A trip to my old skool

Agony and abject humiliation aside, one thing I do love about the gym classes is the music..
Everything is on speed a little which is entertaining (The Queen songs did not need to have dance beats behind them, though. It so does not work.)
There's the obligatory RnB moments with Usher, Rihanna,Beyonce and co - which speeded up sounds, well, quicker really.
Then there is an unfortunate PussyCat Doll section which the faster we get through the better. The lyrics of "Dontcha" do not impress me more the more often I hear it. Sadly I hear it a lot.

The BEST the absolute best moments are when we go all old skool ish.
We have Prince - like "When Doves Cry" Prince ( Yarbs did he do that at the concert? You get the live gig, I get Prince on the stereo in his hometown, whilst attempting abs work out. Unfair.) Like "Kiss" pre- Tom Jones Prince. We have Rochdale's finest soul export (and my karaoke pick) Lisa Stansfield. But we get Rob Bass, Doug E Fresh, LL. Even Salt n Pepa's HERE!

Then we move into the Nineties, with some New Jack Swing. This is how we do it.

Agony and abject humilation aside, I haven't enjoyed myself so much musically for ages. Just play the Young Disciples and I'll cry right now. So when I can I am smiling and singing along to tunes. I take a moment and wonder why I am the only one. They're not even singing along to their own homeboy here.
It slowly dawns on me. Most of the songs are from the late 80's. My instructor is 19. Girlfriend wasnt even born. And I suspect that during the kindergarten years, they were not listening to New Jack Swing.


They are probably hearing these tunes for the first time. They think R Kelly's big hit was Ignition - and have no idea about Vibe. They might even think these dance floor, souped up, same beat backing tracks are the ways the songs are supposed to sound. I feel all these"they don't make songs like they used to" feelings. When did I get older? When did I stop being young?

I don't know whether to laugh, cry or scream.

In the end my body reminds me of the agony I am in, and I just try to breathe.

Working up a sweat

I've joined a gym at the local university. Since it is not free, I am motivated to make it worth the investment. Attired in my addidas outfit (circa 1997), Chris' castoff T Shirts and my head band I head out to the gym early in the morning while its still dark, and no one can see me.
Alas the bright lights of the exercise studio are unforgiving.


Our instructors are college students. All of them are lovely, healthy, beautiful young things who would not know fat if it came up to them and gave a personal introduction. My fellow participants are generally young, lovely and fat free, with the exception of a couple of cellulite familiar more mature women like myself.

Within minutes of warming up I am ready to go home. When I say "ready" I mean I am in so much pain and so exhausted, I am ready to go home. I often wonder during these moments why I thought this fitness thing would give me more energy for my children.

Though I consider myself a rather rhythmic, coordinated person, in these classes I find that I can be something of a shambles! Its amazing what being unable to breathe can do to you.

The most intense class is on Fridays. Boxing classes. Well its a combo for boxing and kick boxing moves I think. I have always wanted to do boxing, but various friends banned me over the years citing that I was too aggressive a personality. Try Pilates instead.We have this little 5 foot powerhouse leading the class. Petite as anything, very girly, but clearly packs a punch. Also if you don't tell her you're warmed up enough, she gives more (agonizing) exercises. The problem is we are all so exhausted from the last set, we can't breathe to tell her we are warmed up enough. She takes this as a "No - give us more, more, more!", and carries on.

Painful though this sounds, this class has been great for my prayer life. I genuinely mean it when I say "Thank You God" when our instructor gives us a nanosecond of a water break. You know its bad (or good depending on your perspective) when you are longing for the abs exercises for some light relief. Though today she kinda tricked us because they were tougher than ever (And will my abs take any notice? Pah...). Anyhows, its a serious act of worship when I say AMEN! at the end of the class. Our instructors are a little pink in the cheeks and glowing with a light spray of perspiration. I am panting and am one huge sweat patch.


Someone once said to me "You sweat a lot for a girl". I never really protested the comment, but often thought it was a little inappropriate to share with a woman.

I get home and Tia says "Mommy wet. Been Swimming?"

Looking for inspiration...

Anybody got any ideas for activities with a two year old? Or a good website with some on? Tia and I are in need of some fresh adventures!!!

Answers in the comments box please!

Silence

Is deafening don't you think?



I've always thought that silence is louder and more powerful than the loudest scream. I think its because in the silence you hear so much more. Nothing gets crowded out.

When your heart and mind is uncluttered, undistracted you hear your motives, emotions, your reasons so much more clearly. And maybe even His voice.Maybe he was always speaking, maybe he was always trying to get through. Now He's here. His words are worth listening to, dwelling on. Staying with.

Solitude

Remain in me, and I will remain in you.
John 15:4

solitude
noun
1. a state of social isolation
2. the state or situation of being alone
3. a solitary place
WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.

No one left but God.
The weirdest thing about solitude is being on your own. I guess sounds obvious, but bear with me. You can be surrounded by people and be on your own. And by that I mean more than lonely. When life is pruned back, the lifestyle, the relationships we are used to are stipped away. The people, the support systems, the habits we would normally rely on to get us through the day or night are suddenly (sometimes brutally) no longer there. Now you are on your own. Going through it on your own. No longer someone else's interpretation of your life, your past, your decisions, your choices, your faith. Just you. It would be liberating if it weren't so terrifying.

It's so much easier when who you are is the product of your past, people, community , phase of life, in away. Then you can explain who you are by all those things, they are the reason for why you are the way you are, why you feel the way you do. And the busyness, the regular pattern of life propels us forward, our commitments compel us onward, leaving no time to...

Then suddenly there is no one left. But God.

And God, God offers an invitation. To be with Him. Some translations say remain, or dwell, or abide. It's more than visiting; more profound than just hanging out. It's an invitation to be with him and stay there, and drink it in, discover what unfolds, hear what he has to say. Simple stuff really. Yet I know for me, a busy life often gets in the way of the simple stuff of being a Christian. The relationship gets reduced to empty (though contemporary) ritual. A cluttered mind distracts and support systems become a substitute for finding my own answers. The strip, the sting and the solitude remind me that there are no shortcuts (unintentional alliteration, but I like it) to a relationship with God.

When I have no one left but God, it feels bare and quiet. But its an invitation. An invitation that I don't often see amid the laundry, cooking, play dough, bills, parenting, marriage, work etc. That I don't often hear amid the many voices inside and out that call for my immediate attention. Will I hear it now after the pruning? That's still up to me, the RSVP is in my hands. I can leave things as they are, lick my wounds and return to the familiar for my answers. Or I can embrace this solitude, choose God in a deeper way and step into the silence.

STING

Sometimes a single tear drops on the secatuer. And if you listen closely, you hear not just the cutting, but the sharp intake of breath.

Pruning stings. Especially at the beginning. When a vine first grows, its constantly pruned for the first 3 years. Its not allowed to bear fruit. Instead it is pruned within an inch of its life, not a flower, not a leaf, just cut back until all you can see is a thick trunk.

Now that is painful. OK, so I am stretching things, but imagine being that vine, that branch. Every day you set out to be simply what you are created to be, to do what you know what you are designed to do, and you are denied, repeatedly, by the one who put you there in the first place! Now that has got to suck. You can't even produce a leaf, you can't even show your potential. All you can do is just look like an ugly dead stump. Hardly vintage wine there folks.

There are definite times when I've started out on something new and there was an extended pruning process. When I moved to Sheffield from Cliff College I was ready to take the world by storm. I looked in the sky and thought my star was rising. I'd mistaken what that silvery looking glint in the sky actually was...
It was relentless, it was agonizing. It was 16 consecutive weeks at the front of church weeping. It was the last time I wore mascara. And I include waterproof in that because its no match for my tears. And it wasnt over after that either, not for at least a year or two. It was beweildering, confusing, annoying. It was like this Jo branch was cut up and left throbbing and aching, and stinging.
I didn't miss it when it was over....
And I didn't like it when it happened again!

I was confused. There were many prayers of complaint- but this is what you designed me to be! You called me to this and shut the door on my face! You gave me that friend and moved them to the other side of the world...You placed these dreams here, you gave me these abilities. This is potential you created.You promised me... you said you loved me...

I didn't understand, I didn't get the whole pruning thing. I didn't get that it was part of the journey. When I did understand I didn't like it.
This time around, its not the most comfortable place to be, but I value it...
Maybe when you are starting out on an adventure, a call, you need to be pruned back to see what is truly important. Sometimes that takes three years....

So cry those tears stamp those feet and say ouch if you need to. A lot if it helps. And then stop. Because the important bit is coming...

There's a Robert Frost poem that reminds me of this bit. I won't put it all here, cos it might bore you, but these words capture for me the essence of the sting that pruning leaves behind...

"Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God."

Sometimes a single tear drops on the secatuer. And if you listen closely, you hear not just the cutting, but the sharp intake of breath. Sometimes its your tear, your breath. Sometimes...

Stripped Away

“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more."
John 15:1,2.

So the secateurs (the pruning shears) are out then. Back in the day, pruning was the analogy used to describe those times when God seemed to step into your lives and do a little vine work...It wasn't even necessarily about the bad stuff. It involved good stuff too - the happy, successful, effective areas of your life. An abrupt end, a sharp change,letting go, moving on and leaving a nice cosy set up behind. My friend Paul used to say when you are pruned back there's just less of everything. Oh, and it hurt. And its lonely. Yet somehow in the pruning experience there's an opportunity to connect with God in a deeper, tangible way.

Eventually the process would stop (generally when you felt there was nothing left to hack) and you've move on. The pain eases, is a distant memory.Just when things are finally starting to look like they are getting somewhere, and the 'fruit" returns,you see the silvery glint of the secatuer out of the corner of your eye, and you know what happens next..

And here we are in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St.Paul as Chris completes his ordination stuff. We've left our home, friends, community, and church in Phoenix and find ourselves here. St.Paul (where we are) is lovely, and its Autumn which is invigorating.
Yet I see the glint of silver. A smaller home, simpler (maybe we all need a bit of pruning from our consumerist culture, but hey). I hear a cutting sound when I feel the distance from my close friends, family, even in Phoenix. I see the budding fruit, blossoms, whatever works in this analogy fall quietly to the ground under the silvery glint as I look back at our three years at CCOJ. I want to ask the Lord as nicely as possible if he didn't see just how hard we worked for some of that, how we longed, prayed for, fought for, wept for, sacrificed for that. But I know he'll remind me that its not my own and nor am I.I'm a branch attached to a far bigger purpose.So I don't ask, I just let go.

And keep letting go, until there is nothing left.

You, Here and Now

It was a Sunday Night at the Roxy about 8 years ago and Mal Calladine was preaching. I think it was Esther.The Roxy had a certain buzz about it.There were a few sentences Mal said that night that hit home. Something along the lines of

If not you, then who? If not here, then where? If not now, then when?
I was suitably challenged and inspired.I went home utterly convicted and then Monday morning and life got in the way, and soon those words were yesterday's news.

Funny how these words never truly left.They hid away in the recesses of my heart and mind, waiting for their time to come again. Waiting until I was ready to do what it took to change my life.
Now I am thinking of those words again, feeling ready. But I hear another sentence too.

"Who do you think you are, Joannah?"

Its a sentence with a mocking, pseudo incredulous tone. It might as well say "How dare you?"

It's been around as long as I can remember "Who do you think you are?" From school friends who thought I thought I was better than our world ( I did. I thought we all were).But even louder was the voice inside...
Its the sentence that I've often heard on the frontier, as I try to reach beyond where I and hope and dream for something new. Its unsettling, accusatory. Yet nowhere as loud as it used to be, its not allowed to bully me anymore. But occasionally I think I hear it, feel it again...
Some days I have the answer,I have the answer plenty.Sometimes I just ignore it. Sometimes, my only thought is - why shouldn't it be me?
What would I do if I didn't listen to the fears within, the scepticism without? What would I be? What would you do, what would you be?

I don't see Mal's words invidualistically,like some unique superstar thing.
I think it applies to us as people, spouses, friends, parents, leaders,neighbours, Christians, whatever. It applies to the ideas we have, but lack the confidence to share, the plans we'd make if only we'd...It applies to the job we'd apply for, the relationship we'd build, the things we'd say, the risk we'd take,the career change...it applies to our potential...
Why shouldn't it be you? Why shouldn't it be here? Why shouldn't it be now?