Chopping Wood, Carrying Water

What a time to be alive!

2021 has so far proven to be no less psychically damaging than its predecessor, but I am trying to keep my head down and focus on the things that are right in front of me; the things that I can exert a modicum of control over. It's easy not to think about the slow dissolution of the American empire and the impossibly plausible strife and rebellion that looms on the horizon when I am moving two hundred pounds from the floor to the air above my head.

A civil war may be brewing, but as we are reminded in the gospel of St. Henry, two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds and when you commit to using your body to move that weight there isn't room for existential dread.

At least that's what I keep telling myself.

So I am doing my best to harness that New Year's energy and double down on fitness, because it is something over which I can exert control.

In my younger days, I was known for my physical strength. Power lifting, football, wrestling, etc. etc. There was a certain satisfaction in that, a promise of using physicality to impose my will on the world that didn't exactly pan out for me. I took a different path, one that relied much less on the strength of my arm than I would have thought and most of my adulthood has been spent in various states of decrepitude and slothful corpulence.

I am no longer known for my ability to move more iron than most people. And yet... I can still dimly recall the liturgy of the Iron Church and I have rededicated myself to learning what lessons it may teach. The first of these, and the most important, is that the willingness to move your body in ways it protests is its own kind of strength and from that base I am rebuilding myself.

The mental reprieve from, you know... *gestures broadly at everything* ... is just a bonus.