so i have been going to gym, with my good friend from across the street, Coe aka Cobra [aka creator of the most powerful beast in the world – the Snuck – it’s a snake, but it looks like a duck so you think it’s all cute and innocent and go to stroke it, but watch out, it’s a SNAKE!!!] [disclaimer: Coe has not actually created any Snucks as of yet so back of PETA, he has just visualised them, put down the placard and step slowly away from it] for close to two months now and we’ve been pretty good at going three to four times a week [which, with our crazy schedule is quite impressive and means on most days a 5am wake-up call, especially when i haven’t!]

and i don’t have access to a scale so i’m not sure how much good it has done – we go to Planet Fitness which is a No Judgement gym and so part of that is not having a scale [or wearing jeans while you work out apparently?] for some reason. i know Coe has lost weight cos he told me and i still feel as fat as when i started [not Fat Albert fat, but just more forward in the stomach department than i would optimally like to be] altho in a totally unrelated story none of my long pants fit without falling down all the time [my conspiracy theory is that my stomach stretched them out so that they are bigger than me as opposed to i lost any weight] so basically what i am trying to say is i should find a scale. but something is clearly happening and apparently the stomach holds on to fat the longest.

in other news, i am trying to gain weight, no wait, needing to gain weight… three different situations in my life at the moment call for me to be ‘the bigger man’ – two that directly relate to me and one that is within the community we live and move in and relates to friends of mine… and it strongly looks like if i don’t step up in any of those situations and say something, that no-one else will and they will simply be buried in the sand until such time as they get dragged out when the next thing happens…

to add to that, this is i feel the story of my life, a situation happening where someone has to intervene and a number of other people potentially being able to, but the reality of if i don’t do it, it really is unlikely to happen…

and kinda like going to the gym, i kinda know what i have/need to do, but i don’t really want to. and kinda like the gym it’s because i’m tired and it’s a mission and there will be some degree of feeling bad before any feeling good comes out of it. and kinda like the gym i feel like there is a certain cost i need to pay to go there…

but then an email sent in love from a friend kicks me in the butt and strongly-but-in-love reminds me that i have to go there… and then i read this passage which would be a lot more fun if it said “there remember that you’ve been a plonk and need to go sort it out,” but it doesn’t, instead it says:

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.” [Matthew 5.23-24]

‘Your brother or sister has something against you’ can definitely be because you were a plonk. but it can also be that they were a plonk. either way, before you continue worshiping Me, says the Lord, go and sort out your crap.

‘If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.’ [Romans 12.18]

Words we like to ignore. Because it is far easier to walk away and give up on one friendship or relationship when we have so many others that require less work, effort, doscomfort, cost.

But, as with gym, this is meant to be a No Judgement zone.

and as with gym, you have made a commitment to something and if you don’t live that out, then you have wasted a lot of something.

and as with my scaleless gym it might take me a while to figure out exactly what difference is being made, and maybe none that i can see now [maybe none ever] but by doing the right thing and continuing to be the person to stand up and approach and seek peace and right relationship, i can be confident that some difference is happening.

as i read once and strongly believe, “Offence isn’t given, it’s taken.” and so if i am feeling offended or wronged or hard done by, by those around me, then i really need to start my journey at the mirror and then probably proceed to my knees or face, before standing up and being the bigger person and doing the right thing.

all of this has been well modelled by a man who did no harm to anyone and yet was betrayed and denied and spat upon and beaten and hung on a tree by the very people He came to Love and Teach and Heal and Raise from the dead and yet His response was not holding on to the offence caused and letting that become His identity, but rather the quite revolutionary opposite extreme:

‘Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”‘ [Luke 23.34a]

i guess if we say we’re following Jesus, then we should really… follow Jesus. yes?

[with special thankx to Gnomus Brooks, Saint Mandy, Rob and others for being the piercing light through the darkness i found myself in]