Jo Ind

I have had three personal trainers in the past five years – all young, all men and all so lean you would use a vat of olive oil should you ever need to fry them.

I’ve liked them all, and I’ve learnt different things from each.

But as I nurse a running injury I’m thinking about what I need in order to be able to run without doing as much harm as I do good.

That’s got me onto imagining what I really want my personal trainer to be.

My ideal personal trainer would be someone who:

• Speaks the language of sleep and rest as eloquently as he talks of exertion
• Understands that a woman’s strength waxes and wanes with the moon
• Is as skilled in the fine art of listening to the body as he is in pushing it
• Appreciates that a body in winter has different needs from a body in summer
• Grasps that time spent exercising is time that would otherwise be spent earning money or being with the family and so needs to be kept in balance
• Knows that nothing in nature goes on and on getting better and fitter and stronger…but goes in cycles with seasons of fattening and leaning, of working and resting, of hurting and healing.

There I was making all the preparations for Arch’s fifth birthday – cake (tick), presents (tick), balloons (tick), card (tick).

“Now darling,” I said.  ”There’s something you need to learn and it’s very important.

“When somebody gives you a present, you must say: ‘Thank you very much’ whatever you think of it.  Even if you don’t like it, even if you’ve already got it, remember the people who gave it to you have been thoughtful and kind – so thank them.”

I had no faith in Arch’s ability to learn this lesson so, at his party, I was in full-control mode whisking presents out of his hand to avert social calamities. “We’re having far too much fun to open them now, aren’t we?”

The crunch came a few days later when friends dropped by with a late present for Arch and we had no reason (pretend or otherwise) not to open it there and then in front of them.

Arch eagerly tore at the wrappings. It was Mr Men pants. I curled my toes – too young for him, not his thing, nothing he could play with…. What was Arch going to say?

“Thank you very much,” he said,  confidently looking my friends in the eye.

Afterwards I sat Arch on my knee and told him how proud I was of what he had done.

“Yes,” he said. “I thought I was going to like the present – but I didn’t. It was boring.”

“It was,” I said, “but you learnt something very important about not hurting people’s feelings.  I’m really proud of you darling. Well done.”

But as I said the words, I felt my heart contract.

If what Arch has learnt was so good and useful – why had it made me sad?

* Image @ uglyhero

Why is a 5km run known as a fun run? That is a question I used to ask myself as I sweated it out on the treadmill – panting, smelly and desperate to sit down after a mere 3km’s interval training.

A 5km run is said to be for families and beginners. But despite years of working out at the gym, I would feel defeated after running little more than half that distance. “How do other people do it?” I wondered. “I can’t carry on any more…”

That was until last Saturday, when it was such a glorious spring morning I decided that instead of working out in the gym, I’d go for a jog around Kings Heath Park.

I had already found out that a figure of eight in Kings Heath Park is 2km, so I decided to do one and a half circuits and call that my workout for the day.

I started off. The frost on the grass was glistening like pearls in the low-morning sunshine. The bare trees stood in sculptural silouettes against the clear blue sky.   Tiny varieties of daffodils and snowdrops were peeping shyly from the earth.  The birds were calling to each other, reminding me of other dawns I had witnessed, other times when I am overwhelmed by the sheer sensuality of being alive. I completed one lap.

On the second circuit, replete with voluptousness, I decided to pray. I remembered a baby I knew who was in hospital, for one loop of the eight.  I thought about the people of Japan, for the second.  Every time I glanced at the roofs of the Kings Heath terraced houses, I would think of the people who lived in them, whose names I didn’t know but whose neighbourhood I shared.

“I’ve just run 4km,” I realised as I finished the lap.  “How come I couldn’t run 4km on a treadmill? Isn’t that a great example of the connection between body and spirit? Doesn’t that just show the fallacy of thinking of the body as a fixed, physical entity?”

And with that, I thought I may as well do another 2km circuit – and I did.

“Spirituality is when the inside of things is bigger than the outside” – Richard Rohr.

I came across that quote while I was taking a look at the new website of  St Saviour’s, Bridge of Allan where my brother is rector.

It just happened to catch my eye because I was about to write a post on why I was finding it hard to post at the moment.

There are many times in life when I find my inner world more vivid and enticing than the outer world: I can’t read on the bus because I want to stare out of the window, I’m late for an appointment because I have been day-dreaming in the bath, I don’t switch the telly on because lying on my back looking at the ceiling is far more entertaining than anything being offered to me on a screen.

I’m going through a time like this at the moment – a time when I am being beckoned by my soul rather than wooed through the web. The outer world is small and thin. My inner world is rich and deep.

I don’t know if this is “spirituality.”  I don’t know if this is the way of being to which Richard Rohr was alluding. But it is good to name this place and it a good place to be.

Last time I blogged, I was asking for help.

My pride at my four-year-old son, Arch, felt so overwhelming I felt it should not be seen in public. I wondered how other parents handled (or concealed) this obscenely primitive emotion.

As a result I have had three very helpful conversations, two on Facebook and one in the flesh, about the dilemma. (Is it a coincidence that the three people who helped me did not have children themselves?)

One discussion was about our ambivalence about pride of any kind. Is it good or is it bad?

We expect people to take a pride in their work, for example, but if they are too proud we wag our fingers at them: “Pride comes before a fall.”

I look in the dictionary and see it means both “excessive self-esteem” and “self-respect, personal dignity.”  Those are two very different things – opposites even – and yet the same word covers both. No wonder it’s confusing.

And then there’s that interesting point about whether we can be proud of something that has got nothing to do with us. I would not think so – and yet I am. (more…)

I’d love to take the credit for this poem but I can’t. My only credit is knowing the utterly brilliant Rosie Miles. Fans of Greenbelt, read and enjoy.

If heaven (2)

If heaven might happen

it would look like a racecourse

full of people not horses. (more…)

I get heartily sick of the challenge of raising a family being characterised in terms of work/life balance.

Who thought of that phrase?

It makes it sound as though the only things we need are to earn a living and spend time with our families.  The implication is that so long as we’ve risen to the  challenge of getting work and childcare covered, we’re sorted.

Well, I’ve got news – we’re not.

I have another need and that need is for solitude.  I’ll say it again, but louder: “SOLITUDE.”

I need time to be alone/pray/write. (I use forward slashes rather than commas because I’m not sure if they are different things.)

It is that need for solitude that too often goes unrecognised and therefore gets squeezed and therefore needs naming in capital letters.

Earlier this year I agreed to give a talk on revelation, identity and social media at the Greenbelt Festival. I rashly took this on in January when I had just taken redundancy and therefore anticipated I might be twiddling my thumbs around the August Bank Holiday (ho, ho).

As a result I have  had to clear the time (three whole days so far) to be by myself and do a bit of reading and thinking and praying and writing – whatever name you give to what I do in my study.

Do you know? It has made me feel so good…. I was able to pay attention to random thoughts that had surfaced and been left hanging around like odd socks for far too many years.  I felt peaceful, deeper, ‘gathered-in.’

I must do this more often. I WILL do it more often. Prayer/writing/solitude might not get named in “having it all” features in glossy magazines but I’m naming it and I’m doing it now.

May my work be the way

May it be my worship

May it be the growing of my heart and the connecting of my soul

May it be my reaching out and drawing in

May it lead me home
 

Written while on retreat at the ZeroCarbonHouse, Balsall Heath, Birmingham.