Process of Elimination

In our nursing curriculum this week, we've been focused on disorders of elimination and nursing care to restore proper functioning...in other words, what happens when you can't go, why that is bad, and how to fix it.

Most people shrink from discussing Number One and Number Two. Those things take place behind closed bathroom doors. They are smelly. They contain bacteria that are the byproducts of normal function, but which can be contaminating and cause illness.

Yet, they are natural functions. Our bodies miraculously take in delicious morsels of God's creation--a luscious bite of fruit dripping with juices; a crunchy mouthful of vegetables bursting with flavor; warm bread with its springy texture; fragrant roasted or baked meat. Through an amazing mechanical and chemical process that takes place over several hours, those ingested substances are transformed into molecular-level fuel for every one of the billions of minute cells that compose our physical form.

That fuel allows us to continue to exist. Without it, we would die. It also allows us to form new cells in order to heal, repair and regenerate our temporal form. It enables the firing of neurons to carry messages around our body that interpret the world through our five senses or enable us to move fingers and toes. That neural net also keeps atoms and molecules whirling and working together in an amazing symphony, resulting in a body that is capable of housing an immortal soul and interacting wondrously with it.

No matter how much of that fuel is used by our bodies to function, there are unusable portions at the end of the process. They have been much transformed, into something unrecognizable and base. In its initial form it was of great benefit to us; in its current form it is no longer of use. All the usefulness, all the benefit, all the good has been extracted. This end product is called waste, and it was never meant to be retained. It has to go. If we hold on to it, we will sicken, experience unspeakable pain, and die.

The body's processing of food for fuel results in tangible wastes; yet, there is another metabolic system at work: a spiritual one. We take in the experiences of our lives and are fed by them. Yes, some are bitter; not all are luscious. If we will allow it, all may nourish us, enable us to renew ourselves and to grow, and are transformed by how we process them through our lives.

As time goes on, we move through and past experiences and situations. Some no longer have any usefulness. Some have been so transformed that the end product in our lives is toxic. It is time to let go, to eliminate. If we attempt to retain the toxins, our spirits will sicken and we will experience unspeakable pain and disease.

Just as physical elimination systems can malfunction or fail and require intervention, so do spiritual elimination systems. Sometimes we are so poisoned by what we hold on to that we are unable to see the need to let go. We may recognize that need, but be unable to release that which no longer serves. We require intervention.

Intervention may take the form of training for our spiritual "muscles", or the form of an event or individual that prepares the way and unblocks our hearts and souls, enabling us to expel the waste instead of cling to it. Sometimes, God has to perform drastic "surgery" and resection our lives.

The more I learn about the body, the more amazed I am at this "people suit" which houses the soul, and the more grateful I am to be allowed the privilege of inhabiting it. How amazing the interdependence: without our immortal soul, the electrons would cease their complex orbits and the molecular bonds would disintegrate, and to dust we would return. I hope it makes you all as awed and as grateful for every breath as it does me.

Have a truly blessed day!