Team Franciscan Center: Cultivating Stewardship

Dr. Jack Harless

Manger of the Franciscan Center

Our final blog involving the St. Leonard core values centers on Stewardship. Stewardship is intimately linked to our previous core values of reverence and service. In fact, to truly be an appropriate steward for anyone or anything, one must learn to properly revere and serve to the best of their abilities. Only then can stewardship be cultivated.

From a wellness perspective, which includes concepts and applications of wholeness, soundness, and integration, stewardship could rightly be seen as a means of seeing these concepts applied into daily life.

A wellness question, then, would be “How can I cultivate and become a steward of my immediate resources, to create greater wellness, soundness, and integrity in my life and the lives of those around me?”

We have a momentous task of being stewards for the environmental resources of the created world. Equally as challenging is learning to become an effective steward for the internal physiological resources that are our physical being. Being a good steward for the body means being mindful of those choices; physical, emotionally, spiritually, etc. which allow for the greatest range of wellness and wholeness. Ignoring our bodies, or worse yet, doing whatever we please to them, leads to disastrous consequences.

I know that I am constantly challenged to become a better steward of my body. To learn how to cultivate a spirit of humbleness and respect for the body and the creation, to listen for what the body desires rather than what we would dictate to it, can be a struggle to say the least, but in so doing a greater depth is added to the human experience.

I’m reminded of a saying that I heard while in school; “If we listen to the body’s whispers, we won’t have to endure its cries.” May we learn to become expert stewards and take heed of this magnificent gift which is our body.