Q-Tips: Enemy of Warrior 3

Yoga went much better today than normal.  In the past six months that I’ve been going to the Chiropractor regularly, I’ve recognized that I have one side of my spine and body that is much more flexible and strong than the other side.  That’s mainly because I have a tiny tad of scoliosis just above my sacrum.  I never guessed that clumsily leaping off a high jump mat and cracking my tailbone in the 5^th grade would echo into my 30’s. A valiant attempt to impress those 8th grade boys had become a miserable preadolescent fail.  

My main Yoga problem, however, is not my unbalanced strength and flexibility – it’s balance.  Warrior 3 is a joke for me – you want me to stand on how many feet?  Not all of them?  I’m quite sure that my instructor can feel my incredulous eyes boring a hole in the back of her head.  This whole issue, or so I thought, caused my right side balance to be much more stable than my left side balance on most days.  That is, until today. 

The past few weeks, I’ve been feeling sore in my left ear.  Saturday morning after my run, it started to get worse.  Monday I was fevered and the pain was beginning to diminish my appetite.  I noticed I could not walk a straight line down the hall.  Yesterday, I admitted to myself that I was fully into the 3^rd day of an ear splitting headache and was going downhill fast.  I left work early to go to the clinic.  After washing my ear, which felt like they were shooting a stream of water up into my eyeball with a stun gun, they made me lay on my side while they pulled out a piece of earwax larger than what should logically fit inside my tiny ear canal.  It was big.  And unnaturally gross.  It was a color that things that come out of your head should never be.  It was like a train wreck – I was utterly repulsed but I could not look away.  The culprit?  Q-tips.  The Dr. said that using Q-tips is like loading a musket with a tamping rod – it just shoves whatever is in the ear canal up against the ear drum.  Since I am a fan of really clean ears, it made sense, but I’m going to have to rethink my affection for the little white cotton covered tamping rods if this is the ultimate and super nasty conclusion of all things Q-tip.

 

After she removed the giantific ball of wax, I felt nauseous and the nurse had to hold me up because the room started spinning.  I recovered quickly, spent more than enough at the pharmacy for meds and went to bed early. This morning, after a massive dose of pain medication and my first round of eardrops since I was a baby, my Yoga practice was unfettered by any concern about my balance.  In fact, I’m wondering why I hadn’t decided to blame my ear wax for a less than stellar practice up to this point.  Warrior 3 was a one-footed miracle today – one that I don’t want Q-tips to ever steal from me again!

First International Church of Starbuck’s

I am friends with a group of people that includes several members of the staff of a large local church.  One recently was fired for being too outspoken about church policies he disagreed with.  One was even more recently promoted because her boss recommended her for the position after the woman retired.  The senior pastor of that church resigned a few weeks ago, the hiring committee asked the music minister to resign.  Drama, of course, ensued. 

The response from the church members I know has been strong to say the least.  One side trusts the hiring committee explicitly because “they know things about the situation better than the rest of us do.”  The other side wants to raise hell because they were not involved in the decision making process, ostensibly implying that they would have kept the people happy and found a way to work through things.  I regret to say that this is pretty typical of churches I have known.  The story line is always the same:  do one thing, someone else doesn’t like it, drama ensues. 

I know a lot of folks in conservative churches listen to talk radio – you know the kind I mean - where the radio host is intolerant of any liberal views, cuts people off mid-sentence, and is generally disrespectful of anyone who is even a shade of gray away from his own views.  I can’t stand that stuff, even though I agree with 99.9% of what is said.  I can’t stand it because of how the hosts treat the callers.  My Mamma taught me that that behavior was rude and any lady worth her salt doesn’t treat people that way. 

The sad part is that this is how disagreements are treated in the Christian circles I have been a part of.  Dissent is never treated as an opportunity for exploring a topic.  It’s treated like leprosy.  Only the leper colony is now bigger than the “pure” folks inside the walls of the city.  This is doubly bad for those who ask hard questions because the defensiveness that comes from being a minority compounds the need to draw hard and fast lines about which all members must make a public decision.  It’s Travis’s line in the sand – and I fear that those who stay inside will die a painful death like the rest of the Texan patriots at the Alamo. 

For this church to survive, and many like it, there has to be an intentional process of drawing out the conflict very carefully, skillfully moving toward reconciliation – or at least enough forgiveness that those who choose to stay can move forward together as a church body.  This might be a wonderful opportunity to learn the skill of debate – recognizing the merits and weaknesses of someone else’s argument and presenting your own before both sides come to a new understanding of the issue.  All of this is very Hegelian, and sadly most Christian folks know very little about this nor do they care to learn anything about how to practice it.  But it is likely the most important skill that the pure church insiders need to gain if they are to reach the lepers they have ostracized by their staunch foothold on their version of the truth.

 

I’m not advocating for a looser definition of truth here.  I am advocating for listening, for respect, for openness to others’ ideas & perspectives, for laying down your own pride and considering others as more important than yourself.  All of this is Biblical, yet these phrases do not characterize the way that this church has been treating its staff.  And the lepers become less and less interested in getting back into communities that treat people like they’re enemy guests on an afternoon radio show.  That’s why I think I’ll stay a leper and hang out with the other lepers for a while longer at Starbuck’s on Sunday mornings. The coffee's better there, anyway.  

Proud Mom of 3 Graduate Degrees

An article by Slate.com recently explored the experiences, motivations and rationale for women who remain childless.  Since I am a childless woman who is nearly 40, I was fascinated.  I’ve always said that my excuse was that I had my nose in the books and didn’t have time for boys.  Come on, I have three graduate degrees that I have collected in the past 12 years – that’s a lot of attention on the text on the page instead of the dudes across the room.

The first real truth is that I would love to find a man.  I just would like him to already have kids.  The men I know who have become dads since I’ve known them have expressed the most wonderful qualities since their kids have come along.  I remember my younger brother having a complete freak fest when he held my niece for the first time.  Now, he’s the primary care provider for his two kids, ages 2 and 6 months.  He’s more patient, more gentle, more relaxed, and has become the king of follow-through, bath time and diaper changing.  With my niece, he was in denial that there was even a living creature in the baby burrito much less was he willing to deal with the contents of her diapers.  The problem with the single men I know is that they need to be trained – in soooo many ways. 

The second real truth is that all of the moms I know who have young children is that they have lost themselves in their kids.  You see this on TLC’s What Not To Wear all the time – women who have become frumpy and without any thought of a gym membership.  No wonder it seems like celebrity moms buy their children on Rodeo Drive.  I touched base with an old friend over the weekend because I saw something that reminded me of her, and she told me she had no memory of it – which was odd because it was so much a part of who she was for all the years that I knew her.  I wondered at her response for a moment, and decided that my sister-in-law (mother of 2 under 10) swears that motherhood kills your brain cells.  My friend agreed but had to quit the conversation to go chase her boy down because he was being too quiet. 

So, between wanting a man who already has gone through the delightful dad metamorphosis and not wanting the medusa mom transformation to happen to me, I am childless and proud to be an aunt of 4 fabulous young people whom I love to spoil on a regular basis.  The possibility of children is not off the table – for me, it might be about finding the right person who could become the delightful dad and temper my medusa mom.  But for the time being, I’ll stick with the story that my graduate degrees are my children – at least if they are too quiet in the next room, I know that all’s well in there.  

Kick Something's Butt Every Day

Today was a bit of a workplace nightmare.  Your boss being on vacation only guarantees that a week of workplace bliss will be followed by several days of workplace chaos.  This was Day 1.  After a morning of nothing to do (remember this is only my 3rd Monday of a highly technical job for which I am still training), the afternoon hit.  I had told a colleague that I was afraid I would soon have more than enough to handle on my to-do list.  


Just after lunch, a flurry of email snowed me under for the rest of the afternoon - it will spill over into tomorrow.  I have a stack of papers to process through waiting for my prompt 8 a.m. arrival.  One of those emails led me like Alice through Wonderland, digging through stacks and stacks of forms, tracing through data files and subfolders I didn't organize (IF I had organized them, I would have gone right to what I needed).  


I started feeling overwhelmed, and by 4:30, I was almost in tears because of my lack of success.  I decided that I needed to kick something's butt today and finish the report.  After visiting my very well rested and happy looking boss, I systematically replicated his procedures, and on the third time running the data,  things came out just fine.  


After all, kicking something's butt must be on everyone's to-do list every day.  I wonder what it will be tomorrow...

You're Getting Stronger!

I always love it when Chalene says stuff like this in her workout videos.  I've heard other people say that her well-placed motivational comments push them through, and I always think that its a little cheesy when she says that stuff, but it really does work.  This is the beginning of my third week of ChaLean Extreme and I'm excited to say that I'm getting stronger.  I'm moving up in  my weights and seeing definition in all the places I want it.  Hitting almost all of the pushups on my toes inspires me to hit them all on the next round - or at least she makes me believe that I can!  


There is a Biblical proverb: As a woman thinks in her heart, so she is.  There comes a point in the lift-heavy mentality where you feel like you're pushing an immovable rock up a hill, and then she hits you with "You're not tired - you have the strength to get that weight up, and I guarantee you have the strength to get it down!"  And then you get the feeling like that rock you're pushing is not so big.  In fact, you've crested the hill and it's rolling down the other side.  Take that, rock!


Believing I can get that weight up, do one more push up on my toes, and finish one more perfect tricep press is critical to my success in this program.  To do that, I can't let myself think that it's too much for me.  I have to become enough for it.  In fact to do it right now, I have to believe that I am already enough for it.  These positive messages Chalene sends out make me believe in my heart that I'm already enough.  


It is easy enough to believe the bad feedback we get on a daily basis from ourselves and others.  I'm a girl with a strong perfectionist achiever drive, so I have a tendency to give myself bad feedback if I don't bat a thousand every day.  I read one time that it takes a vastly huge number of positive comments to balance out one negative comment.  It's a good thing that I work out in the morning before I dig my negative self-commentary deficit too deep.  Even though I know these workouts were filmed like 5 years ago, her positive comments keep my motivation afloat for most of the day.  


Chalene's motivational moments help me believe in my ability to get what I most want in life.  I have to believe right now that I am enough for the tasks of my day - whether it's one more posterior fly or trouble shooting the statistical software I run at work.  I have to believe that right now, even though I've just started pushing the rock up the hill, that there is a crest, and it's much easier on the other side.  I have to think these things, believe these things, practice these things - because then I live these positive things and not the negative ones.  As a woman thinks in her heart, so she is. 

A Word in Good Season

Yesterday morning as I was unlocking my office door, a friend and fellow graduate student down the hall was opening his door.  He's been about a year behind me, so I know he's going through the worst part of his program right now.  Last summer brought my qualifying exams followed by the approval of my dissertation proposal.  If this part goes awry, you're off track and you might as well quit and go back to teaching school as an ABD (all but dissertation).  More than half of those who start doctoral studies wind up in this category. 

So I felt like I needed to ask him how his program was progressing, and it turned out to be a good thing.  He told me about how nervous he was for his written exams.  I found out later that his exams had been much more demanding than mine were because of how they were organized - four hours in a room with pen and paper and whatever is stored in your beady brain.  Take that times four and you've got yourself a pretty emotionally challenging qualifying exam.  His oral exams are today, and I had the chance to encourage him and pray for him. 

He mentioned that he had not gotten the sense of internal peace that came just before his written exams.  But isn't that why we only get what we need for today?  Won't tomorrow worry about itself?  Manna doesn't keep  in the fridge so well.  Pennies from heaven rust away if you keep them for too long. 

Had I waited and postponed my talk with him, it would have been too late.  He's got a lot of people in his corner rooting for him, and yesterday morning (and today, too) he needed one more.  A word in good season is  indeed like apples of silver in settings of gold - and sometimes the season for those words only lasts a moment.  Don't save your encouraging words just for yourself, spread them in good season because you never know when someone is most in need of a shot in the arm that only you can give. 

Coloring

Today I will leave work a little early to go watch my niece have her second day of gymnastics.  During family dinner night on Tuesday, she came over to me as things were breaking up, threw her arms around me and did what she has not done in years – cuddled with me.  She was still wearing her leotard from her first day at the gym.  With tired eyes, she asked me if I would come today to watch her.  How can I say no to that?

A few months ago, I had the honor of being invited out to the East Coast for a job interview.  Things went really well, and I was confident about the match between my skills & experience and their expectations for the person filling their position.  Then came the big HOWEVER.  Immediately upon landing at the airport, I had a feeling settle right in my gut that this was not the thing for me.  Even though on the surface, things looked and felt really good.  When I got back, I spent the evening with my brother’s family and had the thought – If I go out there to this job, I won’t get to experience this.  The little moments coloring with my niece, listening to my nephew explain all of the various vehicles in Halo and how to get them and drive them and what they look like…, cooking with my sister-in-law, having impromptu lunches with my brother, and seeing all of the family who come down to take their kids to games and camp.

One of my life’s priorities is cultivating relationships with family and friends.  There is no question that for me, to cultivate my relationship with my family, this is the place for me.  So I will gush over my niece today, grouse about the weather with my sister-in-law and have lunch with my brother today.  What a wonderful life!

Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful

My strongest muscle group, and my favorite to work out, is legs.  My friend was showing off the results of his intense calf work the other day, and I knew not to reciprocate because my genes have gifted me with miraculously gorgeous calves.  Jealousy often follows this kind of conversation because of this, and I have to defer to the “Thanks, Dad” sheepish comment I always make.  The dreaded look of “I hate you” inevitably follows.  My mind immediately flashes to that Pantene commercial where she flips her hair and says in her ambiguously foreign accent – perhaps people feel that foreign beauty is somehow better than domestic beauty – “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” – just be the best you that you can be.   

This workout today – Lower Body Extreme Zone – is 40 minutes of the best of what will make it painful for me to walk the stairs today and tomorrow to my 2^nd floor office.  Quads, hams, abductors – lunges, dead lifts and squats.  I don’t often feel this way, but 30 minutes later during my awesome breakfast, my muscles are still tired (fried egg on Ezekiel toast, avocado and mandarin oranges if you were wondering).  I always feel like I’ve really accomplished something when I finish that workout because it’s one of the series that always challenges me. 

Sometimes it’s hard for me to get excited about another set of bicep curls or shoulder presses.  My body seems to think that upper body muscle is a really good idea (Thanks, again, Dad) – which it is to an extent, but developing giantific man arms is not my goal.  This is yet another reason why putting my attention into legs is beneficial for my overall approach to my aesthetic. It’s hard enough to find shirts to fit the balance between my shoulders and waist as it is without adding muscle.  If beauty is pain, then the sweaty face in the mirror with avocado stuck to the corner of my mouth and no gas in the tank – that’s beautiful.

Shifting the Balance

I’m beginning to lose sight of my goals again.  I had the opportunity to watch my team lose for a second time last night and their opponents moved on to the national tournament.  It was a late night and I relished the devil’s hour and a half of sleep again this morning, plus, I need to make up 30 minutes of work from leaving early yesterday. 

I feel discouraged because every day since Friday, I have had some social engagement that provided me with not so positive food choices that did not meet up with what I had planned and needed to eat.  If I am really interested in losing 10-15 pounds and keeping that weight off, I need to make some different choices when it comes to eating with my friends.  Most of the time, in my mind, I’m interested in losing that weight, but when it comes down to a choice between shrimp on a green salad and fried cheese, fried cheese might win every time. 

The times when I’ve been most successful at losing weight have been times in my life when I’ve been isolated socially either because a breakup/custody battle for the friend network or because I was at a multi-week training out of state.  Numerous articles demonstrate that people, especially women, will tend to be the same weight within their social network because they tend to eat the same kinds of things and exercise about the same.  It’s as if we carry around our social network around our midsections.  I don’t think I need new friends – I think I need to shift where I am on the “how much we eat together” spectrum.  I don’t think I need to stop going out with my guy friends, I just need to remember that my body does not need as many slices of pizza as they do. 

For this change to really take effect, I have to mentally practice making those choices so they become automatic when I’m in the moment.  Then, I think that when I make a better choice in the moment, I need to have a non-food reward that I get.  Thinking about that could be really fun…

The Goodness of Coffee

I grew up in a family of coffee drinkers.  If you were not drinking coffee, you pretty much were not allowed at the adult table at holiday meals.  I didn't get my first invite to the adult table until I was in college.  That's when I discovered the local coffee house - Sweet Eugene's.  I also discovered that black was not the only way to drink coffee.  "It puts hair on your chest," my Dad would say.  Maybe that's why I put off the coffee conversion for so long.  I could not imagine how that would be a good thing for me.  


Being introduced to Foo-Foo coffee is what keeps me coming back for more.  I have sought out the best way to make coffee, the best tasting coffee, and have a daily ritual surrounding these things.  I almost won't drink my Mom's coffee flavored water anymore - unless I sneak in to the kitchen after she has prepared the coffee pot for the morning and dump in a few more scoops of grounds.  I'm really glad my brother works in a country that produces good coffee, and that I get to partake of that abundance. 


I am a coffee snob.  I prepare coffee every day in my French Press - one cup of delicious goodness while I eat breakfast and blow dry my hair.  I have been committed to the French Press for years now...until my friend Kate bested me with decaf. 


Now decaf generally tastes like drinking aluminum foil to me, but Friday night - it was the best coffee ever to have crossed my amateur foodie palate.  She made this coffee in what looked like something you'd see in a mad scientist's lab - using filter paper and all.  I felt like I was back in Chemistry with Mr. Ramsey, just as clueless now as I was then.  I was doubtful, because the French Press is superior in every way to any other method.  Well, she explained how this method was actually better, and in the end - that few sips of decaf superseded any other past cup of coffee - smooth, no aluminum foil taste...it made me wonder what goodness it would bring out of my Guatemalan beans.  I might have to give in and get me one of those chemistry sets - if it's going to be that good every time.  It might be time to break up with my French Press.  

Remember the Sabbath Day?

Today, Saturday (this won’t upload until Monday at work because my apartment is slow to fix my internet access), is typically not referred to anymore as the Sabbath.  This has become part of the Western concept of the cycle of work because the beginning stories of the Bible record how early Hebrew people recounted the creation of the universe – and it ended with God resting and declaring that it was good.  So we get some time off at the end of the week.

I remember my small hometown would shut down on Sundays and all but roll up the streets.  As a little kid, Sunday after church we had to go straight home to eat or go to some family member’s house because there was nothing open, nowhere to eat, you couldn’t even buy a gallon of milk at the store because it was closed.  As a pre-teen, we started to eat after church at the Pizza Hut which had just opened.  It quickly became a tradition.  I remember the first time I was sent into the grocery store with money to buy milk after church.  I remember quizzically objecting, “Isn’t it closed on Sundays?”  Not anymore.  Nowadays, the only store I really want something from on Sundays is the only store that’s closed on Sundays – come on, why can’t I remember that Chick-Fil-A chicken biscuits are available on all days EXCEPT Sundays? 

My Bible study this week closed out with a reminder to take a Sabbath rest.  But taking a day off is easy.  Staying out of stores you need something from (or crave a chicken biscuit from) is difficult when you have the day off and others don’t.  The author of the study didn’t stop at challenging us to take a Sabbath rest – he challenged us to “reflect and celebrate” what the week has brought, what we have created, and who we are because of our created-ness.  The hard part of what he asked – that I will not be doing – was to stay home, require no work of someone else, and enjoy being with family. 

I had a friend in seminary who became Jewish, moved to L.A., and married a Rabbi all within a few months.  It was exciting to see her go on a journey toward expressing outwardly where she had already moved inwardly.  Her new Sabbath practices were instructive for me, too.  No turning on lights you didn’t need, no sweating, no walking/driving farther than a set limit, and spending a lot of time eating tasty food, talking with friends and family, and reflecting on the goodness of God.  I have to admit that the way it changed my perspective made me consider making the switch to the ancient side of the Good Book. 

Today, I plan to practice the second half of that list – the eating, talking and reflecting part.  But I am going to drive farther than prescribed to do that, and I am going to require that someone work to tear my movie ticket.  I might even require that someone work to listen to me complain about my lack of internet.  I hope to have my energy restored, to cultivate social connections, and to enjoy God’s creation along Farm to Market 485.  I hope to arrive back home tonight with a smile in my soul.  I think God would be pleased with that Sabbath practice.  I know I will be – now if only I could remember that Chick-Fil-A will be closed tomorrow…

Potato chips are meaningless without Yoga (or…Love Letter to my Chiropractor)

Today is the first Friday of my new career.  I’ve been sitting in an office chair for the past four days.  For eight hours or more every day.  I also have not one, not two, but three twists in my spine in the distance from my pelvis to my ribcage – a fact recently provided to me by my Chiropractor.  Add this to an 11 degree curvature right to left in the lowermost vertebrae and I’ve got one messed up slinky trying to hold up my upper body. 

So yesterday I brought in my back supporter.  I thought it might make things better – it is a back supporter after all, although looks like a Pringle’s potato chip married a backpack and this thing is the ugly child.  It did help me a bit, and reminded me to sit up more, but I came home needing to lay on my back with my knees up to give my lower spine some breathing room.  The problem I anticipate today is that my poor slinky of a spine will begin hurting before I even get settled and started on programming statistical scripts that almost turned me into the Incredible Hulk yesterday.  My back really never quit hurting from yesterday.  And I took some heavy drugs, and used pain rub, and I’m currently using my TENS device – all of which should have relieved the pain independently, and have not relieved it as a trifecta.  Yikes!

Perhaps my Friday workout routine needs to include a little more Rag Doll, Triangle, Boat, and Twist.  In fact, this used to be my Wednesday routine to break up my strength and cardio cycle, and it didn’t hurt that Wednesdays were my Chiropractor day – he used to say that I always did much better on Wednesdays than any other day, Thank You, Slinky!  I’m all for natural pain remedies and prevention, and Thank You, Chiropractor, TENS company and all of my YouTube Yogis!  And here’s to no more three-pronged failed attempts at back pain relief in the future! 

Holy Relationships, Batman!

In the June 2012 edition of Baptists Today (BaptistsToday.org), there are several articles summarizing and editorializing about the recent conference for Baptists and by Baptists focusing on sexuality.  Whatever views folks might have on this issue, it occurs to me that having deep dialog about a deep topic like sexuality is one of the greatest needs on Christian life today.  Topics ranged from human trafficking to homosexuality.  The collection of articles about the conference makes for thoughtful reading if you have half an hour to take that in.

It struck me as I was reading those reports that what is lacking in this conversation is a broader concern for Christian relationality.  Sexuality is a small facet of overall human relationality.  As a single person who hasn’t really had any/many boyfriends to speak of much less been married, as one who is attracted to men, and who is 37, I think that casting any discussion about sexuality in larger terms of Christian relationality would be valuable.  Baptists Today reserves one page (my favorite page) for various quotations about hot topics.  One of them this month goes like this:

“I got to weddings and hear how the two people getting married were ‘incomplete and now they are whole.’ My heart breaks for those who are single sitting in the crowd who just heard publicly that they are not whole persons.”  Jeanie McGowan (ethicsdaily.com)

This perception pervades Christian life, and I have heard this in sermons about romantic relationships, in Christian dating books, and in cultural norms regarding the reality that most folks my age are married (and some divorced multiple times by age 37). 

As a Baptist teen, I sat in countless youth group meetings focusing on the question of “how far is too far?”  As a dyed-in-the-wool BSM-er during my undergraduate days, there were at least as many conversations and sermons about that each year as there were in 6 years of youth group.  As a university minister, I have to confess that I failed to see Christian sexuality as part of the larger issue of Christian relationality.  We encouraged students to be “in the world, but not of the world” by equipping them (sometimes quite poorly) to fend off their partner’s friskiness. 

One minister I worked with commented that he had dealt with numerous students whom he said could quote verse after verse about avoiding sexual immorality while enjoying sex with their partner.  We also taught students to share their faith and to be friends with people whose ideas were just like theirs.  There was never a discussion about how to respect differences, how to dialog about the deep divides between people, or how to be consistent in difficult relationships.  There were glib statements about loving people, helping the world, and being a good Christian.

This approach, both to sexuality and relationships, was to essentially the “moat” mentality – keep the undesirables out and go on the defensive if threatened.  No wonder dialog in Christian life is unheard of.  It’s impossible to have a discussion through a brick wall and across a ditch of your own filth.  (Unless you and your buddies yell from the tower, ‘Your father was a hamster, and your mother smelled of elderberries!’ then hoist cattle over the wall at your enemies hoping they will scream out ‘Run Away, Run Away!’ as they haul it back to the forest.) 

Because of the moat mentality, I am now not surprised that when things start to get hot and heavy, things go wrong and good Christian girls get pregnant at 17.  I am not surprised that the divorce rate for Christian couples is no different than for non-Christian couples.  Ministers are not actively offering guidance about Christian relationality.  There is enough out there about what NOT to do, but just like dog trainers tell us, if we don’t know what we WANT them to do, why do we punish when they do the opposite?  Ministers need to focus on what TO DO, which includes a greater context of holiness in Christian relationships with all people. 

If sexuality was not isolated as its own issue, and if it was included in a larger conversation about what is dysfunctional about relationships in the Christian community, and if (I know that’s a lot of if’s) this inclusive approach was taught and lived in all levels, ages and denominations of Christian life, I bet my bottom dollar that things would begin to be different and Christianity would no longer have Christians as its biggest problem.

5 and 5

Wow – Starting a new week of workouts at 5 a.m. AND starting a new job (my first 8-5 job ever and my first full time job in two years) is a killer.  I’ve been making it ok until 5 p.m. every day, even spreading out my water and calorie intake enough that I don’t feel crazy hungry when I get home.  When my alarm buzzed at me at 5 a.m. this morning, the devil on my left shoulder and the angel on my right shoulder had a long conversation, and I turned over to my left for another hour and a half of sweet rest which was punctuated with my typical alarm-free alarm clocks on the highwires outside my window – the choir of mockingbirds and mourning doves that are there every day.

The first sleep-in usually portends a longer stopping period for my workouts – like several weeks of sleeping that extra hour and a half.  When I was teaching, this used to happen during the end of April or beginning of May when I was tired and ready for the school year to be over, and I would not pick back up until I got ready for the next school year to begin. Honestly, it was always kind of nice to look at myself in the mirror during June and July and gradually see the need for a daily work out slowly become evident again – if you know what I mean.

I think that to be the person I want to be I need to be working out on a regular basis, and if that means I stay with it year-round because I have a different kind of job now, then that’s what it means.  But at the same time, I just don’t have the stamina yet to wake up every day at 5 and also work from 8 to 5.  Maybe four days a week is ok this week – maybe the third and fourth days will be my great acts of faith for this week.  I know that I have a go-to-the-gym workout with a friend tomorrow before the crack of dawn so that’s insurance.  I also have this weekend off from working out, so that’s a longer period of rest that is upcoming.  I guess Rome wasn’t built in a day – and work/work out stamina isn’t built that way either.

In the spirit of keeping my bigger goals and reasons for working out in mind:

1.       I want to lose about 15 pounds

a.       So that I feel comfortable in the clothes that I currently own

b.      So that I feel confident about any swimsuit opportunity/invitation

c.       So that I can maintain my ideal about my belly not sticking out past my boobs

d.      So I am lower on health-risk indicators (although I’m beginning to think that BMI is a crock of crap from the 1950’s – I’m in the level marked “obese” even when I’m at my fittest)

2.       I want to be a disciplined and focused person

a.       So that I can achieve the things I want to achieve

b.      So that I can feel successful at work

c.       So that I can have time and money to play

3.       I don’t want to be perceived as lazy, sad and fat because although I have my moments, they are not who I am most of the time. 

4.       I want to develop a consistent workout attitude now so that when I am older, I don’t lose function because I don’t work out

a.       I want to keep my muscles and mind sharp

b.      I want to be living independently and healthily for as long as possible

c.       I want to experience what life has to offer at many ages in the future even though I have not fully done that at past ages

With those things said, I feel a little more motivated again - too bad I need to leave for work in 30 minutes and can’t hit the weights right now!

Such a Great Cloud of Witnesses…

In the Bible in the book of Hebrews, the writer lists all of these great people from the Old Testament, describing how they were full of faith.  That writer remembers the folks who were renowned for great things – Moses for bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, for example.  When I think of great folks from the Old Testament, I think of David.  What’s the first thing I think of with him?  The Bathsheba incident in which he slept with her and killed her husband – drama ensued. 

During my workout this morning, the instructor urged us to find someone in the class whose energy was inspiring and we should match the energy of that person.  That often works for me until I start thinking about the emerging blister on my big toe, how much my heel hurts or how loud I’m being and the lady downstairs is still in bed.  I do have my favorite people that I watch, especially since most of my workouts are videos.  I’ve been doing the BeachBody thing long enough that I know exactly the one in the video who will screw up at exactly what point.  It kinda makes me feel better when I either screw up myself or when I hit the choreography when they miss it. 

So, why do I remember the screwups and not the ones who did it right all the time?  I do think it makes me feel better when I see someone who is not perfect.  But that does in some small way give me “permission” not to be perfect.  In one way, both fitness and faith seem more attainable because of those who are not perfect, but at the same time, if the writer of Hebrews is putting up examples of folks whose faith was enough – shouldn’t we be looking at them as examples of how to really “arrive”? 

It seems like all of the people listed in Hebrews did great acts of faith.  What about their day to day lives – surely they screwed up and went through phases where they felt the blah’s about all things faith.  Surely those great acts were both preceded and followed by times when they didn’t measure up to the perfect faith standard they are known for because of their one great act. 

Both fitness and faith are more than just one great act – they are the input and outcome of consistent choices.  They are the input and outcome of choosing to get back on track after the screw up.  I want to be the kind of person whose screwups and great acts are both remembered.  I don’t think you can have one without the other. 

ChaLean Extreme (Again)

I began again, as I do about twice a year, a round of ChaLean Extreme today.  I love the way I feel when I have lifted all that weight.  I love watching my strength capacity grow from week to week and month to month.  In years past (yes, I’ve been doing this for years – I started working out with BeachBody long enough ago that I still have the original P90 – no X – on VHS) I have not made any efforts to change my nutrition, so I saw results for several weeks because my metabolism was increasing, but my appetite was, too.  So I found that the muscles pushed out the fat that was sticking around on my hips and below my belly button.  I always pored over the nutrition guides when they came in and when I needed some new ideas for recipes.  Counting calories was always an estimation game that I lost when it came 8 pm and I wanted a round of corn muffins or a hit of Choco-Cherry Love Blizzard. 

So I tossed my flour, sugar and butter a few weeks ago and decided that my most recent failure would not repeat itself.  I lost 10 pounds using LoseIt.com as a calorie counter, but got distracted by my emotional response to graduating and being without a job.  So many threads of good timing are coming together here to (hopefully) yield my success. 

My aim is to lose about 15 pounds of fat by several means:

1.       Planning out my eating very carefully (This is not really new).

2.       Completing a cycle of ChaLean Extreme (Not new either).

3.       Practicing alternative strategies for handling emotions that come with me feeling inadequate, uncertain and hopeless.  (Such as calling a friend, creating something artful instead of baked, cleaning instead of making a grocery store run, Never driving by Dairy Queen unless there is no other choice – have I mentioned I love a Blizzard?)

4.       Meditating daily on positive thoughts like “I am ready for a change”, “It is ok to be a little hungry”, “I can be open to new relationships while I redefine my relationship with food.”

5.       Blogging every day about either my fitness journey or my spiritual journey, which are pretty much joined into one.  Reflection is an excellent way to deepen commitment, explore what’s going right/wrong, and reinforce positive moments. 

So, we’ll see how it goes, and best of luck to me as long as Dairy Queen doesn’t beckon too strongly!