We are stewards of all our stuff in the sense that in calling something "mine" I am assuming responsibility for its care and protection. It's a basic cause and effect relationship. We make choices that have immediate and cumulative long-term ramifications.

Our bodies provide a wonderful microcosm of the drama of this relationship between human choices and their consequences. Surely none of us is immune to the variations in our health and well being that result from our choices. Pull a muscle, it hurts. Don't get enough sleep, you get tired. In many cases, the feedback takes a lot longer to show up. Heart trouble in your 50s and 60s, for example, can often be traced to long-term dietary habits. And depression in adults is often rooted in childhood defense mechanisms that have never been replaced with effective coping mechanisms.

Once we are beyond the years of parental tending, we become accountable for the well being of our bodies and we must balance the care of our bodies with the other concerns of our lives. Unfortunately, most of us are not trained in responding to body feedback unless we are in severe pain. Many of us take our bodies for granted, unconsciously eating and doing as we please.

I have some dear friends who are excellent body stewards. The daily rituals and routines they go through include anointing their bodies with oil, taking walks at dawn and dusk, shopping for and preparing organic and nutritious meals, practicing yoga and meditation. They are cheerful and extremely productive. I applaud them knowing that they live in a culture that does not support or encourage such behavior. In fact, to truly appreciate how they must swim against the tide to live this way, consider how most of us relate to our bodies in this society.

First, we are obsessed with the external look and cloaking of our bodies. We do not appreciate all bodies but only those that conform to a fashion-oriented fickle sense of beauty that the majority of us do not and cannot achieve. So, we are set up to strive for something out of our reach and to feel inadequate, unattractive or unlovable if we do not measure up to this false, ego-driven standard.

Second, we are enticed to eat fast food, junk food, comfort food and any food that is entertaining with little regard for its consequences in our bodies. Yet, we are supposed to be thin and fashionable! Most experts agree that we should at least minimize the amounts of wheat, sugar, fat, dairy, and salt in our diets. Yet about 90% of what is in the average supermarket has some of these ingredients. Why do we promote foods that are destructive to our health? Why does our concept of celebrating always involve foods that harm our bodies?

Third, most of us are raised to be unconscious of the inner workings and feedback of our bodies as we are taught to be conscious of how we look in a bathing suit. Our bodies are incredibly fantastic pieces of equipment that we burn in the sun; starve into fashionable clothing, and fuel with junk for the most part. How very strange. We enrich the food, fashion and medical industries while depleting our bodies. What would it be like to live in a society that truly supported our well being?

To add insult to injury, those of us who are waking up to maintaining a responsible relationship with our bodies are confounded by contradictory information about what foods and exercise regimes are beneficial for us. Furthermore, we are faced with the socially awkward task of trying to adhere to a diet and exercise program that doesn't fit in or make us very popular. How often can you ask your dinner party host to accommodate your diet? What do you do when your friends want to go out for pizza, ice cream or a drink? It's not easy to honor your body in this society. There is very little support for the idea. Unless you run in tofu circles, you'll find yourself out of step with the world around you.

I know all too well the price we pay for our unconscious and irresponsible treatment of our bodies. I'm currently doing what amounts to post doctoral studies in body stewardship. In my early 50's, I found myself all of a sudden paying the price for years of lousy body stewardship. Four surgeries in a year including three relating to a precancerous growth finally got my attention.

I've always had a strong and sturdy body and taken for granted my good health and sufficient energy resources to do just about anything I wanted. But little by little, I found myself with a chronic weight problem, my cholesterol and blood pressure were creeping up as I was pooped a good deal of the time. No matter what I ate or how much I exercised, my weight skyrocketed out of control again. I had been finding balance in other areas of my life and was disturbed by my inability to do so with my body. I was filled with resentment and shame about my weight and about how others responded to me as a fat person. And, most of all, I was angry with myself for failing in this area. Intermittently, I fasted, I dieted, I exercised, I was "good." But, nothing seemed to last long enough to become habitual. I wanted to take good care of my body but was neither willing nor able to do a very good job of it. And I was humiliated, angry, frustrated, and swore I would never diet again until I found a way to keep it off and remain healthy.

Meanwhile, I kept running into friends who had become lean and energetic by working with Dr. James D'Adamo, a naturopath in New Hampshire. As I inquired about him, I had endless objections to the financial cost, distance to get to him, the extremely restrictive diets he put people on and the enormous number of supplements that people had to take and, oh yes, the tofu! I didn't do tofu. But, something inside of me kept confirming that eventually I would go to him and find a long-term solution to my issues with my body.

When I started to work with Dr. D a year ago, he explained that my culinary indiscretions were turning into mucous in my intestines and preventing the transmission of nutrients through the cell membranes into my system. Cumulatively, my digestive system was becoming a toxic waste dump incapable of extracting the nutrients from the food I ate. So, even the healthiest of diets would not nourish my body. He took me off wheat, sugar, dairy and salt all at once and placed me on a regimen of specific foods, teas, tinctures and supplements. The funny thing is that it wasn't as shocking as you might expect, even for someone who loved pepperoni pizza and potato chips and chocolate. My body seemed pretty happy with the idea - I stopped feeling empty, had no cravings, and no gas, or gastric distress. My blood pressure and cholesterol returned to normal and I've lost over 90 pounds.

This journey from a toxic body under the irresponsible command of a bunch of pleasure seeking taste buds to a fairly conscious and responsible individual who is choosing her way through each day to greater and greater levels of health and vitality has taught me a great deal about stewardship. First and foremost, it is about integrity. It means being willing to be responsible and accountable for what we have. Whether steward of a child, a body, or a country, this mantle requires understanding what constitutes the health and well-being of what is ours to tend and serving as a loving and devoted caretaker. Sometimes this requires asking some important questions. In caring for my body, I had to explore what my motivations were for what I was putting into my body - not only in terms of food, but holding onto and repressing unpleasant emotions and persisting in negative thinking. I had to find healthier forms of entertainment than titillating my taste buds. This meant changing my fundamental relationship with food from entertainment to nourishment and being eternally vigilant. I became ruthlessly honest with myself and accepted the truth that my very own portable personal kingdom of humanity reflects spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically whatever I create, promote, and allow in my life. This helped me to make a fundamental spiritual shift to truly embracing my body as the home of my soul and wanting to create a healthy and happy environment that welcomes, honors and supports my soul in its journey.

Being a good steward usually means moving to a higher moral ground. It means sacrificing thoughts, feelings and behaviors that perpetuate life at a lower altitude for a higher good. Stewardship calls upon us to make a profound choice. We can either allow our hearts and minds to be ruled by sensual desires and be led into patterns of lust and greed or we can take advantage of the opportunity to reach into something higher within and among ourselves that will grace our lives with balance and a sweetness beyond any we have ever tasted and a treasure beyond any measure of value we have ever known. Imagine what it would be like if we had an outbreak of top of the line stewardship in this world!

Reverend Judith Johnson, PhD is an ecumenical minister and social psychologist with a private counseling practice based in Rhinebeck, New York

Reprinted with permission from Symposium: The Journal of the Millbrook Symposium, Winter 2002, Millbrook, NY.