HIgh-Level Wellness

We used to think of oil as something thick and greasy that the mechanic poured into an the obscure hole in our car's motor or as the stuff Texans pumped out of their back yards to finance another shopping spree at Neiman-Marcus.

No longer.

The words energy crisis now seem to be a natural (although ominous) combination, and oil has come almost to mean survival itself.

With all the concern about the critical shortage of petroleum fuels, another energy crisis potentially as dangerous and pervasive has been largely overlooked. The human energy required to adapt oneself to a world of increasing stress; the vigor, power, and emotional glow associated with sound physical, mental, and spiritual health are alarmingly depleted in far too many of us.

This kind of energy is much more in tangible than a barrel of Saudi Arabian crude. Yet it is infinitely more important. The energy that makes us vibrantly alive in every sense of the word cannot be isolated in a test tube or seen under a microscope. No one has developed a fatigue quotient or a vigor profile. We can determine the number of calories burned as fuel to provide energy for a particular activity. We can even, in some instances, measure the amounts of electrical energy used by the heart or the brain, but such calculations say nothing about the vitality one feels who is truly alive.

Life has never been tranquil, but today the individual faces constantly in creasing demands—information to be retained and retrieved, complex human interactions to be successfully handled, the pace of life to be weathered. Such books as Future Shock, by Alvin Toffler, and Overload, by Leopold Bellak, have highlighted the considerable nervous expenditure required to cope with today's rapid changes, disorganization, and multiple stimuli.

Hans Selye, renowned stress physiologist, compares human adaptive energy to an oil deposit. When it is used up, replacement is impossible. Attempts to restore one's energy level with drugs, coffee, alcohol, or other stimulants actually serve to deplete it even faster. We live in a hurry-up world in which com petition, aggression, and anxiety keep us stewing in our own adrenalin, and as a result, we are living longer, but aging faster.

Although there is much that we still do not know about the mystery of human energy, we do understand certain principles. Halbert L. Dunn, author of High Level Wellness, proposes that within man is a system of organized energy—a balance that exists between the functioning of the body and its intake of energy (in the form of food and oxygen) from the environment—that results in a state of wellness. Habits of healthful living and thinking achieve the necessary balance for optimum performance of body, mind, and spirit.

A well human being is a dynamic, growing person who is developing toward his or her full potential. And since it is the spiritual component of man that is the seat of his values and purposes in life, it is this element that is crucial to a state of full, vigorous health. All those methods for achieving physical and emotional health that neglect spiritual concerns cannot enable one to really develop peace of mind and conserve vital energy.

When the entrance of sin first made the healing arts necessary, God saw that in order to keep man's physical, mental, and spiritual wholeness under consideration at one time, healing must be en trusted to one who embodied the attributes of both physician and priest. This is why we find a combination of religious and medical functions outlined in Scripture.

This consideration for the whole per son (still discernible in mutated forms among societies in which medicine men serve as both physical and spiritual healers) became perverted through the passing ages as Satan sought to make man more dependent on self and less mindful of God's principles of total health. At the same time, scientific knowledge erased centuries of ignorance regarding health and how the body functions. Industrialization brought about drastic changes in life styles; infectious diseases were controlled only to be re placed with stress-related maladies. Maladaptive life styles have resulted in dysfunction of the mind, body, and spirit as man's vital energy is depleted without being renewed.

In such a situation, the pastor has a unique opportunity to restore an attitude to life that centers on mental, physical, and spiritual harmony both with God and with the environment. He may, by ex ample and instruction, point people to personal energy conservation. In a society that values activity and drive, the pressure is intense to achieve and reach the "top." Even children are pushed into a precocious round of clubs, lessons, sports, and social activities. Pastors need to call attention to the necessity of quiet time to watch the clouds, to think, to swing slowly, to read. They need to emphasize the importance of seeing things in perspective, of relaxing, of an openness to God's direction in the efforts made. Pastors need to proclaim that reaching the top is not necessarily synonymous with inner peace and feelings of self-worth; that success is not primarily the result of effort, but rather the consequence of knowing we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Unfortunately, pastors, who ought to be in the forefront of those presenting the advantages of an integrated life style, often become swept up themselves in the fragmented existence that is characteristic of modern society. Indeed, the pastor may have unique temptations to a way of living that is hazardous to total wellness.

There is the tendency to take his work so seriously that he feels the well-being of others rests almost exclusively on his shoulders. Therefore, he may labor unceasingly to do those things that could be better delegated to others. Pastors are prone to distrust the ability of others to complete a task, make a decision, or solve a problem as well as they can. From such a position it is an easy transition to such serious conditions as workaholism, a Jehovah complex, and burnout.

Pastors need to periodically review their attitudes, searching carefully for symptoms. Do I feel that God has placed a mantle over me that sets me apart from the "common" individual? Do I enjoy being a martyr for the cause? Do I receive a boost to my ego by searching for people to rescue? Has my job become more important to me than my family or friends; do they suffer as a result? Do I find myself volunteering excessively for additional duties? Has life become a treadmill on which I seem to be falling farther and farther behind, never meeting my own expectations? Do I feel like a pawn in the "system"?

What can the pastor do who detects signs of an energy crisis in his own well-being? Here are some conservation measures to put into practice: