fairness or compassion. Their families were left on the sidelines as they pursued their goals. They had it all together but they left out the soul and in the end they paid the price.
When Jesus was questioned in today's Gospel as to what was the most important commandment, the most important rule for life, he began by proposing that we love God with all the parts of the self. We must love God, not only with our minds, not only with our hearts, but with all of our minds and all of our hearts and all of our souls and all of our strength. He knew that if we integrated all those aspects of ourselves in our love for God, we would more than likely do the same for our love for life. By having all the parts of ourselves on the same page, we would realize health, we would realize success, we would realize fulfillment, we would realize inner peace. If any of those parts was disconnected from the whole, we probably would not realize any of it.
The next time you are out driving and your mind wanders and you make the wrong turn, be grateful that you didn't have an accident. Let it serve as an example of the importance of keeping body and mind on the same page, and not just body and mind, but soul and heart as well. Let it serve to inspire you to close any eighteen-inch gap that might be hurting your life.
____________
1. Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier, Sound Mind, Sound Body (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994).
2. Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve (New York: Free Press, 1994).
