To throw, to run, to jump, to fly; it is all about gratefully accepting who we are as finite, embodied human beings, and finding delight in the movement, the grace and the freedom of leaving the earth even for a millisecond. For God walks and plays with us in the garden of Delight, and when we in turn allow our sport to be our play, God finds delight in us. It is a beautiful and mutual arrangement between Creator and creature. Next time you race the hurdles, wind in your face, legs leaping, arms pumping, remember that God hurdles right alongside, with glee, and joy, and delight. And Christ stands at the finish with a smiling, “Well done.” And so, as your college Heptathlon career and your college days all wind down, and you head off to graduate school, your mom simply wants to congratulate you on a job well done, on faith that rested in peace on the unshakeable foundation of God’s love, and to thank you for being a daughter that fills my heart with grateful joy every day, every breath.  Life’s hurdles are by no means over, but I have faith and confidence that you will never face them alone.  As I have up until this very day, I will continue to pray, truly, that the wind be always at your back.  Congratulations and blessings,
Love,
Mom

I just finished a frustratingly familiar talk with a colleague about sport and our apathetic response as Christians.  While I watched in dismay from home, he actually attended the UM-Oregon football game (debacle, I would call it) where, for a second week in a row, the party-hearty folks in the Big House found nothing worth celebrating.  My friend decried the worship of the game, the millions of misdirected dollars, the wasted energy and resources poured into a 3 hour, Saturday afternoon spectacle.  What if all that money- (spent on RV’s for tailgating, Lexus cars for getting to the game, on tickets, and Go Blue sweatshirts, and uniforms for a hundred fellows who will never play a single down, not to mention on obscene coaching salaries (far above the average professor’s)- for heaven’s sake, what if all that was instead directed to needy people, neighborhoods, and schools?  When I saw fields of white from pom pom waving fanatics on Saturday in Happy Valley, I truly ached that nowhere on earth do we ever see such enthusiasm and energy and adoration for Christ.  Well, I guess when football is one’s god, it’s easy to be let down, led in and out of strange ecstasies like a sad, worn-out crack addict, and left holding an expired ticket to heaven.  Christians!  It’s not sport that’s run amok, it’s us!  It’s time we began speaking out.  It’s time we returned sport to its proper place of play- where we delight in God’s company as we strive, with teammates and WITH our opponents, to play and delight in each other, in God, and in the play itself.  If we are to get it right, we must put first things first, and that means shunning the modern-day farce of sport, and helping our athletes and coaches and fans focus on using play and sport to delight in God.  :lol:

I was thinking earlier today how I’ve never really been hungry, nor afraid that I might never have enough to eat.  Oh, I’ve fasted, but, even then, I usually drink tea w/a little sugar to get through the period without suffering a colossal headache.  On the 24-hour solo we experienced on the Costa Rica Outward Bound trip, it seemed too hot to eat anyway.  No, I am not skin and bones.  I don’t have to worry about the quality or quantity of my protein intake.  My day to day activities are not fogged by a growling stomach or sugar-starved brain.  Oh!  How ungrateful I am when I forget that all my sustenance comes from God!  When I fail to relieve the hunger of another once I’ve realized his/her dilemma.  And, when I remain anesthetized and apathetic to the fact that people are hungry in every corner of this world- even here in my own little corner of West Michigan.  LORD!  Give us a renewed and fresh desire to feed your sheep, both with real, physical food, and your very own Word.

In one of my general education core physical education classes recently, students and I had a discussion about stress management and its ties to time management.  As part of the preparation for the discussion, students sketched out a 24-hour pie chart of how they spend a typical weekday’s 24-hours.  I was surprised by the general response:

4-6 hours of sleep
2-3 hours of class
1-3 hours of “hanging out”
1-4 hours of work
1-2 hours of homework
4+ hours of computer work NOT related to school (IM, email, Facebook, gaming etc.)

How is it possible that hanging out, work, and computer idling far outweigh class and homework time? 
What are your thoughts? 

Clearly, my students were casually reporting to me that they are NOT studious, and this disconnect was alarming.
Obviously, they limit sleep on purpose, and have very little impression that such a behavior affects performance.

What are you all seeing in your students???

Click on COMMENTS and let’s have a discussion!

Last month I was flipping between ESPN channels trying to find a tennis match when I came upon the telecast of the 2006 International Hot Dog Eating Championships) (see 2006 Hot Dog Eating Championships )

It was intriguing to watch Takeru Kobayashi of Japan methodically slug down hot dogs and buns while ESPN announcers gadded on about his fitness, training, and hot dog eating atleticism. 

In my world of health, fitness, wellness and sport, hot dogs are nitrate-laden tubes of meat parts (and wow, does a pig or cow have some disgustingly useful parts) with a super-charged cholesterol kick.  To think of a contest for which an eater seriously trains by downing dozens of dogs as a viable “sport” is ludicrous.  It ranks right up there with televised poker.  Oh wait!  Did I tell you about the famous brat eating contest in Wisconsin? 

My question is what makes sport sport?  Is it play that’s ramped up on steroids?  Is it competition to be the best at anything?  Is a spelling bee technically a sport where junior linguistically-gifted athletes compete for the laurel wreath of wordmeisters? 

I always associated sport with athletics.  Yet, I recall as a child, when I went pheasant-hunting with my dad, I was surprised to discover that hunting was a sport.  Now, apparently, so is eating, and gambling and playing the infamously satisfying game of Pooh sticks.  Come to think of it, I might just enter a contest for who can flick channels between ESPN and ESPN2 the fastest.  I might just be the most athletic and highly trained sport channel changer in the whole world.  Bring it on!

I am presently reading the book, “The Bible and the Task of Teaching” by Smith and Shortt.  The authors, along with Parker Palmer, suggest that teaching cannot be divorced from the character and personality of the teacher.  So it follows that a biblically-influenced teacher can’t help but integrate faith and learning issues. 

So, now, I ask myself in what ways my faith infuses my pedagogy in the exercise and health sciences, how that does/does not affect my students’ learning, and how I plan to continue to grow and flourish in this area.  It’s that last piece that hits me hardest:  in my own faith walk, how am I (or am I even) growing in knowledge, and spiritual wisdom and understanding (Col 1:9)? 

I regularly implore my students to spend intimate time with God, to study Scripture and drink from its depths that they may know the grace, beauty and blessing of a relationship with Christ.  When sin shattered our image like a broken mirror, we lost our compass in determining who we are.  And until we as teachers more fully understand both ourselves and our students as image-bearers, our effectiveness in the classroom will stagnate.

Relationships grow through consistent contact and intimacy.  Growing in godliness- even at our age (!) -requires knowing who God is.  This god-like-ness is part of the mystery of being created in His image.  It is part of our growth in the spiritual gifts.  It is the critical part of living in community (Ephesians 4-5)- in this case, a LEARNING community, where we are called to live a life worthy of our calling. 

Smith and Shortt state, “Any community of learning is informed by a certain ethos or spirit of inquiry.” (p.45).  I am going back to the drawing board this summer- back to the well, if you will, to know God, to know His word, and to celebrate His creation and Him as Creator.  My prayer is that this can’t help but spill over into my teaching in new and creative ways.

In John 21:  15-17, Jesus asks Peter 3x about his devotion and love! He doesn’t ask
Do you love your students?
Do you love your work?
Do you love your church?
Do you love your family?

Jesus asks only one thing:  DO YOU LOVE ME? 

That’s why I’m headed back to school this summer- to learn at the feet of a Master Teacher.

Part of being whole and well involves tending to our intellectual health.  This entails keeping an intentional eye on what we think, read, and say.  What are the things to think deeply about, and why should we think on these things?  The command is to love things that are pure and lovely, and of good repute.  This is what we are to think on.  But, the work of thinking stops us from setting aside times for thought.  The centerboard on a sailboat keeps the craft from being blown sideways in a broadside wind, allowing the sail to capture the wind and propel the boat forward.  But, whenever I intend to just sit and think, my mind is quickly blown off course by the telephone, a child, the sudden realization that the mortgage payment didn’t go out on Monday, or the sight of a cobweb up in the corner; my mind rarely gets out of the shallows into the deep water of contemplative thought or prayer because I fail, time and again, to become centered.

How does the shallowness of life manifest itself?  There are ten ways I can think of which daily threaten to blow my thinking off course (click on READ MORE).

Our college campus is beautiful in spring after shaking off a long winter of snowy slop and gray, glum skies.  The grass greens up first, then the forsythia buds and the robins return, robust and busy.  Students begin studying in the sunshine as if saying hello to a long lost companion.  But, for me, the real sign of spring is a muddy path that appears between the dorms and the science building. 

This shortcut is avoided in winter when it’s knee-deep in snow, when paved paths are plowed.  But, come the first major melt, the tender grass is scuffed away by hundreds of footfalls.  Every year I expect the college landscapers to simply give up and pave that path, since it is the proverbial shortest distance between two points.  Yet, every year, they leave the path alone, a stark reminder of our penchant for making our own way in the world, oblivious to the paved paths already laid out for us.

What makes us so willing to take the shortcuts in life?  To ignore God’s mapped out routes?  Why does something that seems simpler appeal to us?  Why does having to take the long way around vex us?  Water flows downhill.  Most of us choose not to stand when a seat is available.  It seems that the natural order of things is to follow a path of least resistance.  Paths of least resistance are easy, and we justify them in our own minds by believing them to be the most efficient and stewardly in terms of time and energy.  Of course, it frustrates me when my students choose a path of least effort, adopting a “just going to get by” attitude.

Jesus promised our way would be easy- if we would just bend down and take up His yoke (Matthew 11:29-30).  Yokes symbolize hard, grueling, sweaty, dusty work.  Thankfully, Jesus was using the metaphor of a double yoke, saying, in essence, “Work beside me and your load will be lighter, your burdens lifted.  Let me set the pace, the rhythms and the direction of your life.”  The result of this obedience?  A life filled with trust, learning, meaning, and rest.  As your students move through their 2-3-4 years at your institution, keep encouraging them to work alongside the Lord. 

Sometimes we plow ahead on our own, burying ourselves so deeply in our work, carrying the whole load alone, that we fail to see the Lord waiting to help and guide us.  From a wellness perspective, these are the times we exhaust ourselves and feel prone to burnout.
Other times, we cut corners and shirk the work set before us, not bearing our fair share of the load, selfishly letting God-given opportunities slip our grasp.  Either way,  we deny the Lord’s leading.  We make our own paths and view the ready-made Way either with contempt or apathy- if we even bother to look for it, that is.

Look down at your feet.  Where have they walked today?

I am reading Elisabeth Elliot’s “Discipline, The Glad Surrender” (1982) this week, and came across a most wonderful quote about athletics’ contribution to life which Elliot attributes to Pope John Paul (p. 53):

“Every type of sport carries within itself a rich patrimony of values, which must be always kept present in order to be realized.  The training in reflection, the proper commitment of one’s own energies, the education of will, the control of sensitivity, the methodical preparation, perseverance, resistance, the endurance of fatigue and wounds, the domination of one’s own faculties, the sense of joy, acceptance of rules, the spirit of renunciation and solidarity, loyalty to commitment, generosity toward the winners, serenity in defeat, patience towards all - these are a complex of moral realities which demand a true aceticism and validly contribute to forming the human being and the Christian.”

I shared this with my Exercise Physiology class this morning as we began to sum up the physiological adaptations to endurance and resistance training, tying it in to 1 Corinthians 9: 24-27 (Everyone who competes goes into strict training).  We talked a bit about the value of training, of being trained, of assuming a lifelong commitment to growth through training, and how it enhances our performance as God’s agents of renewal in the church and society.  Not surprisingly, students are not fond of the modifier, “strict” that Paul places in front of the word training!

We are not disqualified from the prize when we fix our eyes on Jesus- the author, the perfector, the starting line and the finish tape, the coach and the fan- Jesus gets us started, keeps us running, qualifies us for the prize, and meets us at the finish line with arms outstretched. 

I’d write more, but it’s training time.  Blessings!