Gotta Do The Work

So today I went back to work out, the first individual workout since my knee surgery. Oh. My. Goodness. I've been out nearly three months, and it feels like I'm starting from zero. While I think I've made good progress with the knee, I'm only going to be happy when it's 100%. Right now, it's 95%. So there's a little more to go.

But while I've been working on the knee, I've been using that as an excuse to not do any other weight-bearing exercise (wise) or cardio (not wise). I swam some laps today. I'm an ok swimmer, but noticed that my timing, breathing, and endurance are off. Even before the workout was over I saw improvement, and I realized that I'm able to do more stretching and attain better knee flexibility in the water than I am on land.

But I also realize how much I needed to stay in the gym -- we don't do it because it's fun, we do it because we have to do it. By stopping, by failing to find some suitable alternative while my knee was healing (nothing was wrong with my upper body), I've set my whole program back. So far back that I may not attempt the climb up Mt. Sinai, something I'd been training for since last November.

Which led me to reflect on our spiritual lives. I posted an article on Facebook the other day that some people took issue with. The gist of the article was that people's spiritual lives are not shaped independently of a spiritual community, and that the communal accountability reinforces personal growth. It's like in the gym: I may do my individual routine, and I may make progress. But if I have no trainer and no workout buddy to hold me accountable, and if I decide to deviate from my program (or stop it altogether), I can lose ground, as was demonstrated to me this evening. Even when I'm working out, if I simply imitate some actions without understanding what their purpose is or how they're properly executed (in other words, if I try to go off on my own without proper teaching), then I can actually hurt myself. It's the same way with our spiritual lives. We can go off on a "spiritual, not religious" road if we like. But what then becomes our spiritual guide? Our self? Doesn't that sort of imply that there's no power greater than ourselves?

Do we take what we want from whatever religious traditions we've been exposed to and then leave the rest? Do we, because we've been hurt or felt rejection or have been unable to connect with others in one religious tradition, then proceed to throw out the baby with the bathwater, rejecting both the people who caused us harm and the religious tradition that they have tried, and possibly failed, to follow? So.... our religious experience becomes a function of someone else's religious experience? Are we then connecting with or searching for the Divine, or are we simply reacting to or perhaps painfully recoiling from, other humans?

In my mind, if one rejects religion, that's their choice, but in my mind, that choice is not ethically nor intellectually consistent with placing one's hopes, dreams, and/or expectations upon people who have not rejected religion. If you're "spiritual but not religious," and have decided religion's not for you, then it doesn't seem consistent to then use bits and pieces of those religious traditions to justify your position. If fire has burned me, I'm going to retreat from the fire, I'm not going to approach it for healing. Even if I'm cold, while I may want heat, it's unlikely I'm going to want to be near a fire, if a fire has previously burned me.

That's my thought, anyway, and I take that position because of my personal background. Reared in the church, I left it when, I felt, God answered a prayer that God knew I really didn't mean to pray. Headstrong, willful, and stubborn person that I am, it took me decades to submit and surrender to God's will in my life. Only when I realized that my way didn't work was I able to give up my way and try to do things God's way. But while I was away from the church, I was away from the church. (OK, except for the times that I returned home. Some habits die hard).

That's just my opinion. If you're hurt by the church, then either leave the church because of what the people did to you, or exercise your faith in God and try to find reconciliation. But to reject religion because of people and then to place expectations on people who have not rejected religion sounds immature, selfish and, yes, a bit boring. It's sort of like the child who's fascinated with a body part they've just discovered. It's fascinating to them, but not so much to someone who's familiar with the body part. Though the child may be cute....

But back to the work thing, and this sort of bears on the above conversation: I look around my apartment. Specifically, I'm trying to find a sim card cutter that I bought months ago. It's a tiny object, and between all the scattered papers, mail that needs sorting/shredding, bookcases overflowing onto the floor and assorted electronics -- all of which have their own intrinsic value -- in the midst of all that, I can't find my sim card cutter, which is what I'm looking for. I have lots of work to do to clear out the clutter so I can find that which I need.

That's how it is, IMHO, with our spiritual lives and with our physical lives. There are lots of forces, many of them admirable, out there competing for our time and attention. While I'll never be finished searching and seeking, it has been helpful for me to have an authority, outside my own head, to help with interpretation, application, and evaluation of my spiritual journey. That's my religious life. And while it may work for some to explore their notions of spirituality apart from a religious contextualization, that's not my testimony. In my world, ya gotta do the work.

Going full circle, this means that my schedule, my car, and the lack of parking in Manhattan are no longer viable excuses for not going to the gym. If I could make it there for years without wheels, then I'm probably a smart enough woman to figure out how to make it there now that I have wheels. It may take analyzing parking patterns around the Y, it may take paying yet another parking fee -- whatever it takes, is what it takes. I gotta do the work.