When
the weather is warm and sunny, I love to swim outdoors. As a
teenager, I was involved three days a week with the YMCA Flying Sharks, a
junior life-saving team. My late uncle Don Allen was a career Navy
deep sea diver, sometimes finding lost Caribbean treasure. When I first
tried learning to swim at the UBC outdoor pool, it was so cold that I
felt frozen stiff. It was only when I went to the warm Okanagan Lake
that my swimming breakthrough came. I know that summer is coming to a
close when outdoor swimming comes to an end.
During
the summer, most gyms and weight rooms are missing many regular
participants. September is the ‘Back to the Gym’ time, ‘Back to
School’ time, ‘Back to Church’ time. September is the time when our
life rhythms reconnect. We all need times away, times of refreshing,
time of letting go. We also need times of reconnecting, of gathering,
of pressing in. Sometimes in the summer, we can relax and feast too
much. Back to the Gym helps us refocus, restart and recalibrate our
lives.
My
wife Janice encouraged me to start going to the gym fourteen years ago
after I was a passenger in a rear-end car accident. I naively thought
that I would become physically fit and healthy almost overnight.
Instead restoring my health has been a gradual process. When I have
striven and pushed too hard, the result has been injury and setback.
God has been teaching me that I need to be more patient with myself and
my weight room renewal. There is no quick fix. My exercise plans often
suffer from good intentions. So many weight room friends start with
the best intentions, but give in to frustration and disappointment. It
takes too long to become healthy! Before you know it, they disappear and
slip back into their old patterns of inactivity.
My
encouragement this September for those reading this article is to not
give up when you go back to the gym. Your health is worth it. Your
life is worth it. You are worth it. By your regularly working out, you
will see gradual benefits that initially elude you. Anything worth
doing is worth fighting for. Your health matters, not only to yourself,
but to your spouse, your children, and your friends. When you invest
in your health, you open doors to your future. When you invest in your
health, your knees will thank you, your back will thank you, your neck
will thank you. Excessive sitting is one of the greatest curses of our
post-modern culture. What will it take this September to get back to
the gym? What is holding us back in doing the right thing? Why are we
often our own worst enemies when it comes to our health? Overeating,
oversitting, and overdrinking are too often eating us alive.
For
the past nine years, our congregation St. Simon’s NV has been meeting
at the Maplewood School Gym each Sunday. Worshipping in a gym has
reminded me that being healthy is meant to be holistic. God wants us to
be healthy in body, mind and spirit. He wants us to be physically fit,
emotionally fit and spiritually fit. Worship is meant to be a
stretching experience where we encounter God with our whole person, all
our heart, soul, mind and strength. Why am I passionate about both
worship and calisthenics? Because both are about being healthy, both
are about making a difference, both are about investing in one’s
future. This fall I invite you to go back to the gym, for physical,
emotional and spiritual renewal. Make an investment that will pay
lasting dividends. Your body, mind and spirit will thank you.
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector
St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
-an article for the September 2013 Deep Cove Crier
-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
p.s.
In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’,
please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street,
North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please
send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
2 comments:
Ed, you are so right -- I get the message, but default on being a "doer of the word," as far as engaging in a consistent exercise regimen is concerned.
Thanks for the exhortation and inspiration. :)
~~+~~
Thank you for your encouraging comments, Peter.
Ed Hird
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