Keep the core thing the core thing

I was ten minutes from the end of an energetic spinning class when the instructor announced that we'd be mixing things up. Your momma might have told you to never mix your drugs, but it became swiftly clear that she shoulda also said the same thing about spinning and other exercises. A minute later, still spinning away furiously, we added arm "exercises" (and I use the " " advisedly. I'm not quite sure what they were) - everything from punching the air to circling our hands around each other to doing spirit fingers, ala that mad dance instructor from Bring It On.

The whole point of this was, of course, to .. Actually, I don't know what the point was.

It's not like the exercises were going to have any measurable impact on our arms - they were faaaaaaaaar too flimsy for that. I eventually convinced myself that these additional exercises were supposed to help us focus on our core muscles, as the shifting movements destabilized our balance.

Yet, even that justification felt a bit weak, as I soon realized that the arm exercises were not only detracting from my focus on my core muscles, but also from my spinning. As an amateur multitasker, I was struggling to breathe, spin, and punch the air all at the same time with the result that I was punching the air in time with everyone else, while my breathing was erratic, and my cadence (the rate at which my legs were turning the pedals) had dropped down to about 50%.

Although I'm competitive by nature, and I fiercely kept up with everyone else's handswirling rate, I toned it down after about 5 minutes. My purpose of attending spinning class was, wait for it, to spin. Everything else, as beneficial as it might seem, was a bit of a waste if it distracted me from this main goal. Therefore, if it was the spinning or the arm exercises, then heck, the arm exercises had to go.

This made me think through my Christian walk over the last few years. I'd had quite a few periods where I became distracted by helpful/ exciting/ cool sideline interests that appeared beneficial to my relationship with Jesus e.g. spending a lot of time talking to other people about God, blogging about Him, thinking about Him. Yet, these 'sideline' habits at times overshadowed the most important things, e.g. talking to Him, with Him. When they overplayed their role, needed to be reassessed and placed again in their rightful position as an add-on, not the main thing. If it isn't about Jesus 100%, then there's no reason to even consider the add-on habits, you know?

As I left class that day, my legs buuuuurning nicely, and my core feeling all the stronger. My arms? They were feeling fine. And that was the way I wanted things to be. So lets make sure that we are all keeping the core thing the core thing!

Emphasising and working on spiritual beauty

One of the topics that came up tonight was beauty, and I was reminded of an idea I'd had a few months ago (which, sadly, I hadn't given much more thought since).

It came from an increasing awareness of the triumph of physical beauty over beauty of character, beauty of spirit. Not that physical beauty is bad, not at all, but it really isn't the be-all and the end-all like the world says it is. I've found myself talking with the emphasis of the world, however, in frequently complimenting others on their physical attractiveness, or their clothes. I'd like to challenge myself in this: to compliment people more frequently because of who they are, or because of what they've done, e.g. "You're beautiful, because of your amazing spirit/ kind heart".

Another note:
In talking about spiritual beauty, I also find cycling (well, exercising terminology) helpful. As I've been developing muscles (it's true! cyclist calves.. oohhh), and growing stronger, and working out for longer, I've been struck by how apt a metaphor physical training provides for our own spiritual training (to be fair, the original analogy is used by the Bible :) ). In the same way some exercises work certain muscle groups, nowadays I talk about certain incidents giving me opportunity to work out my patience muscles, or doing a session with my kindness muscles.

These little visualization techniques have really helped me to process the ups and downs of the Christian walk. I no longer beat myself when I struggle as a Christian, 'cause, as I've come to expect from exercising, I know I'll have some off days, some good days, some days where my muscles hurt and don't do much, and some days where I do so much better. I know that I'm growing, and that growing involves often involves two steps forward, and one step back. I also know that it's something I need to be working on, otherwise I'll stagnate (oh, the dreaded sick periods when I can't gym for weeks.. not fun.) But unlike exercising where I can only do as much as my body can, and where I need to have frequent rest days so my muscles can build inside me, my spiritual growth is going to exceed my wildest expectations, because it's God's power and grace working in me.

Onwards, ever onwards :)

"Girls just wanna have funnnn"

Just got back from a lovely evening with some of the girls who attend my local church. The two main organisers, E and K, went to a lot of effort, preparing food for about 15 girls, which is always a win, but what I really appreciated was the thought that went into preparing the conversations for that evening, as a Facebook message from K can attest:

Oh also E and i have been thinking how we could really make the night worthwhile. Cause as much fun as it is just sociallising girls often get into gossiping easily and we want to avoid that. So were thinking that often dinner we could have some cool chats and hear everyones opinions on some intresting subjects, such as modesty, guys, contentment, how should we as women act ect. gonna put all topics in a hat and pull out randomly to discuss. we wanting to make this very relaxed and chilled tho. just cool to hear peoples opinions about some subjects and what maybe people stuggle with ect.

And what a great night of encouragement, talking, sharing, wisdomising it was :) What a blessing it is to be in such a community where you can talk about similar struggles, identify with others, and really build each other up.

Yes, I think more of this must be done!

Listening

- just because I love this quote, and believe that skills in listening is going to go a long way in establishing healthy, growing communities -

"When I ask you to listen and you start giving advice, you have not done what I have asked. When I ask you to listen and you begin to tell me why I shouldn't feel the way I do, you are trampling on my feelings. When I ask you to listen and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem, you have failed me, strange as it may seem. Listen. All I asked you to do was listen, not talk or do. Just hear me. I am not helpless. Perhaps discouraged for faltering, but not helpless. When you do something for me that I need to do for myself, you contribute to my fear and weakness. But when you accept as fact that I feel what I feel no matter how irrational, then I can stop trying to convince you and get on with understanding what's behind that irrational feeling and when that's clear, the answer will be obvious and I won't need advice." - Anonymous

Cycling ll Christian walk - a lesson

There's a shocking lack of blogging about my latest obsession: Cycling.

I. Am. Obsessed.

I've been cycling since December, and I'm now a keen spandex wearer, proud cycling tan-ner, and my eyes glaze over with joy when I meet another cyclist. I even started spinning (yes, in the gym) because winter came and I had to keep on cycling, whatever it took. How far the anti-gym-bunny has come.

Spinning/ cycling has been good for my relationship with God in many ways. Sitting on a bike for so long means that inevitably I have lengthy chats with God, or just general reflection time. Sitting on a bike for so long means I inevitably turn to God in prayer out of desperation (as irreverent as that sounds, the last hill is always a killer), or in praise for what our bodies are capable of and the beautiful surroundings I find myself in.

Cycling has also proved itself to be useful as a fruitful comparison to the Christian walk. It's hard work, takes discipline, is a pleasure, brings people together, is best undertaken in encouraging communities etcetc. These are all topics I'll probably write on in the future, but there's one particular topic that I had a revelation about recently so I thought I'd write about that.

Now the curious thing about cycling in the first few months was that I never lost weight. In fact, I think I gained a few kgs, even in the weeks I was doing 7-10 hours a week. That's a lot, anyone will tell you, and especially if you've gone from doing no exercise the last two years to doing this amount! When my cycling partner would tell me of the kgs he'd lost, I'd wonder in complete stupefaction as to how I was gaining when I did double the amount of training he did. We both clicked how this was possible a few weeks later when at a restaurant for supper. I polished off my pizza, whereas he only ate half.

Ahah! A clue!

I observed my eating patterns over the next few weeks, and came to the following conclusion: Already someone who ate a lot, I was eating even more than usual. Fair dinkum, I probably needed the extra energy, but alarmingly, because I was telling myself I was burning up hectic calories, my usually healthy eating plans were out of the window, and I was eating tons of junk food. Burgers, pizzas, pastries, sweet stuff- all things I usually ate in moderation were becoming everyday occurrences. In other words, me doing well in one aspect of healthy living (exercising) made me completely lax in another aspect of healthy living (eating). [I learnt my lesson after a few health issues, though.]

Processing this episode made me wonder - how often do we take a similar approach to our Christian lives? Just because we're doing one thing well, do we tend to pat ourselves on the back and ease off on other matters? Because we've been kind, gracious, patient in one circumstance, do we tell ourselves it's okay to be harsh, unloving, selfish in the next second? This is not to say that God doesn't have grace for us when we slip up - He does, and immeasurably so. This is also not to say that we need to be 100% perfect the whole time. Yet, I came to see through this incident that a danger I see in myself is becoming complacent and thinking that doing well in one area means I'm doing well in my whole Christian walk. Let's watch out for thinking like this :)

Driving home stream-of-consciousness.

While driving home from a lovely evening with the girls in the Young Working Adults' Bible Study home, I switched on the radio to hear one of my favourite songs:

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends
- Green Day "Wake me up when September ends"

The lyrics saddened me. One month to go, and I'll be out of here. Gone.

But then the next song came on, one of South Africa's favourite rock bands, Plush, with their song 'Hope'

No I’m not going to lose hope today,
'Cause I'm one step closer,
to where I want to be.
No, I'm not going to lose hope today,
Though it's easy to
nothing good comes easy anyway.

It's not at all an answer to my sadness, but it's comforting knowing that taking another step forward takes me further than I was yesterday. Don't think it meant to, but the song just reminded me to trust and obey, and to hope. So sad I'll be, but no despair.

PS - a thought on living in community

Discovered these wise words today, which are a useful illumination into my thoughts of yesterday:

The Gospel can only be witnessed to by a plurality of persons, because the witness to the gospel is something that happens between and among persons, not simply within them. One Christian can talk about the Gospel, but two or more Christians can enact its truth and power, namely in the way they treat one another. Individual righteousness is inconceivable in the New Testament apart from its expression in relation to others within the body.
- Tommy Givens