Movement

Virtually everything in the Universe is in motion—expanding, contracting, growing, reducing, fragmenting, or disintegrating.  This is true both on a macro (astronomical) scale as well as on a micro (quantum particle or atomic) level.  Nature, including people who are part of nature, are part of a great system of movement and transition.  We are either in motion (moving) or at rest so that we can get back into motion and progress onward and forward toward our ultimate destiny.

As far back as Isaac Newton in the 17^th Century, movement (then called ‘motion’ was studied) and scientific laws were formulated expressing the fundamental need for motion to fuel and build and govern the universe.  In the 19^th Century Ralph Waldo Emerson called Motion (change) and Identity (rest) “the first and second secrets of nature.

The human capacity and need for movement is one of these things that is so much taken for granted that you don’t appreciate what you have until it is gone.  And then when it is gone or vitiated through sickness, or disease, or accident—or sloth—it is invariably sorely missed.  When this happens, productivity, mental health, personal relationships—all sorts of things are negatively impacted.

On a familiar institutional level, schools periodically emphasize movement when it becomes apparent that neglect or dis-inclusion of physical education or movement education in the curriculum is associated with poor health or behavior problems in children.

Cognitive development, likewise, is affected by lack of sufficient movement. Two neuroscientists, Gerd Kepperman and Fred Gage, in 1999, discovered that we typically are growing new nerve cells (a process called neurogenesis) until the day we die.  Another scientist, Henriette von Praggat, found that the thing that most initiated neurogenesis was cross-lateral integrated movement (like walking, dancing, yoga, etc). Recently researchers have also found that when we exercise, it increases the mitochondria in the cells all over our bodies and especially in our brain, thus supplying us with a greater amount of energy for creative thought and learning.

As neurophysiologist Carla Hannaford, Ph.D,  says in her book, Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head, "Movement anchors thought."  The more physical movement, she says, the more [positive] personal expression through arts, sports and music; and the less prescribing of Ritalin and other drugs.

Not only is creation dependent on motion, but re-creation.  Consider the entertainment value we put on watching high-level athletes and dancers perform their movement feats.  What would the Olympic Games be without superbly controlled and executed movement—or collegiate or professional football, basketball, baseball or other athletic contests?

There is pleasure in movement:  tactile movement—massage, touch, sexual expression, as well as fulfilling expression in speech and music that are made possible by the vibration (movement) of vocal cords, mouthpieces, strings, and molecules of air. 

 

The quest for movement has even driven exploration and nation-building or expansion.  Few are the people who don’t value the chance for a trip somewhere to experience new lands or other cultures.  Fortunately today we do it by trip-planning, not by conquest.

I would go so far as to say that movement is life.  Life is our highest value—both in time, and still for many of us in eternity. 

My advice?  DON’T TAKE IT EASY!  If you do ‘take it easy,’ eventually everything ahead of you will be hard—maybe no longer even possible.  So keep moving!

A Pure Heart

Not long ago I posted a weblog titled “The Heart of the Matter.”  Many people read that posting and I am glad. 

 

The heart in song, poetry, literature and even everyday discourse has come to represent the center of many emotions.  Consider a few: heartfelt, heartbroken, heart-ache, bighearted, heartless, heartwarming, heart-throb, heart-to-heart, heart-of-hearts, heartily, hearty, heart-land, heart-and-soul.

 

For the last few weeks I have been focusing on the ‘heart’ of Christmas.  For me, if we don’t focus on the ‘heart’ of Christmas, we miss the essence of the whole season.  It is trite, now, to say that Christ is ‘the reason for the season,’ but it is verily true. Sadly it seems that fewer and fewer know the real significance of Jesus’ mission on earth.  It is a message all should know.

It is the greatest story ever told, but it is a story of which I will tell only in part in this posting.  Just listen to Handel’s “Messiah” and anyone with ‘heart’ will feel the message. 

Let me talk about having a ‘pure heart’—first from an inspired poet’s point of view and then from a Christian’s point of view.

    

Alfred Tennyson, a nineteenth century English poet wrote a poem titled “Sir Galahad,” about the noblest knight of King Arthur’s Round Table.  Two lines of his poem are well-known because of their beautiful message: “My strength is as the strength of ten. / Because my heart is pure.”

We all know, in ‘our heart of hearts,’ if our heart is pure.  To be pure in heart is a most desirable quality.  Jesus, in his ‘sermon on the mount’ said: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)  To merit such a quintessential reward, purity of heart must indeed be a noble virtue. But it is for all an achievable virtue. 

An apostle of the Lord said that the ‘pure in heart’ are those who “are free of moral defilement or guilt.” (Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, Bookcraft, 1966, p. 630.) The words “or guilt” suggest that those who may have morally defiled themselves—and all of us have to some degree-- can become free of guilt through the process of repentance and the forgiveness of sin.  The guilty person through the repentance process of having a ‘broken heart and a contrite spirit’ can have God’s complete forgiveness and become pure once again through the merits of His Son’s atonement for us.  With purity comes peace.

An individual in the scriptures gives us an example of “how it is done”:

            “My soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my Maker and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry unto him…. And there came a voice unto me saying: Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed.  And I, Enos, knew that God could not lie; wherefore, my guilt was swept away.  And I said: Lord, how is it done?  And he said unto me: ‘Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou hast never before heard nor seen. . . wherefore, go to, thy faith hath made thee whole.’” (The Book of Enos 1:4-8, in The Book of Mormon)

    

I believe that any of us can come to realize great mental and physical strength as we purify our heart.  To do that we must keep God’s commandments; repent when we transgress; and have faith in the One who came to this earth to deliver us.  When we and He work together to cleanse our heart it can once again become clean and ‘pure’ and able to hold all the gifts He came to give us. Peace and power are among those gifts.