so i have been learning a lot lately about the meaning of continence...this word conjures many random thoughts in my mind (!) not only do we express continence in our lives by our actions and our discipline of the heart, but our body also expresses its own continence...its own ability to hold onto crap, sometimes for good and sometimes not...for example, on our first day back to school we had a lecture on colonics. the lecturer was a chiropractic doctor who had been using colonic hydrotherapy with his patients for decades (colonic hydrotherapy is like an enema on speed, it not only clears out the anal canal but all the way to the valve where the small intestine junctions with the colon!) he talked about a woman who passed a hard mass about the size of a golf ball and they cut it open to find it was made up of colored wax -- crayons she had eaten as a child! and then there's my traditional chinese medicine class. in chinese medicine, most healing is achieved through the balance of the body's energy (qi) which is characterized as having two poles (yin and yang) which must be present in one's body in equal proportions. a common indication of an imbalanced qi is seen in patients suffering from constipation...sometimes this may be a sign that they are deficient (xu) in their normal level of firey, productive, inspirational and active energy (yang). in which case, the body's physical response to its xu yang constitution is to hold onto every last drop of energy it can find within itself. although the hydrotherapists would disagree, the chinese doctors might say this constipation should be encouraged and not impeded as the body is communicating a need to hold things within itself.
anyways, this is not the continence i am talking about at all -- i guess its just the mental image that first enters my mind when hearing the word. ;o)
the continence that i am learning so much about is summed up well by david in psalm 19...
may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to YouO Lord
my Rock and my Redeemer.
i think my most recent life chronicles have been characterized by a bit too much of the incontinence that can so quickly steal from us the beautiful joy of the Lord (the ugly truth is i am far from knowing what it means to bring pleasure to the Creator of the Universe with the words i choose and the thoughts that float through my mind). consequently, many of my life decisions have been regretably formulated somewhat in light of this perturbed worldview. but the most astonishing thing is that despite my own shortcomings, the Lord's grace continues to be at work in my life, faithfully, unashamedly and often without my even knowing!
how is it that in my own dark night of the soul i find myself overwhelmingly grateful for every last moment the Lord has given me in this small life i get to lead every single day? what wisdom and love He has placed in the hearts of those closest to me! i feel like a child who has been confusedly wandering around in her sleep, stumbling over things, knocking over anything that is in my way -- just to awake and find that the whole time i was being carefully watched over
and i am completely undeserving.
