Exercise and the Mysteries

I enjoy running. I enjoy it alone. I enjoy it outdoors. I enjoy it in the afternoon, specially around sundown. I usually run using Nike's running app. I have my set playlists to run to. This spans anywhere from the 80's to Madonna to EDM.

One time, I forgot to bring the waistband to hold my iPhone. (I don't like the armband holder. It bruises my arms.) I was forced to run without music. I prayed the rosary instead, using my fingers to keep count. One and a half laps around the UP oval usually completes the mystery.

From time to time, I have started to incorporate praying with running. I would still start with the music in the background. Then I turn that off to pray the rosary.

In my previous post, I mentioned the morning absercize I would do everyday. Part of the routine was to play music in the background, of course. I would crunch and plank to my playlists, coming from the gadgets or from the sound system I had installed in the room. One time, I had to have the amplifier repaired. In the absence of music, I substituted praying the rosary yet again.

Discovering that I could pray and exercise at the same time is a major feat for me. I stopped praying the rosary regularly decades ago. I can never finish a five-decade rosary alone before bedtime. I would doze off. And this is despite having grown up in a family that prayed together the Rosary every night. We would huddle around inside my folks' bedroom and pray. My Nanay would always lead. But eventually, that fizzled out as our schedules became more erratic.

I don't feel pressured to pray the rosary regularly. But it is something I would like to bring back, without committing to make it a habit. Being able to pray again, even as I exercise

Practically, the exercise could be achieved on auto-mode so I am able to meditate on the mysteries. But I also found out that the particularly strenuous exercise also makes me focus on the recitation of the Hail Mary's, and the other prayers. And when I get to reciting the Sorrowful Mysteries, I mega-relate! I love it that I can contemplate on His Suffering even as I endure the plank or the leg raises. I remind myself that this 'pain' is nothing compared to what He suffered.

Sometimes, though, I think about the irony of it. I pray as I exercise. I pray as I pursue an activity intended for selfish or even vanity reasons. But I also reason that He'd want us to weave praying into our daily lives anyway. So I think He'd still appreciate hearing my prayers as I sweat and huff and puff.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Apps for abscercize

I do my abs exercises everyday in the morning at home. I try to do them everyday, mostly in the mornings.

The app that got me started was this one called "7". I found it while looking for resources on HIIT - high intensity interval training. It was designed that way, alternating high intensity, short-duration bursts with rest. I liked that the timer could work even as iTunes or Spotify is playing in the background. It was meant to push Type A types like me who work on goals. You are pushed to do the 7-minute routine (at least) everyday. It actively tracks your progress. It 'punishes' you when you miss a day. It sets mini-rewards along the way. The ultimate reward will come from completing it for 7 months (210 days roughly). And it syncs with all your iOS devices.

So I got into it, happily tracking the days I have successfully completed early last year. It is also customizable. You can change the duration of the burst, the rest, the number of cycles. But it can be maddeningly frustrating if, for whatever reason, your exercise of the day does not log. It happened to me first time mid-last year. Somehow, because I had spotty internet access, my exercise was not logged. I got so frustrated I almost gave up on it. But I forgave it and gave it another shot in the last quarter of 2014.

And up until February 2015, I was on track. Then disaster struck. An entire week of exercises didn't register! After 182 f*@%#king days, suddenly it was saying that I didn't work out for a week. WTF?! I was so angry and frustrated. I gave up on that stupid app.

I stopped abs-ing it for a day, or two. Until I discovered this other training app. Technically, it really is just a customizable timer app based on HIIT. And after a few tweaks, I was able to replicate the routines I had been doing on 7. It doesn't track or log my workouts daily. I like it because it doesn't. No pressure anymore for the oc-oc.

(Lately I found out that it does. But it doesn't synch across all my devices. So I still feel less pressured to do it everyday).



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

That Sweet Spot 3

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Resurrection Reflection

I get that Jesus had to die as a sacrificial lamb. As explained clearly enough, the high priests then would usually consecrate a lamb as an offering, primarily for the atonement of sins of the Jewish people. Rather than offer any animal as holocaust, it was his own body that was offered up in the most gruesome and horrific manner. His life for our lives. Ransom payment so that we have a chance at eternal happiness. At the rate we have been 'trespassing' since we started to exercise our free will, we'd probably have to sacrifice entire herds of lambs, and other animals just to be able to cleanse our dirtied souls.



But why resurrect from that horrible death?



Perhaps it was to show that he was no ordinary prophet. He was Son of God. It certainly set Christianity apart, to have our prophet/God die then live again for eternity. Are there other religions that could claim as much? Talk about bragging rights.



I dare reason something else. Jesus' resurrection from the death not only shows his power over death. It is actually showing that He will always live. He cannot die. He cannot be killed or murdered. He will live again.



And this means much more to me. More than two thousand years ago, I looked at His Death as the sacrifice needed to forgive the sins of His people at that moment in time. But what about the sins they are about to be commit (or omit)? And the sins of those who are still be born and baptized, including us? My answer: His Resurrection was the supreme solution. By showing us that though he died, he would rise again, he showed that he could never really be 'killed by our sins, past, present and future.' Sin after sin will still be committed, maybe much more than during his time. But because He resurrected, all those sins will still be forgiven.



To dramatize the point, I imagine that He didn't ascend soon after. He continued to preach as a resurrected human being. He would gain even more converts. That would not just threaten the Pharisees but even Rome itself. They would plot to kill him again, just to silence him.



Meanwhile, despite the beauty of his message of love, his Gospel of love, there would still be hate. There would still be violence, some done by his own followers. Sins start accumulating again. So the meek lamb that He is would subject himself again to his tormentors so that sins are forgiven again. Then he dies in a different yet even more cruel way, to extinguish his person and his memory.



And yet again, more dramatically perhaps, He would be resurrected. He would live again. Again. and Again.



It is that duality of His Death and Resurrection that conquered sin once and for all. Jesus tells me that the ritualistic offering has been done. And unlike in times past when people would go back to their old ways once the ritual sacrifice has been done, Jesus tells me to focus not on the ritual but on his Message of Love and living that message.



For me, when He asked us to "do this in memory of me", it is to remind me of Jesus and his life, death and resurrection. So I am reminded to keep on pondering on his Word and seeking to live a life with 'less sin'. And being so human, I forget. Celebrating the Eucharist every week reminds me constantly.



Jesus tells me. "My sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more."



For me to sin no more, in a world where motives and intentions could still lead to evil, he tells me to listen to him and his words, to study his life and his ways.




As I look for how to "sin no more" in my day-to-day life, I just have to look at his teachings and even his life, his own day-to-day and be guided. "I am the Way."




And sometimes, when I don't know what is real anymore, I don't have to look anywhere else. "I am the Truth." "I am the Way."




And as I yearn to live a more fulfilling life, I turn to him again and I am assured. "I am the Life."



A Blessed Easter to you all.

Thank you, Anonymous Reader!

Thank you for back-reading, even to those posts in 2008! You can never be 'late' in the online multiverse. If you read through the posts of the years, it would feel like those lives are all unfolding at the same time, current and real. I think virtual reality manifests the essense of parallel lives in parallel universes.

Your comment on my waking up post in 2008 made me smile. I read it again and realized that yes, I am laughing about it now. No, not laughing. Smiling, really.

The beautiful post-script post is that I may have found 'that perfect man.' Haha. No, nobody is ever that perfect man. And I would be just foolish to put that label on my partner. I have been in this relationship for two years and counting. Something about our chemistry makes this work. I am hopeful again.

I became quite emotional reading that part in the post about shaping up and wanting to be a better person to 'deserve' someone like him. To a certain extent, I have wrestled with those devils and have pinned some of them down. But they never truly die, methinks. But for now, I am in this relationship that works. I am grateful.

Tell me more about that paradigm shift in viewing single-blessedness, dear Anonymous one. :)