Spiritual_Wellness_Holistic_Health_and_the_Practic

240 Philosophical Foundations of Health Education
As we look ahead, let ’ s thank God that we have some Paul Reveres sounding the
ecological crisis alarm. We need to be jolted out of our arrogant complacency, before
it is too late. In the human heart, hope triumphs over experience. And I keep hoping
that we may now be on the verge of man ’ s coming of age in an Ecological Renaissance.
If so, our human survival and fulfillment will depend upon our learning to live in harmony
with nature, with other people, and with ourselves. We must learn to cultivate
and cherish the simple joys and delights of daily life. We must learn to seek aesthetic,
sensual, ethical, and spiritual as well as materialistic — values and goals. For as
Emerson put it, over one hundred years ago, things are in the saddle and ride
mankind.
Public health is riding the ecological hobbyhorse into the future. We health educators
must think, plan and act now in terms of an ecological approach — or get left
behind. So far, health educators have been strangely silent about the vital ties between
human ecology and health education — a luxury that we can no longer afford (Russell,
1969).
Public health is people, and it is a one - world problem. On a global scale, there are
millions upon millions of little children and adults who are sick, hungry, some starving,
some cold, uneducated, with little or no hope for a better life; many dying prematurely.
And according to some modern prophets, we humans are now facing potential
extinction as a species on earth.
We must use all of our world and public health resources — services, education,
research — to help stem this tidal wave of human waste and suffering and loss of hope.
In this great mission, health education must play a much greater public health role in
the future than it has in the past. In health education, our greatest resource is our firm
conviction that we can work cooperatively with others — children and adults, in school
and out — to help shape and improve the future of mankind. Let this conviction wither
away in our hearts and minds, and health education will soon “ die on the vine. ”
In conclusion, I believe that our ecological problems can be solved. Whether they
will be solved remains to be seen. The blue chips are down and the name of the game
is human survival and fulfillment. Our modern spiritual drama has an awe - inspiring
Old Testament grandeur, with its Heaven and Hell and prophetic sense of impending
salvation or doom for man on earth — shot down by the Four Horsemen: famine, pestilence,
war, and death.
We must stop our ruthless war with nature. We must change our strategy and tactics
and aim at population control — without deterioration of the human gene pool;
reduction of environmental pollution; and wiser use of natural resources. We do need
economic growth an expanding GNP, and scientific and technologic development —
but not at any cost . Hopefully, the science and art of human ecology, applied to global
public health, may help us to cure our arrogant narcissism so we can live in harmony
with nature and free ourselves from our spiritual nihilism and alienation in the modem
world (Belgum, 1967). We must start now with man and the world as they are today
and work in the spirit of Luther ’ s dictum that “ God carves the rotten wood and rides
the lame horse. ”