The Beginning of Healing

Spiritual athleticism is an unfamiliar concept for many who prefer to focus on the pretty, happy, and most of all, easy aspects of faith.  We so often pursue comfortable emotional and/or intellectual experiences that fall into the “church” or “religious” category, and call it good.

However, there are those who practice spiritual disciplines that have existed for hundreds of years as catalysts of deep healing.  Ancient Christians believed God’s presence permeated them (theosis) when they persevered over time in ascesis (a term referring to serious training of body, soul, and spirit).  We’ve somehow lost that focus along the way and become soft, flabby, and stuck.

The disciplined “work” of the ascetic life is not about earning salvation or paying off debts, as some people assume.  Rather, it is forward-looking in a curative and preventative sense.  We will be overtaken by our faults and weaknesses if not for training that counteracts them.  Athletes don’t exercise to pay for past failures, but to gain strength for the forthcoming contest.  This is the way we are meant to live, in ongoing repentance and never-ending renewal.  We’re in training to live fully, hence the term spiritual athleticism.

“Repentance is rendered by an even more resonant word, metanoite, in other words, rethink your life.* This is the beginning of healing.  Repentance is not a sterile ‘grubbing around in one’s soul,’ not some masochistic self-humiliation, but a reevaluation leading to action…”
–Frederica Mathewes-Green

*turn around, begin again, get a fresh start