Newsletter #83 - July 2008

Using Wisely What We Have Been Given
Rev. Dr. Bruce M. Young, Maine, USA

Rev. Dr. Bruce M. Young has studied and read widely in the martial arts since 1988.  He holds a Third Degree Black Belt in the Korean martial art of Tae Kwon Do.  He is a Karuna Reiki Master, has taught qigong, Sun form Tai Chi Ch’uan, the 64 Yang forms, and Yang Tai Chi sword forms since 1998.  He is a certified instructor of Tai Chi for Arthritis and Tai Chi for Diabetes; and presently serves the First United Methodist Church of Lincoln, Maine as its pastor.

The following article is an excerpt from the final chapter of my forthcoming book entitled, “Christian Spirituality and the Martial Way.”  In this article I will explore the need of every individual to examine the path on which they are traveling, and how they have decided to use the gifts and graces which they have been given as they journey along this path.

When I was younger, I used to think that the old saying, “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today,” was wrong.  So I rewrote it to read: “Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?”  Over the years I have come to realize that we each have a purpose in this world.  We have been given gifts and graces that we are supposed to use.  We can choose to waste our gifts, or we can choose to employ them.  I heard someone say recently that you need to live life on purpose, not as an accident.  When we take that to heart, we may be able to find our full potential, and begin to use it, becoming whole, healthy, and then a healing presence to those around us; a true enlivening of the spirit of our creator, which exists within each of us. 

Trappist monk, Thomas Merton wrote, “There is only now.”  If we lose or waste this moment we can never get it back.  We can spend time regretting the past; we can spend time planning the future, but when we do, we lose now.  To gain now, we need to be still, to see it, to hear it, to touch it, to experience it, and then to live it, now!

We must understand that life is a journey.  It begins with our birth and with the first steps we take as an infant.   As with all creation, we begin in the perfection and unity of our creator, but moving into the human realm, we meet many opportunities, and face many decisions concerning how we will proceed.  Putting these decisions off until tomorrow or making inappropriate ones, can lead to a life of confusion, or to a life wasted.  Robert Frost’s poem reminds us that when we come to the place where two roads diverge, we have the opportunity to take the one less traveled by, and taking that road will make all the difference in our lives, and in the lives of those we have the opportunity to touch.

We are all called in some way to use what we have been given by our creator to be of service to those in need around us, to be a healing influence for those who are physically or emotionally ill.  We cannot do that if we are not whole and healthy ourselves; if we have made inappropriate choices and continue to carry the pain of having made them, or if we ignore the skill and ability we have been given by our creator. 

Those of us who practice martial arts, and especially those of us who have been trained in the ways of Tai Chi for Health have been given a great gift.  We have chosen a road less traveled by, and along that road we will come to realize that we have an obligation to serve others who are in need.   In doing so we begin our journey of return to the unity and purity of spirit from which we have come.  The Taoist refer to is as climbing the mountain where we will meet our beginning.

The teachings of Lao Tzu from the Tao Te Ching tell us that we must seek the quieter way, that the original intent of creation was that things should exist in harmony.  From this place of harmony we will find the strength and courage to use the gifts and graces we have in positive and healthy ways.

But, living in a balanced and harmonic state with the world around us is not easy, for others with whom we exist will attempt to disrupt that harmony.   The skill we achieve in Tai Chi Ch’uan assist us in becoming flexible, and in learning how to breathe properly.  These are important first steps in finding this desired peace and harmony.  Once we have found them we can begin to understand that we can be a healing and guiding influence for others.

For many years an Eastern philosopher sought out clergy of the Christian church to ask them if they knew how to heal as Jesus did.  In every case the clergy responded, “We have spent so many years trying to save the human soul that we have forgotten how to heal the body.”  The church universal now feeds the body by supporting food banks and homeless shelters, providing for the needs of the body to the exclusion of the soul, and it still cannot remember how to heal the body.  There must be a medium point at which the church, and its clergy, work hand in hand with those who understand how the healing elements such as those found in Tai Chi Ch’uan can bring healing to the body, so that both body and spirit (soul) may exist without dis-ease.

But how can we blend a martial philosophy with Christian teaching?  I believe that the answer to this question can be found in the Taoist writing of Ding Meng-Dao, who states, in his mediation, 365 Tao, that there are many paths to the top of the mountain; that we each ride a different donkey to get there; and that when we get there, we no longer need our donkeys.