Parables From A Physical Week

Getting Back To Squash

It had been at least four years since I had last played squash.

Back in 2006 I was a regular player and reached my physical peak during that time, as I did that as well as occasionally playing football with the lads at the YMCA on a weekly basis.  At one point it was not unusual for me to play squash three times and the football match in a week.  For a bloke who had previously not did that much in the way of sport of physically exhausting fitness activities, it was a major advance.

With physical development came a more keen capacity to exercise and stretch the brain ad consider new things and consolidate old things.  Prayer life took on a new zeal and a desire to do stuff for God reached an all-time peak.

Since then however events transpired to reduce my sporting life.  When I left Stoke-on-Trent at the end of 2009 it signalled the end of sporting activity as I knew it.

Until this week.

For the first time I hit the squash court with a dear brother in Christ.  We booked a 40 minute session, but I was already gasping for breathe after 4 minutes!  For the duration of the match I had to pace myself so as to avoid completely collapsing.  As a result the match consisted of two games that were rather easily won by my brother in Christ.  (You’ll notice he’s no longer dear! Talk about not showing Christian charity.)

It was good getting back into that kind of activity, I endured the 40 minutes and stretched out a couple of muscles here and there, and left duly drenched in sweat and ready not to walk for a good few hours (days, or weeks, delete as you believe appropriate).  If I thought things felt bad after the match, the following morning really saw the effects kick in as I felt sore over most of my body.  I hobbled into work, and where I would usually bounce from one end of the room to another in delivering the training, on this occasion I barely made it off my chair.

The lesson my body was teaching me:  It’s all well and good to read about something.  It’s also pleasant writing and talking about the same something.  As long as there is no movement and action, however, what will happen is things will become accustomed to inertia and any movement will at first exert a lot and make you feel for it.  Yet better to do something that exercises the ability within you and make progress than to simply just sit, moan, groan, observe, criticise, fantasise and  offer the benefit of your ignorance on the matter.

If You Don’t Take Of Them Now – They Won’t Take Care Of You Later

I am not that old – though I am no longer that young.

When I was a lot younger, my mother informed me of the importance of looking after my teeth.  The best graphic example she gave of that was the dentures she had along the whole top row of her mouth.  Be careful, was the warning.  Take care of the teeth.

At the time, though, I nodded my head in the same way I did to suggest I was paying attention, when really … I left it alone, and continued to abuse me teeth with lots and lots of chocolates and other things that were not kind to my teeth.  As my teens transitioned into the 20’s, the seeming decent state of the teeth other than the very occasional filling gave me the opinion that indeed I could have my cake and eat it too without repercussions.

Of course this week was the beginning of the end for all of that as I endured an hour’s appointment with the dentist that had to do with some major ‘structural reparation’ work on me teeth.  It will not be recorded as the most pleasant hour of my life.  That the teeth in my head remain my own is a miracle of God.  A miracle further highlighted when the dentist discovered a tooth she thought was dead was actually alive and sensitive.

Those miracles in no detracted from the fact that the state of the teeth as a whole indicated greater care needed to be applied to them, or things could get worse.

The lesson my body was teaching me: Gorging yourself on what appears pleasant today, is a recipe for disaster.  It is so very important to take care of what has been given to you,  Ensure that it is used appropriately and nurtured diligently.  Do not let it get wasted by everything that comes to fancy, or there might have to be times where some structural reparation may need to take please, which will not be remembered as the most pleasant time of life.

The point of the lessons is for it to be a continual thing.  Not just something that is a one stop lesson and move onto the next.  What is learnt now is part of what will be taken into the future and exemplified for others, in the hope that they won’t get fat and lazy, or abuse their body parts so that it requires structural reparation.  Bear in mind also, these are not just lessons for individuals, but ones for the communal expressions too!

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden