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Jan 08, 2013 | Sarah Moïse Young

ENS: Faith and Fitness - A New Year of Wellness for Body Mind & Spirit

[Episcopal News Service] What does a new beginning look like?

 

For many the New Year is for planning positive changes and forging new paths for wellness: heart-healthy diets, cardio regimens or new gym memberships. But what about the other “heart” health? How often do you need to be reminded to nourish and exercise the spirit?

 

When the late running philosopher George Sheehan, M.D., gave motivational talks to runners, he often quoted the wife of a running convert: “My husband used to be a Methodist. Now he’s a runner.” Running may not be a religion, but, Sheehan would say, “It’s a retreat, a place to commune with God and yourself, a place for psychological and spiritual renewal.”

 

To prepare for a recent weeklong clergy wellness retreat, the Rev. Ronnie Willerer, associate rector of Church of Our Saviour in Jacksonville, Florida, committed to walking every day with her spouse using the Walk and Be Well podcast from CREDO, an Episcopal Church health and wellness program. The podcast series is four weeks of reflections on Psalm 139’s message “I am marvelously made,” to be accompanied by a 30-minute walk.

 

“In the past, I’d always exercised to lose a few pounds or as ‘we’ time with my husband. But in the last couple of years, we have not been that intentional about it,” Willerer said, in a recent interview with Episcopal News Service. “It was a good excuse, no, not an excuse, a good reason. The meditations proved to take me in a different direction than mere exercise, because the meditations focused on the magnificence of the creation of your body and the health of your body.”

 

Read the rest here.