Accommodation

It’s interesting what a person becomes accustomed to. If change is gradual, the mind and body accommodate those changes.

We lived in “Little Italy” in Toronto in the early 90s. We had the main floor and basement of a house, while a woman about our age lived upstairs. We were all allowed to use the back yard, but Upstairs Woman didn’t really use it. She moved in shortly before we did and we met and got to know each other a bit. There was a wrought-iron railing on the porch with two wrought-iron planters attached. Upstairs Woman bought a plant for each of the planters. One was a Ficus and the other a Gerber Daisy. The hubby called the daisy a “Chernobyl Dandelion” – you might guess he didn’t like it much.

In talking to Upstairs Woman, she said she probably wouldn’t take very good care of them, so I watered and cared for them. She decided they needed names so we called the Daisy, Louise, and the Ficus, Herbert. When she moved, although she had bought them, she said we could keep them. Louise only lasted a few years, but we still have Herbert – and he’s big and healthy! He almost died once when we moved on a bitter January day, but I nursed him back to health and he’s taking up a LOT of space in our living room.

OK, so what does any of this have to do with accommodation? I trimmed Herbert last week. Wow! I couldn’t believe how much more light came in through the window afterward! I didn’t think I trimmed all that much off him, but it was the thickest part, I guess. I had just gotten used to the lower light levels and it was only with a drastic change that I noticed there had been a gradual one.

I have found the same to be true of pain. I broke my tailbone four times between the ages of 10 and 17. I won’t go into details at this point about how it broke. Starting in 1998, I went to a naturopath who developed “positional release therapy” (PRT). He said that when bones were broken, the soft tissue becomes scarred and pulls other soft tissue out of place, and can twist other bones to compensate for the weakness. By using PRT on the bones, and scar tissue dissolving techniques, he was able to relieve the pain in my tailbone – as well as correct other issues that plagued me. I was astounded! I had no idea my tailbone hurt. If someone asked me, I would have said no. There was a spot in my back that hurt all the time, but not the tailbone. Once the pain was gone, I realized it had always been there. My mind and body had just gotten used to it – had accommodated it.

So in thinking about these things, I also thought of how this can apply to our spiritual life. We think, “well, I’ll miss church just this once because I’m tired/have a function/have to work/have to study/having family over for lunch” – whatever the reason. Done once, it becomes easier to do it again. Sometimes I skip my morning devotions – especially when I have a migraine or am feeling really tired. “Oh, well, I’ll just miss this morning, and I’ll catch up tomorrow.” Tomorrow has it’s own excuse, and the day after. Sometimes, I do just miss one day, but too often, it’s a longer period of time. Thankfully, I miss it when I have not done my devotions for too long. Maybe it’s God nudging me. Sometimes I have found that particular morning’s reading was exactly what I needed to know for my life situation.

I don’t really have a conclusion in all this. Just observations today. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Until next time, give glory to God in all things…