Rest Day

One day I slipped through the door of a little chapel in the woods. I was 21, (in great shape by the way following 4 years of competitive college track and field) and in the crossroads of different paths I could take which would define my life going forward. I knew the chapel was there, and I too went in expecting a few unique moments of reflection on a well worn pew watching dust settle slowly to the floor. I felt like my presence there was the beginning of a new phrase which seamlessly flows along following the pause after a coma; I was not the first person to come looking for what the building might have to say while hoping that someone there would be ready to hear me too.  The building was silent, very silent, so I went first, whispered my questions and shared my heart with a few accompanying tears. What happened next was the most unexpected, and by far the most transformational and awesome moment of my life. As strongly as I have ever felt the presence of a person sitting next to me, there was now, in the little chapel, a presence that was so overwhelming I could not move. Words no longer mattered. What I had always been told was true, who I had been taught to trust was there. If you've ever observed something so exquisite that you almost stop breathing so as to stop time so that it will not slip away, you know my state. Thirty two ensuing years of life have been anchored by this gift of Divine presence. Time did not stand still, the sun was receding and I did have to acknowledge my own presence still tethered to the physical, moved with regret at the coming loss. I really don't believe that humble chapel,  or any beautiful, old cathedral plays much into the equation of a person drawing near to the Divine, and more than a gym contributes to a record breaking squat. It is simply there, it provides an appropriate place for one to reach out for what cannot be seen, but for what is or is to be. 

Well, I don't understand and would have to spend a significant amount of time to really read through and understand this content. But...I have on my white board to train body AND mind every day, so it certainly never hurts to be challenged mentally by something new. It's not what I expect when I come to the site, but that too should be welcomed. We must learn to expect the unexpected.

Came here for the Jillian Michaels comments, left disappointed.

I love the Larkin poem. Far from “atheistic dogma,” the poem is a thoughtful meditation on the transcendent from the perspective of a secular writer ill at ease in the secular, modern world, trying to make sense of traditions and beliefs he experiences as inaccessible, curious, but still powerful. He’s locating himself in a human history profoundly shaped by religion and finds it meaningful: 

“For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.”

The poem is an interesting juxtaposition with “Pied Beauty,” the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem posted on the first rest day of the year–a exultant description of what the poet, a Jesuit priest, observed in the natural world as the signs of a creative, loving God. 

I’m glad that CrossFit’s return to the arts on rest days engages with the serious questions of what it means to be a human being in the world. 

Interesting poem. I guess that dispels a corporate stance on Religion

Oh to relish in relationship with God! He is eternal living water. So much more is it to commune with our Father. To savor in the love and peace that comes from Him. Heaven is the home we anticipate even in our fitness and health beyond this beautiful creation.

I had never heard or seen this poem before. Thank you for sharing.

What seems to be a sardonic take on dead religion is indeed an outcry of post-rationalist malaise brought on by the recognition that the haunt of transcendence is unavoidable in the human experience.