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“Taking Care of Ourselves”

 The past couple of weeks, I’ve had abundant opportunity to think about what it means to “take care of oneself.” I know it’s important to do so. I understand that in my head. But I seem to have organized my life and my expectations of my life in such a manner that it feels like “taking care of myself” is not a top priority. The apparent top priorities are fulfilling the roles and obligations I feel to others – my family, the Fellowship, and other groups in which I have responsibilities. When that work is done, I can stop and “take care of myself.” From conversations I’ve had with some of you, I suspect I may not be the only member of the Fellowship for whom this is true.

 After my doctor told me to stay in bed for a week, I had to face these priorities head-on. It was clear that, given how bad I felt, even if I ignored the doctor’s orders, I would not be very effective in carrying out those responsibilities, in facilitating cottage meetings, for example. Since I might even have been contagious, I might not only harm my own health, but could possibly have infected others as well. And my own health was not going to get better if I simply pushed myself to go through the physical motions of my typical weekly routine. What was going to happen was that my health was going to get worse.

 So I spent a week “on” my bed, if not “in” it. Kathy will tell you that sometimes the bed looked more like a desk than a bed, as over the course of each day I gradually covered it with books, papers, and magazines. Yes, I did make some phone calls, and, yes, I spent some time each day on the computer. But I was definitely slowing things down, taking it much easier than I would have otherwise, and I paid attention to taking my  medications, and allowing myself to doze off when I felt sleepy, and reducing my physical activities to the minimum. I have to admit, however, it was hard. It was surprisingly hard. I’ve been thinking about why it should be so hard.

 It’s hard, sometimes, to let others do for us what we are used to doing for ourselves. We have our own ways of doing things, and our personal senses of identity and self-importance can feel diminished when we “let go” of these tasks. But I have come to see that the world keeps turning – in my case, that the Sasso/O’Laughlin household and the Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship keep operating successfully – without my active involvement on a momentary basis.

 It’s hard, sometimes, to stop taking care of ourselves and to trust others take care of us. We build trust gradually, and it does involve risk. But there is risk on the other side of the question as well. That other risk that comes from the mistaken belief that we are self-sufficient. In the words of one of my favorite readings from our hymnal, “we need one another.”

 I know that I need to learn how better to take care of myself, and part of that is trusting others to take care of me. Within our families and the Fellowship, we can learn to trust others and to accept their care. For sooner or later, there will be times when others will need us, and if we have not taken care of ourselves, and allowed others to care for us, we will be unable to care for them when they need us most. Let’s take good care of ourselves, and of each other!

 Encouraging you to “take it easy,” (signed) Bill S.