This article focuses on your body and will serve as an introduction to how it’s generally composed.  At last, an article on something that you can actually see, touch and feel, unlike the articles on Spirit and Mind that dealt with intangibles.  Now, we’re getting to the meat of the issue (pun intended). 

Where to begin; this is such a huge topic, with so many interrelated and complex organs, systems and functions.  The first and most important thing to understand about your body is that God designed it to be an incredibly durable and capable organism, designed to withstand and deal with any situation when in a healthy and balanced state.  Your body has the ability to defend against natural viral, bacterial or environmental toxins. 

Essentially your body is the confluence of two significant trilogies, the internal spirit-mind-body trilogy and the external air-water-food trilogy.  As such, it is directly affected by both and will let you know how well you understand, respect, integrate and actualize both of these essential trilogies.

Returning your body to optimum health and a proper weight WITHOUT DIETING are a result of understanding and fulfilling two simple steps: understanding what your body is and how it functions; and consciously assisting your body in its quest of trying to achieve optimum health (balance).  That will be the focus of the next several articles; the understanding, care and feeding of your body; essentially how all these parts interact and what other forces affect it. 

In Part 1 – The Spirit, I briefly touched on how your body is a complex series of completely integrated electro-chemical organisms; all functioning essentially without your conscious consideration or input.  In other words, you are not responsible for having a complete and functional understanding of your body in order for you to have and use it.  Now there’s a reason to thank God, because if such conscious knowledge were necessary, none of us would be here.

Over the next several articles I will cover topics on how the following are comprised, function and interact:  cells, blood, your various organs, enzymes, hormones, vitamins, minerals, oxygen, water and food.  By breaking these down into bite-size presentations, my hope is for you to gain an understanding of the individual parts and then you can connect them all to gain a new and hopefully solid understanding of not only how your body works but how to naturally take care of it to achieve and maintain optimum health, balance and peace.

Your body is comprised of chemical components and functions primarily through a chemical process known as osmosis; in other words, through an indirect method of absorption.  Food does not enter the bloodstream, but instead the nutrients that are resident in the food are transferred to the bloodstream, which in turn transfers them to the cells, all through osmosis.  Each one of these transfers is in itself a level of protection, as you will see in later articles.

These chemical processes take energy and as well, create energy; all of which can be measured through several electrical definitions; such as resistance, voltage and frequency.  Chinese medicine recognizes this and this is one reason that they are successful at maintaining health and balance.  Incidentally, did you know that Chinese doctors are paid for wellness visits; and if you get sick, he treats you at no cost?  Why?  Because he didn’t catch your ailment before it manifested itself into an obvious condition.  Try that in this country!!

Without inundating you with a mountain of statistics, a brief summary of salient facts should start to give you a newfound understanding and respect for our still not fully understood body.  Remember your high school chemistry class?  Remember the example that lists the components of the body, in basic terms, as having a chemical replacement value of approximately $5.00?  That perspective so trivializes our intricate, dynamic and delicately balanced mechanism.  I believe it can lead to an attitude that our bodies are not something to be respected and cared for, after all, what’s five bucks; and parts are becoming interchangeable, aren’t they?

So what is your body made up of?  At the most fundamental level, your body is made up of a seemingly endless collection of cells; actually trillions of cells (there are approximately 60 to 80 trillion cells in the body, only God knows for sure). They are the basic building block of the human body, all carefully arranged into specialized uses: such as the nearly 45 miles of nerve-cells running through our bodies; interwoven blood-cells connecting the organ-cells and gland-cells; as well as bone-cells and skin-cells.  Cells everywhere!!!  Each one coded for that specific function.

To give you an idea of the intricacy and cohesiveness of all these cells consider this; in one square inch of your skin there are approximately four yards of nerve fibers, 1300 nerve cells, 100 sweat glands, 3 million cells, and 3 yards of blood vessels.

Concurrently, throughout your body, tens of thousands of electro-chemical messages are sent, received and acted-upon, most in an involuntary state; your input or approval is not necessary, it’s automatic just as many of your responses are auto-responsive.  The most commonly known of these is our auto-immune system; it acts totally independent of your conscious thought or ability to understand its’ function or responsibilities regarding the preservation of your health.  Finally, consider this; while you’re sitting here reading this sentence, 50,000,000 of the cells in your body (except for your brain cells) will have died and been replaced with others.  What have you recently eaten to provide for their replacement?  Something that will nourish your cells or something that causes dis-ease in them?

All of these cellular organisms operate at their optimum level in a balanced state.  Here we are concerned with physiological balance and spirit-mind balance, the direct and indirect result that stresses have on your body.  

Think of your body as a very complex machine, the most sophisticated energy conversion machine ever conceived.  Even today with all of our intellectually contrived space age machinery, nothing even comes close to rivaling the complexity, ingenuity and reliability of the human body.  We cannot and still do not fully comprehend the marvelous workings of this organism which by the way, has been functioning steadily and reliably for as long as we know.  (Another gift to be thankful for.)

There are only three ways for ANYTHING to get into your body: through your lungs – inhalation; through your stomach – ingestion and through your skin – infiltration.  There are only three ways for ANYTHING to get out of your body: through your lungs – exhalation; through your bowels – excrementation and through your skin – exfoliation.  That’s it, so if you want to achieve a state of health and balance you must develop an awareness of everything that happens around or to your body, including mental stress.

Since balance is so important, let’s start here.  There are several orders of balance.  So what’s the first order of balance? 

Your Alkaline – Acid balance. 

Fundamentally, everything that goes on in your body can be reduced to this most important balance.  This includes shampoos, hair coloring products (extremely acidic), lotions, household and industrial chemicals, inadvertently spilled chemicals, not to mention the things we willingly put in our mouths, which in many cases are as toxic to your body as industrial chemicals; wait a minute, some are industrial chemicals!!  Have you ever read the ingredients in a bottle of vanilla?  Check it out the next time your at the store.  (I’ll give you a hint; you could use it in your car’s radiator system.)

Remember, your body is constantly trying to balance everything in or on it.  This is real time chemistry.  When your body receives something acidic, it has to deal with it right then and there, not later, not tomorrow or next week but right when it hits the body, whether on your skin or in your lungs or stomach.  Your body’s ability to effectively deal with this fundamental balance is what we refer to as your state of health or balance.

We can – and scientists do – get into very intellectual discussions about cellular function or dysfunction, about particular chemical characteristics and their relative functions; and these discussions have validity; but when discussing the dynamics of the overall body and its functions, this most important of all balances must be acknowledged and understood.

Take, for instance, the minerals that you are made up of: they are and work within the constraints of Alkaline – Acid balance.  A single example of this would be the two most identifiable parts of your body, flesh and bones; your flesh is predominately sulfur (acidic) and your bones are predominately calcium (alkaline). 

Incidentally, that is why synthetic drugs are sulfur based, to minimize allergic reactions.  This is also their downfall because when you are sick your immune system is already compromised (over-acidic); taking an acid based substance increases your acidity and further depresses your immune system and compromises its ability to naturally develop the necessary defenses to permanently deal with the toxins.

This also is the basis for osteoporosis; when the body becomes overly acidic and not enough alkaline minerals are ingested, the body goes to its great alkaline reserve (the bones) to get the minerals it needs to neutralize the acids.  Take enough calcium from your bones and you literally break apart.

Your cells should be slightly alkaline to achieve and maintain optimum health.  You may remember from a previous article that I describe the body as the scorecard of the spirit-mind equilibrium.  It also is your dietary scorecard.  It directly and irrefutably indicates your current state of spiritual-intellectual and physiological balance or imbalance. 

There is a list in Dr. Theodore Baroody’s book, Alkalize Or Die, which clearly and graphically shows the progression of debilitation that occurs when the body becomes unbalanced or acidic.  He lists three progressive stages of over-acidity, starting with things we all consider “normal” and progressing to extreme conditions that if not properly treated result in a state of morbid toxicity, (gross over-acidity) which commonly leads to death.

I will highlight a few from each category to illustrate the progression. (See his book for a complete list)

·          Beginning Symptoms: acne; food allergies; panic attacks; heartburn; diarrhea; constipation; mild headaches; etc.

·          Intermediate Symptoms: cold sores; depression; migraine headaches; viral, fungal and bacterial infections; excessive hair loss; stuttering; etc. 

·          Advanced Symptoms: schizophrenia; learning disabilities; multiple sclerosis; all forms of cancers; etc.

All symptoms indicate an out-of-balance situation. It becomes abundantly clear that as we become more and more unbalanced our organs and their respective systems become less and less effective in doing their assigned functions.  This leads us to the next basic point; the cells.

Your body’s cellular existence and operation relies on several basic and fundamental elements.  Each one of your several trillion cells is a solution composed mostly of water with proteins, fats, carbohydrates, organic and inorganic salts either suspended next to or mixed with each other.

All of the current fads that advocate no fat or no carbohydrates cause, at best, temporary cellular disruption and at worst, cellular dysfunction.  Saying the body doesn’t need fats or carbohydrates, is equivalent to saying the body doesn’t need water or air.  It’s utterly preposterous.  What would be more accurate is to say that the body would do much better at attaining and maintaining its optimum balance if it had proper fats and carbohydrates, not to mention proper water and air.

In typical contemporary American fashion, the problem is reduced to catchy slogans.  Sadly, many clinicians have been caught up in this as well.  They have limited their view of our marvelous body to isolated views of chemical reactions instead of looking at the overall function and inter-relational processes that affect the entire body and ultimately the overall balance.

Simply put, we - our generation and those following ours - want everything bottom-lined – ‘just the facts and as few facts as possible’.  ‘Sum it up for me, I’m in a hurry’.  Well I can sum it up for you, especially babyboomers; keep living by these shortcuts and misunderstandings and you will keep deteriorating at an increasing rate.  Your quality of life will continue to erode; and no amount of synthetic drugs or other shortcuts will save you.  I apologize if that’s to direct but that’s as simple as I can get it.

Please don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not castigating the medical community specifically, although they are contributors to the problem because of their overuse of synthetic drugs and lack of concern for overall bodily balance.  The problem lies in the fact that the medical profession has become inexorably entangled with the pharmaceutical industry and the mass media industry, a lethal association. 

Generally, the goal of many large American businesses today is a far cry from what it was just two generations ago.  Today, the focus is profit; make the shareholders and the board of directors’ rich, whereas in past generations the goal was to provide a service through their products and at the same time provide jobs and security for their employees.  If they were successful, their company was rewarded with loyal customers and created profits to sustain their vision of service. 

Today, companies focus on achieving profits at whatever costs; through proprietary medicines commonly know as “brand names” a euphemism for very high priced; not to mention through fear campaigns masquerading as awareness ads.  You cannot turn on any form of mass media or drive somewhere without being inundated with fear based questions or innuendoes regarding potential health hazards, all incidentally created by them in the first place, with – you guessed it – the solution being their brand named product. 

Most American medical practices today virtually ignore the time proven natural methods gleaned over thousands of years of history. 

This is not to discount the incredible, trauma related, invasive procedures and skills developed by the medical profession in this country within our generation.  Our trauma skills are second to none, which is a good thing considering that we live in such a mechanically intensive environment.  Sadly though, it seems that success in this area has spilled over into other conventional forms of treatment to the degree that cutting is now deemed the solution to many problems.

By now you are probably asking, what does all this have to do with my body?  Everything!!!  Because everything that you put on or in your body; as well as how you let your doctor treat your body; as well as what you think about such treatments, all affect your ability to attain and maintain optimal health.

Surgical procedures disrupt bodily function, period.  Anything that happens that is unnatural to the body has to be dealt with by the body.  To put it another way; if you are not encouraging your immune system to deal with the problem, which, except for overt trauma, it can; you’re giving your immune system one more thing to fix.  When you choose to have your body cut on, or in the case of cancer treatments, irradiated on; you initiate a set of steps that dramatically taxes your body’s systems and it’s ability to return to a balanced state. 

Regarding replacement body parts, this is such a delicate and risky procedure. Despite the fact that the medical community tries to match the replacement organ to the best of their ability, the body immediately recognizes this foreign object and sets about trying to kill it.  Massive amounts of anti-rejection medication must be administered to prevent this natural process, which keeps the patient in a severely acidic risk state.

In a later article we will touch on the marvelous process of how your body repairs tears and cuts; and how as we get older this process is naturally diminished, which has a direct effect on your overall state of health and balance.  We will see how current conventional medical and dietary practices are accelerating the body’s decay and dysfunction.

Suffice it to say, that God designed your body with the specific capability to maintain optimum health.  You do not have to be even remotely cognizant of how your body functions in order for it to function well.  All you have to do is stop using it as a receptacle for all the acid that your mind and this world is creating.  You need to learn simple and easy steps to heal and maintain your body.

By developing several simple awareness’s, mostly through spiritual nurturing and mental disciplines, you can give your body the opportunity it needs to do what God intended for it, naturally; that is to be vibrant and healthy, to provide you with the means to honor and serve Him through your daily physical manifestations of His eternal truths.

I apologize for the length of this article.  This actually is very brief and hardly touches the subject when considering the volumes of information that deals just with an introduction to this most wonderful God-given gift – your body.  Thank you for your patience in reading it.  I am confident that this information will bless and nurture you.