I may be dating myself here, but today’s Thursday Spiritual Fitness Exercise is “Spinning Plates”. My memory of spinning plates, a sort of juggling act, came as a kid watching the Ed Sullivan Show. A man would come on stage and proceed to place spinning plates on the end of a long pole standing upright on the ground. He would add more and more plates to poles and excitedly run from pole to pole, re-spinning the plates to keep them aloft on the poles. If the plate slowed too much it would wobble and eventually fall to the ground and break into many pieces.
Much of what we do and how we spend our time is like this guy running from pole to pole trying to keep all the plates from crashing. We have family, job, self, community, home, health, financial responsibilities, all seeming to need attention at the same time. Where are our priorities? Which plates need the most attention? Which plates are we willing to let fall?
So, here is your exercise, take an inventory of the plates you are spinning. Are there plates that you can let fall? Are there some plates you should take the time to carefully set down until you have more time? Are there plates you can ask someone else to spin for awhile? But most of all, where is your “spiritual fitness” plate. Is it spinning? Has it crashed or did you never start it spinning? It is important that we take the time to take stock in how we spend our time. Our nature has us spinning plates, lots of them. Make sure they are the plates you want and need to spin.
Take Care!
