#for_hpr

We are material beings

(00:40) FOR CONTEXT

I was thinking about this subject as I felt great happinness for being able to go to the gym. The circumstances of having stopped exercising, and the timing of coming back, added to the joy of the exercise, so, although I had a tough week, “ gymming ” on Friday night was like a special gift.

(1:05) BEING MATERIAL

I am a believer, and it does not matter the specific faith. It does matter that, although seeing above, I am soo, sooo affected by the circumstances. By my body reactions, molecular and chemical interactions that occur naturally with a sunbath, a cup of coffee or, for the sake of this episode, exercising.

It is natural , I am saying that and maybe you already knew it; so, “what’s the problem?” It is that I am so (and sooo) circumstantial, that I feel better doing something my body likes than doing something good to a stranger — and my faith, that I believe, puts this in front, in terms of importance, of that.

At the same time, I am a forgetter, a person that forgets. My feeling for someone or something now can move from A to Z, from alpha to omega, in an instant, moved by the impulse of a phrase listened to, the infusion of an aroma of the atmosphere, something I remembered, or by nothing at all.

(2:39) ARE WE MATERIAL ?

I think chemical and physical reactions affect everybody (everybody-ah!), and feelings vary. No?

I think I am overreactive to circumstances, as a trace of character that it may be, or I am super reactive to external and internal occurrences. Very varying. So much an effect of causes, the perfect example of any cause-effect theory. Someone you can trust one day, that may be another person tomorrow.

(3:20) TETRAPLEGIA

That may say something of the admiration more people tend to have about a quadriplegic person that lives well, than about a not disable person living equally well.

As if the person with a visible problem is a miracle if she is happy, because we could expect her not to be efficient and up and going.

Not a critic, it’s a way to understand why only Joni Eereckson Tada could do the radio shows she has been doing.

Her phrases and perspectives are valid in their context, affects the listener that knows her limitations; it couldn’t be anyone.

The power is transmitted by the full life in a disabled body. And by what is learnable by it, in benefit of people in different circumstances.

Certainly, if we talk about feelings tied to the body, and having a body that one can barely move, only some members, there is a shock, an equation that is an inequation: feelings, and will, and living fully, in times like that, must come from another source, not only the body and the health and having days without pain.

Me, by myself, if I have pain, body limitation, or have another people not accepting my ideas or work, I’m down. I may be, in one hour, in plain communion with the object of my faith; if, the moment after, happens one of those down things, cruchê (onomatopoeia to things down, kaput ).

(5:24) ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF SUFFERING IN BELIEF

If I can add a topic to this discussion, it’s not a privilege of one faith to “exalt” suffer. One example is José Arigó, a Brazilian guy that, in the 1950s, started to heal patients from around the country; without having studied medicine, he operated thousands of people that came to him, while saying he was taken by Doctor Fritz. He served from Monday to Monday, no rest, while still working as an employee of the social security — as he did before coming to this religion —, to nourish his house, his wife, his family. He received no money for the healings.

As by me, I accomplish no mission, but, as a human and material (circumstantial) being, I feel well when coming to a difficult path where, with all help, I survive (while trying to obey the order of happiness, not only being alive). Be it a relational, a financial, any kind of hunger or apparent despair. Not necessarily, as I say, overcoming it, or not immediately, but passing by, passing though, helped greatly-greatly, as I need; and it’s fantastic.

Bye .