Come Holy Spirit, and set our throats on fire...

Sorry, couldn't resist a bad joke.

Thank you P. Who having heard my complete inability to do more than rasp this morning said, 'Hey, I have a sermon for later, how about I give it now as well?'

You are a gentleman and a scholar. Just so you know.

My throat hurts. My glands are swollen. I may be running a temperature, and I can't speak. A sort of hissing whisper comes out if I try really hard, but you have to be less than thirty centimetres away to hear it.

Come Holy Spirit, and set our hearts on fire. But could you possibly, in Your infinite wisdom, do the opposite to our throats?

Happy birthday to me!

Ugh. I am ill. Yuk.

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy (breathe) birthday to meeee...

And so on.

You know, I was right the first time.

A very long time ago now, I wrote a post for my old blog saying that I was not going to read women's magazines any more. That they were toxic, useless and rubbishy.

And this resolution I kept, until a few weeks ago.

Dear reader, you may remember this post in which I confessed to having bought Cosmo and Men's Health (special offer. y'see) and was reading.

So: Men's Health = hilarious.

Really. I mean, it's much better than practically all the other men's magazines on the market (and the women's ones too). It's mostly free of naked women, and they're more concerned with looking really hot and being fit themselves than anything else.

They also advise eating plenty of protein. Which I approve of.

They do have a slight obsession with

a) bicep curls (an almost universal problem, people seem to like them even though they're...well, I'll get to that) and

b) getting six-pack abs (whatever floats your boat, I suppose. That said, they focus a lot on situps and such to get them, when really it's mostly about diet and fat distribution. If you have a significant amount of body fat round your midsection, it doesn't matter how strong your abs are, you won't be able to see them. Sheesh, they're a fitness magazine, they should know this.)

But still, they don't try and make you feel bad about yourself.

Cosmo I bought because of the offer and because they were trumpeting their LOVE YOUR BODY issue.

Which just goes to show you what the other ones are about. And yes, there were good articles about loving and accepting yourself and cellulite not being the devil and so on.

And this accounted for about...12 pages. Not counting 3 or 4 which were about prejudice against fat people and domestic violence information.

This out of 208 pages. Mind you, about 1/3 of those are adverts.

Say 70 pages of ads. 15 pages of body loving.

And then...5 pages on how to get rid of cellulite, most of which are ridiculously expensive.

Yeah. Anyway.

But what made me mad? Ridiculously, out-of-all-proportion mad?

Exercise rules you should ignore!!!111!eleven!

Now the first one (Rule 1: Stretch to warm up) I got. It should be ignored, or at least modified. Cold stretching isn't so good, so you should mix it with light jogging/walking/generally moving about. Like the woman said.

Fine.

Point 3 (Rule 3: You'll never lose weight by just walking) and the subsequent explanation of why it was wrong, also fine. I would point out that you can lose weight faster with a mix of activities, most especially strength training, but whatever.

Point 2, on the other hand, almost had me screaming.

I will quote in full:

"Rule 2: Do bicep curls using heavy weights.
"Bicep curls can give you Popeye arms if you do fewer reps with heavy weights. For toned arms, hold a light weight (like a can of beans) in each hand. Puts your hands by your thighs, palms out, then bend your arms up to shoulder level, then lower. Count to four on the way up and again on the way down. Repeat 12 times.""

Emphasis is flipping well mine.

A can of beans.

A can of beans????????

For pity's sake, this supposed fitness guru is...is...GAH!

Things wrong with the above statement:

1. If you are reading Cosmo, you are presumably a woman. If you are a woman, you are well NOT going to get Popeye arms of any shape or form by lifting heavy weights. Excepting, possibly, immediately afterwards as your muscles are full of blood.

The only way you would get 'Popeye arms' (tch) is if you are TAKING something. Anabolic steroids, supplementary androgens/testosterone. Something like that. Women have lower testosterone levels than men. Thus they do not build muscle as fast. They can get stronger (proportionately) more easily, but it doesn't translate into huge bulging muscles. Not without a lot of work and an insanely rigorous diet, and probably drugs. Not. Gonna. Happen.

Joanna Hall, You Fail Biology Forever.

2. Lifting tiny little weights will do nothing to 'tone' your arms. It's all about muscle recruitment. You've got a certain number of muscle fibres in, say, your arms, and they're lazy little blighters. They won't work if they don't have to. A bean tin weighs...half a kilo? Come on, your handbag weighs more than that. Your muscle fibres are not challenged in any way by curling a soup can 12 times. Thus, no increase in strength, or improved muscle tone. No change at all, in fact.

3. But I can really feel it in my arms! you cry. That, sweet cheeks, is lactic acid buildup. It's not producing your desired results. Honest.

Anyone who announces that 'feeling the burn' as a result of ridiculous numbers of repetitions with a tiny little weight is useful Fails Physiology Forever.

Lift heavy weights (like something you can ONLY lift say 6-8 times before you can't lift it any more). Heavy weights = more muscle (and I swear you won't look like Popeye the sailor man). More muscle means your resting metabolic rate is higher. Thus you need to eat more to stay the size you are.

Sigh.

So, Cosmo and Men's Health: both special in their own special ways, but I'll stick to the latter.

And now you, loyal and patient reader who has stayed with me to the end of this post, know something more about me: I'm a hopeless nerd. Even when it comes to exercise.

Later days!

Guilty pleasures

I have a few.

Blogging, incidentally, is one of them. As is spending far too much time on the Internet. But I also have a real weakness for a) thrillers, and b) movies with geeks as the hero.

So in spite of the near-libellious (or slanderous, or both) similarities between the antagonist and Bill Gates, in spite of the ludicrous plot twists and silliness, I'll say it:

I love Antitrust. So when I saw it at Oxfam for £2.99, I was there in a flash!

I know, I know, it's very sad. But you know, Ryan Phillippe, thrillers, what's not to love? Phillippe is also, incidentally, who I credit for opening my eyes to that eternal truth:

Geeks are wonderful.

Well...to each their own, huh? I was a total geek all through my teenage years, and it's only been getting worse as I age. Ok, so the academic geekdom went down the tubes, what with the ME and all, but the tendencies remain.

Nerdish aquisition of knowledge.
Love of D&D, fantasy, Star Wars, computers, science, theology (that's a bit of a weird one, but I'm definitely a theology geek) and all of that other stuff which other people consider either weird (fantasy, D&D), unnecessary (theology) or to fall into the category 'someone should do it, but not me' (science, computery things).
Obsessive tendencies.

On the computer geek scale I'm fairly far down the hierarchy (as in, I'm who my parents call when they have a computer problem, but that's about it) but with an actual programmer in the house, I'm fairly surplus to requirements. Which is nice, as I'm not that good, just interested.

Geeks are hot. They are, seriously. Yes, as a group our social skills may be below par, but that just means you have to work a little harder. We're actually quite lovely once you get to know us. And some of us are genuine social butterflies! (I pretend to be one, which is not quite the same thing). In fact, just read and take note.

Geeks of the world unite!

You shall go to the ball! (Oh, okay...)

And go I did, my dears, go I did. And only you, my darling readers, shall know that I seem to have shrunk and so had to put the straps on my purple bridesmaiding dress to stop it falling down, and that I was having a mother of an Unhelpful Hair Day, but that sock bun with plaits (I'll do a picture if anyone's really interested) would turn out lovely and elegant.

Had a lovely time at our fundraising ball. Bit of a weird experience hobnobbing with people who make more in a week than I do in a month. The ones with big houses and accountants and all. But hey, they have money and they give it to us sometimes, so I'm all for that.

Met a very nice medical student who taught me to jive, had second helpings at the buffet, and brought home a few of the chocolate brownies (well, it wouldn't do to waste them, huh?) And now I must go and get ready for church; we're taking the Sunday School and it wouldn't do to be late. Or look like I had too much wine.

Not that I did, you understand. I danced (twice, with aforementioned medical student), ate (again twice, plus dessert) and drank (er...two glasses of water and a cup of hot water).

And you know, I socialised with the best of them. I flitted like a social butterfly, I did.

Kept me up past bedtime, but well worth it. I'm quite glad I didn't bring Better Half, though, he'd have been bored senseless as I went around chatting to people and generally being lovely so they'd give us money.

Can I come next year?

Have been a bit lax of late...

So, without further ado:

The Risen Lord is present in His Church with the power to heal. (Given Sunday 3rd of May)

Try as I might, I couldn't work bluebells into this sermon. So: bluebells. There we go.

The topic is this: The Risen Lord is present in His church with the power to heal.

Great. What?

Jesus says in John, “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.”

Jesus is the Risen Lord. Why? Because He died and then came back to life again, He died and God raised Him from the dead. He is Risen! The Risen Lord, the one who died for us, broke death for us, is here...for us. And not just for us.

The Risen Lord is present in His church. His church. His body. The people who follow the way of Jesus, however badly or imperfectly we may do it. The Risen Lord is present in His church. In us. In each one of us.

We are living sacrifices. Paul refers to the church, to us, as the Body of Christ. He is in us, and we in Him. We are sacrifices, as Christ was.

Body of Christ. Hold on. “This is my body, given for you. This is my blood, shed for you.” We remember Christ's sacrifice, His death, every time we take communion. He said “Do this in remembrance of me”. We eat the bread, we drink the wine, we remember the body and blood broken and poured out for us.

And the church is the Body of Christ on earth, now, today. The Risen Lord is present in His church.

What if we see communion another way? As BOTH a reminder of the sacrifice Jesus made, and of the sacrifice that we are called to make? The book Jesus Wants to Save Christians puts it like this:

“[Jesus] has chosen the path of descent...And he dies, naked, bleeding, thirsty, alone.
 Maybe that’s what he means when he says, “Do this in remembrance of me.”  The “do this” part is our lives... allowing our bodies to be broken and our blood to be poured, discovering our Eucharist.  Listening.  And going.
Because when we do this in remembrance of him, the world will never be the same; we will never be the same.”

Have you ever got to a point in your life when you just can't NOT do something? You must do something about this injustice or this situation or this hurt, you cannot do otherwise. You cannot do otherwise, there is a compulsion on you to right this wrong, to heal this situation. The Risen Lord is present in His church, and He has the power to heal. And through Him we have that power too. We have the power to heal.

Heal who? Well. There's the great part. Heal everybody. The Risen Lord is present in His church with the power to heal. And just who has He healed here? Let's go to Acts and see, shall we? A severely crippled man has been healed. And the council aren't sure what it's all about. “By what name did you do this? Under whose authority?” they say. Great opening.

“Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.”

The Risen Lord is present in His church with the power to heal. And that's a wonderful thing. Look at what He did for this man!
And look at what He did for Peter. Peter, who denied Jesus. Peter who ran, Peter who hid, Peter who knew the answers but talked too much and cut people's ears off and said all the wrong things...look at him. Another quote from Jesus Wants to Save Christians:

“A Christian is a living Eucharist, allowing her body to be broken and her blood to be poured out for the healing of the world...”
Peter is healed. Used to heal the crippled man, but before that, Peter is healed. Healed of his doubt and his fear. Healed of his selfishness.
After this meeting, they pray:

“Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.
After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”

The Risen Lord is present in His church with the power to heal. And not just the believers, who are healed of their fear, (for perfect love casts out fear) but the people they came into contact with. And it happens now too. When we are healed, our healing overflows to the people around us. God's healing of our lives heals the lives of others too, not by our effort but by grace. There is no compulsion here. There is only love. The Risen Lord is present, and He has the power to heal. From doubt or fear or guilt or shame or sickness or...just about anything that we need healing from.

Who do you know who needs healing? Is it you? Is it someone you know? Is it a family, a couple, one person or a whole country, personal, emotional, physical, spiritual...The Risen Lord is present in His church with the power to heal. Let's let God's love overflow from us into the situations we are in. Let's pray and speak and calm and defuse and challenge. He has the power to heal, and He gives it freely.

Offer them that healing in Jesus' name.

Gratitude

Thank you.

To all of those people, and you probably don't know who you are, who make my life better.

To every church that has let me come and preach or talk about the work I do as a youth worker, to everyone who gives to us. To all of you. You've never ONCE, not even ONCE, questioned my fitness for the work I do based on my gender (or anything else). Not once have I endured a snarky comment, a questioning glare, a pointed examination of my self and my faith.

To all of the people I have come across while working for YFC: the workers themselves, the churches who support us, our volunteers, our givers, our prayer warriors.

You rock wholeheartedly. And I appreciate your support more than I can say.

Thank you.

That's all.