Second Essay:

[18monthmission]

I want to talk about the agon, a word used by the Greeks in days of old that is the root to the word agony. Agon is the Latin word meaning struggle, combat, contest, agony. When I talk of agon, I am not just talking of punishing our physical bodies into submission; yes that is part of it, the training of the body, but that is not the whole of it

Comments

[bellarapture7]

Socrates in his day, held a regular meeting with other great minds of his time that later became known as Socrates’ Café. In these meetings they would get together with the soul intent of talking, asking questions, challenging themselves mentally so that they may begin to get insights spiritually.

is that what they were meeting for? heh... i thought it was a battle of the minds to see whose mind was beefier for their own self gratification. : P

k.. so, [semi]jokes aside.

i have never [consciously] put together a correlation of the building up of the body with the building up of spirituality & mind together. to me it seems as though that's tricky to put too much emphasis on the body. with all the focus on what is and isn't beautiful, i just want to steer clear from it altogether - it seems a wasteful vanity - do you agree?

Though, i'm not so sure that's what you are getting at here anyways.

That being said - i DO feel a benefit of being healthy and taking good care of, what the Bible calls, our temple - which has coincided with me thinking clearer and closer to the purity of knowing God. hmm.. i suppose at times i would just rather think of the body as a shell rather than a temple just because of the vanity thang. there's got to be a balance that God has always intended though - it's just hard to see it in the society we live in though.

k, i'm done with my words-n-words-n-words for now. (like how i didn't say "rambling" this go around?).

i enjoyed reading these essays - you should write more often.

[18monthmission]

"is that what they were meeting for? heh... i thought it was a battle of the minds to see whose mind was beefier for their own self gratification. : P"

Oh...yes...that too. :p

I know what you mean bout focusing on what is and isn't beautiful, I can not stand gyms. Or weight lifting. The world puts such an emphisas on strong well built men as the deffinition of male beauty that I want to stay far far away from it. I'd rather be skinny with a flabby stomach and be able to run a half marathon. When I talk about persueing our physical agon and aciving our physical best, I am not talking about seeking beauty, nor am I refering to beauty when I speak of physical perfection, the perfection I am seeking in myself is the absolute best that I can be, not the absolute best I can look. SO yes I do agree that to put too much emphasis on the body, in terms of beauty is waistful vanity, I agree wholeheartedly on that.

" i suppose at times i would just rather think of the body as a shell rather than a temple just because of the vanity thang. there's got to be a balance that God has always intended though - it's just hard to see it in the society we live in though."

I can not agree with you more on this point Rose, I spend my day consiously NOT thinking of my body as a temple, I am too afraid that I would become vain in that thought. I love the clarity of mind I get when I run, and it was during running that the thoughts of these essays were formed, and yes, I did like how you didn't say rambling this time :p

Thank you so much for the compliment, I have I believe thriteen more essays written, I just have to wait until I am at work to post them, or get the electronic copies to my civilian email so I can put them in fromt here. I am working on one still that is hard forme to get out what I want to say. ANyway Rose, again, thank you for taking the time to read and comment, I hope you continue to enjoy and give feed back and ask questions :)