Props to My Father-in-Law

Any way you measure it, my in-laws are amazing people. Each of them has decades of competitive running to their credit. For many years, they went on bicycle camping trips every summer, on which they rode many hundreds of miles, some of it in very hilly terrain.

One year they rode bicycles across Death Valley.

In July.

Individually and together, they have maintained a decades-long testimony to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. But what I love about their brand of spirituality is that it has physical manifestations. Long after their age-peers have retired from active pursuits, they continue to push themselves to achieve amazing things.

My father-in-law, Don Walkwitz, will turn 76 next month. Over the weekend, he ran a 5K race in 24 minutes, 52 seconds at the Get Fit Tulsa event. Here, I will do the math for you: That is an average of exactly 8 minutes per mile for the 3.1 mile course!

In this race, my father-in-law beat guys in their 60s, 50s, 40s, 30s, and 20s. If I had been in Tulsa that day, he'd have beaten me, too.

Godspeed, Don!

A New Painting

I consider myself a serious painter. Whether others do, I cannot tell. My volumetric output is tiny, because I am only able to do it part time, and because I work so slowly. Still, when I achieve the look I intended for a painting, it makes me happy.

This one makes me happy.

It seems odd to me that, with all its sunny exuberance, I finished the painting on Good Friday. However, considering how our Lord spent that Friday evening (the harrowing of hell), perhaps it is not so incongruous after all.

Beautifully Understated

Since the day I first discovered Anglicanism, I have appreciated one thing about its particular aesthetic, and that is how it likes to speak in reserved tones, with all things beautifully understated.

So, imagine my delight to read the following words from the The Rt. Rev’d Wendell N. Gibbs, Jr., bishop of the Diocese of Michigan, in commenting on EDOMI's current financial woes:¹

We are in a different financial place than where we were even 6 short months ago.

I cannot help picturing a group of Episcopal bishops, gathered together indaba-ing in the Afterlife, when one bishop offers in a solemn tone:

We are in a warmer place than heretofore.

¹The letter from Bishop Gibbs goes on to say: The reality is that our anticipated revenue for 2009 and beyond will not exceed $2,000,000 annually (and may actually be less as we have not yet received all of the 2008 Parochial Reports that were due on March 1). We currently have a budget of $2,985,835.

So, EDOMI has a budget of about $3 Million, with projected revenues of less than $2 Million.

Lenten Thoughts of a High Anglican

Here is a poem I like, appropriate to the season, from John Betjeman.

Lenten Thoughts of a High Anglican

Isn't she lovely, "the Mistress"?
With her wide-apart grey-green eyes,
The droop of her lips and, when she smiles,
Her glance of amused surprise?

How nonchalantly she wears her clothes,
How expensive they are as well!
And the sound of her voice is as soft and deep
As the Christ Church tenor bell.

But why do I call her "the Mistress"
Who know not her way of life?
Because she has more of a cared-for air
Than many a legal wife.

How elegantly she swings along
In the vapoury incense veil;
The angel choir must pause in song
When she kneels at the altar rail.

The parson said that we shouldn't stare
Around when we come to church,
Or the Unknown God we are seeking
May forever elude our search.

But I hope that the preacher will not think
It unorthodox and odd
If I add that I glimpse in "the Mistress"
A hint of the Unknown God.

Video - "I am Episcopalian"

This video is the most beautiful, funniest, and truest thing I have ever seen regarding The Episcopal church.

If you only watch one video I post this year, make this the one!!!

Impacted Fecal Matter

No, no ... I promise ... this is not another post about The Episcopal church.

I just want to tell you that there is huge money to be made by telling people false things they wish were true.

I have been getting a lot of spam emails lately regarding colon cleansing. You know, the ones that tell you the real reason you are overweight has nothing to do with your diet or lack of exercise. It is all due to the 25 pounds (or more) of IFM (impacted fecal matter), stuck like spackle to the walls of your intestines. If you buy the product, it will all be flushed out, and you will no longer be fat!

It's absurd. The people who fall for this kind of scam can grab the fat on their bellies (and elsewhere), knead it in their hands, and see with their own eyes that it is external body fat that is the problem. Snopes and other anti-hoax sites have attempted to add a dash of sanity to the conversation.

But, you see. It's not about the facts. It's about desire. And here, the desire is to believe that one's current diet is okay, when it is not. That one's current exercise plan is sufficient in both intensity and frequency, when in fact it is woefully inadequate. It's all about what they want to be true. They don't want it to be their fault. And they will pay for the easy fix.

I would venture to say that most or all heresies are like this as well. Each represents a divergence from the Christian faith, motivated by something that the doctrinal innovator desperately wishes were true. In the end, though, we all have to step on the scale. And the truth will be known.

Walking Lunges

Walking lunges have not been tried and found wanting; they have been found difficult and not tried.

I borrowed this quote from G. K. Chesterton. Okay, he didn't really say this about walking lunges; he said it about Christianity. But up until 2008, in my case at least, it had been true about lunges, walking or otherwise. Here is what a walking lunge looks like:



My coaches cause me to do three sets of twenty per leg, alternating between the left and the right leg. I have a love/hate relationship with them. I've always avoid doing lunges because, as Chesterton noted about Christianity, they are difficult! At first, I couldn't even stay balanced; I would fall over sideways, like the guy does in the second have of this "Goofus and Gallant" walking lunge video. But even after I could stay balanced, cranking out twenty reps per leg was and is very hard for me. Because of the weakness I have ... from avoiding lunges in the past.

When I step onstage again in July, I expect my vastus medialis muscles to be significantly improved over last year. Much of this improvement can be credited to the walking lunge.

It is the same thing in the spiritual life: Sometimes the particular kind of spiritual exercise we shun the most is the very thing that would benefit us most.