A Pile Of Parts

If I divide myself, can I stand?
Work here, hobby there,
family first,
spirituality on Sunday,
or the occasional weekday sit.

Schedules and organizing
teach us to compartmentalize
our lives
as if we were distinct
spirit, soul, and body.

We aren't.

The borders of our neatly defined lives,
those lines we create
  to contain what otherwise might be messy
business we don't like to deal with,
up at 4:30, make coffee,
eat breakfast,
go to work,
lunch at Dahlia at noon,
  hit the gym after work in matching outfit,
return home,
perfuntory family displays of affection,
check the e-mail, check the news,
read a story about spirituality
  and decide once again we need to pray more
and vow to do so tomorrow
when we repeat the cycle.

We know that stree affects the body,
worry can make us sick,
working out can lift our moods,
it makes our bodies tick.
We just need to control it,
get it under our thumb.
It becomes a sign of "healthy"
if it doesn't come undone....
We happen to miss the lesson
that our body and ghost are one.

All of those activities
where we sweat and move,
and smile with our kids,
enjoy the color of the sky,
and fret about getting the hoses
rolled up and stored away before they freeze,
making love with our lover,
and bringing information in to think about
and maybe act on;

are not all these activities
the continuous stream of our being?
The integrated expression of life?

It's as spiritual to dig in the garden
as to pray
if I am present in the moment.