Summer fitness tips with a difference! Christchurch Parish News, June 2019
I am a reluctant convert. For at least a couple of years my wife, Jenni, had been trying to persuade me but I was having none of it. It wasn’t for me, I would protest. I didn’t need it. I was managing perfectly well without it. But finally, after much protestation, I gave in and agreed to wear a FitBit. And the effect has been transformative!
In case you’re not familiar with the technology, a FitBit (and there are, of course, other brands on the market) is to all intents and purpose a digital watch. But it’s a smart watch which can do all sorts of things. Its key function is to track how many steps you take in a day. Now, to be frank, this is why I ended up giving in and trying one. I’m in my late 40s and whereas my teenage children are still growing upwards, I’ve reached that stage in life where I’ve started to grow outwards.
It’s not helped by the fact that my job involves sitting for long stretches at a time—hardly conducive to staying trim. So, having put on my FitBit and synced it with my smartphone, it started to track my movement. After a few hours, I had a look at the stats and to say the least, it did not make for cheerful reading. By about 4pm, I hadn’t even managed 2000 steps. No wonder my stomach was edging ever closer to my desk.
Over the coming days, I swiftly changed my habits. I made sure that I kept moving for a few steps every hour (there’s a handy function that buzzes at 10 minutes to the hour to remind you to do so, especially useful when you’re engrossed in work, but not so useful if you’re stepping into the pulpit to preach as has happened on one occasion!). And slowly over the coming weeks, on more days than not, I started to hit my daily target of 10,000 steps. Sure enough, after a couple of months, I had to tighten my belt to a notch I hadn’t used for a few years.
The FitBit doesn’t just track my steps, of course. It collects all sorts of other useful data as well. It monitors my pulse, giving me a stat for my average resting heartbeat; it tells me when I’m in the fat-burning zone (which has made doing the hoovering a slightly more satisfying experience); and, as I don’t take it off at night, it also tells me how many hours I’ve slept and what kind of sleep I’ve had (X many minutes of REM, Y hours of light sleep, Z hours of deep sleep etc.).
At first, even though I’d seen the positive effect of tracking the number of steps I was taking had had on my weight, I thought that also tracking the amount and type of sleep I was getting was verging on the hypochondriac. But over time, it became obvious that I wasn’t getting enough sleep—the thing is it’s really easy to slip into bad habits without realising it. Having a record which, over time, was able to show me the trends for how many steps I was taking, plus my heart rate and sleep pattern, was very useful data and proved to be the necessary spur for making some small lifestyle adjustments that have improved matters significantly.
When I was out walking recently—deliberately taking half an hour away from my desk to stretch my legs—a question bubbled up in my mind: here’s this fantastic bit of kit on my wrist that’s helping me to stay physically fit. It’s got all these icons, stats and graphs showing me how I’m getting on. But what about my level of spiritual fitness?
And then the penny dropped. That’s why we call them spiritual exercises. Just as there are exercises you do to get and stay fit physically, there are those you do to get and stay fit spiritually as well.
But as the good Lord has yet to release an app that gives me daily updates on my smartphone as to my levels of spiritual fitness—though doubtless some tech company will try if they haven’t already—in the absence of that kind of technology, what can we do to monitor things ourselves?
This is where the Ignatian spiritual practice of the examen comes in handy. It’s a simple exercise that you can do at the end of the day, last thing before you go to sleep. You begin by giving thanks for what’s gone well and was good in the day. Then you ask God to show you where He has been present, be it through the people you’ve met, the things that have happened, or the places you’ve been.
Then, and this is the key part that came to mind when thinking of spiritual exercise, you review the day, paying attention to those moments in your day when you experienced what St Ignatius called consolation and desolation. The Jesuit Institute explains these terms as follows: ‘Consolation is when something is deeply and genuinely good for us, good for our souls, leading us towards God and away from our selfish preoccupations. Desolation is when something is not good for us, when we are wrapped up in ourselves, and careless of God’s gifts and grace working in us, when we substitute other things in place of God.’
To review the day in this way only takes a little bit of time but it’s such a good thing to do. If done regularly, you start to see patterns emerging. This is where it’s like, for example, the FitBit telling you that you’re not actually taking enough steps every day. If you notice that yet once again, the part of the day that caused you what St Ignatius termed desolation is when you lost your temper or said something mean about a work colleague, then you know that, uncomfortable as it may be to recognise, this is something that’s going to have to change. Without something like the examen, such behaviour risks becoming simply a habit you’re not aware of (or at least one that you would try to explain away because of circumstance or someone else’s behaviour, when instead the truth could be that you’re beginning to develop a bit of a nasty temper or are becoming increasingly envious of others, to take two common problems that beset many of us).
Having recognised where one has fallen short (or missed the target to take the Biblical metaphor for sin), the next stage in the examen is to ask God for forgiveness. Then the final step is to commit to doing better the next day and spend a few moments figuring out how you’re going to do that.
As such, the examen is an excellent spiritual exercise. It can be slimmed down when time is pressed, or you’re just too tired, or even when you’re doing it with young children. There are plenty of online resources, too (for example, there are even podcasts where you’re guided through the various stages of the exercise). But that said, it’s also important to bear a couple of things in mind.
Firstly, when it comes to the final stage, the part where you figure out what you’re going to try and do better the next day, the danger in our culture is that we put all the onus on ourselves to improve matters, as if it’s all down to us. But it isn’t—we simply don’t have the wherewithal to do this under our own steam, however hard we may try. We need God and his help every day and so it’s vitally important that we do actually take the time to ask God to help. As his children, it’s a totally right and proper thing to do. And what better time of year to get into the habit of doing so than at Pentecost, when we ask God the Holy Spirit to come? Why not, right now, take this moment to pray and ask God for help? Come, Holy Spirit and help us in our daily lives, today and every day!
Secondly, and this has to be held in balance with the first point, having asked the Holy Spirit to help us, we do nonetheless need to cooperate. To go back to the physical exercise analogy, if I’m not doing enough steps every day, then it’s not sufficient for me just to know that fact from looking at my FitBit. I jolly well need to stand up from my desk and go for a good walk. Or if I’m not getting enough sleep, I need to go to bed earlier and stop binge-watching Netflix last thing at night!
Likewise, if I’m asking the Holy Spirit to help me as I resolve to do better the next day, but then steadfastly refuse to pray, or read my Bible, or receive the Lord’s Supper frequently, then it’s the spiritual equivalent of staying sitting at my desk, refusing to move and somehow expecting magically my waistline to diminish.
As Christians, we simply don’t get or stay spiritually fit without doing these things. We may wish it were otherwise, because there’s always a stubbornly rebellious streak in us that would like there to be a short cut, but that’s how it is. We might prefer to try the latest spiritual fad instead of praying or reading the Bible to see if that gets us there quicker but the witness of our forebears in the faith tells us that these are the core practices that we need to commit to. And that’s why a spiritual exercise such as the examen is so important as it helps keep us on track.
For it is by entering into these spiritual exercises and practices that we draw closer to Jesus and thereby to the Father. The closer we draw to God, the more the fruit of the Spirit naturally exhibits forth in our lives without our even having to try. We become, over time, more loving, joyful, peaceable, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle and in control of ourselves (Gal 5:22-23).
Finally, what is wonderful about all of this is that when we do this together, we become more and more the kind of community that people want to become a part of. As others come and join us, they in turn learn these spiritual exercises and practices for themselves. And thereby, in all the ways that matter and for all the right reasons, Christ’s church continues to grow.