Stairs in the Michigan Capitol

I was sitting in the back by the door.  After the meeting, and after many there had left, as two Michigan House Health Policy Committee members were walking out of the room one suggested that they take the stairs and the other concurred.

In the committee meeting, Meghan Swain of the Michigan Association for Local Public Health shared that childhood obesity has tripled in the state and adult obesity has doubled. A member of the committee shared that some of the members of the committee are now encouraging one another to take the stairs instead of the elevator.

The point was made that it’s not enough to talk about the importance of these things as they work to improve health in the state, but that they need to do something.

Taking the stairs is doing something, certainly literally, but also symbolically.

I appreciate the sincerity. When Jesus gave his famous parable of the Good Samaritan to show a lawyer how to be a good neighbor, Jesus concluded by saying, “Go, and do thou likewise” (KJV Luke 10:25-37).  And at the end of his famous Sermon on the Mount he stressed the value of not just hearing his sayings but also doing them (Matthew 7:24).

I’ve learned in Christian Science that true health is spiritual and the condition of the body is mainly determined by a recognition of this and by the qualities in our thought. Qualities like purity, honesty and kindness.  And qualities like wisdom, balance and moderation. Paul taught, “Let your moderation be known unto all men” (Phillipians 4:5).

It think that it is right and normal for the human body to move and be active. But keeping thought filled with divine qualities and actively expressing them is really a higher and more effective form of exercise. Paul wrote, “For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come” (1 Timothy 4:8).

After the committee meeting, I walked across the street to the Capitol, took the elevator to the third floor and watched the tail end of the Senate floor session from the Gallery. Still honestly impressed by the sincerity of these Legislators – you probably guessed it – when I left, I took the stairs!