When I get home most evenings, my bride-of-forty three years will, in varying styles, forms and approaches, ask what would restore me after the day’s work. How fortunate I am to have married a recreational therapist! Fortunate because typically I don’t even think about self-restoration; fortunate because an outside frame of reference is lifted up to my benefit to assess the cadence of work/rest; and fortunate because in a creative way a path for re-focus, for pause, for cessation, for reflection, for regaining control is offered me.
Restore. What a great word that conjures the practice of removing the old, refurbishing and making new. It has the intent of retaining the essence and rejuvenating the core while shedding wear and tear. It speaks to an exchange of worn-out with brand-new.
<< alert: human physiology ahead >>
COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. SARS = severe, acute respiratory syndrome, caused by a coronavirus (there are multiple strains of these critters). SARS-CoV-2 infects the lungs, an organ whose function is to exchange, to renew, to restore. What normally gets restored in the lungs is the hemoglobin in the blood’s red cells. Arriving to the delicate sacs of air in the lungs, the low partial pressure of carbon dioxide draws this metabolic waste off of the hemoglobin; the high partial pressure of oxygen in the air drives oxygen onto the now-liberated hemoglobin molecules in the red cells. These cells leave the lungs to fuel the body’s tissues, where the oxygen is given up, and carbon dioxide is gathered, to then travel back to the lungs for the reverse amazing biochemistry again. The air in the lungs gets refreshed mechanically (by a pump) the diaphragm, which pulls fresh air into the lungs when the diaphragm muscle contracts (inspiration; it takes energy), and drives stale air out of the lungs when the diaphragm muscle relaxes (expiration; it is passive!!!). COVID-19 infection in the lungs damages the gas exchange process, which culminates in poor oxygenation, that cascades into all sorts of other downward spiral events.
Inspiration takes energy. It needs intentionality and work. It is a proactive undertaking. We gotta make it happen, cause it ain’t automatic.
Expiration (waste dumping) is passive. It’s sort of the default state to pollute, to contaminate, to spread damage.
Our living system (body, mind, community) requires active and intentional inspiration, bring in fresh, new, clean, wondrous air for the body, for the soul, for the spirit, for the community. The garbage dumping expiration will, as a matter of course, take care of itself. We don’t need to focus on it for it to happen.
We need to be far, far more attentive to our inspiration – the active intake of what refreshes, than worrying about sharing the irritation and waste products, the hurts, disappointments, and wounds of normal (or damaged) living.
