"IT'S ALL IN THE TRANSLATION"
|
"IT'S ALL IN THE TRANSLATION"
By Sevi Regis
As you know, by profession I
am a writer,
and my fascination with words
began early.
When I was a teenager, I'd take
a dictionary
along everywhere I went. While
my friends
drank and partied, I'd make the
acquaintance
of a new word. One reason is
because I understood
that the greater my vocabulary
became, the
more easily I'd be able to express
any thought,
feeling, concept, or experience
that I'd
want to communicate or understand.
Thus,
words are bridges, not only between
peoples,
but also between the diverse
parts of ourselves,
even from our conscious to unconscious
minds.
But it goes much deeper than
that.
Scripturally, we are taught that
Jesus is
"the Word of God" and
that in some
mysterious, even "mystical"
way,
the Word is Jesus translated
into literal
form. Even the Lord's name, from
the prophecy
saying He would be called, "Immanuel"
meaning, "God with us"
or His hebrew
name, "Yeshua" which
means salvation,
demonstrates the interconnectedness
of His
being with these holy words.
They are His
muscles, His bones, His nerves,
His organs,
all in a translation from being
into language.
And we know that our Father God
spoke the
universe into existence, and
that those words
came out from within Him. And
this means
that everything ultimately was
made of God-stuff
and translated into it's various
forms. Oh,
but there is so much more.
So what does this have to do
with bodybuilding?
Let us consider how our bodies
communicate
information. This morning in
the gym, I was
thinking about the two most common
types
of muscle seen in athletes. One
forms rounded
like rocks or boulders, the other
forms flat
and angular like broken slate.
These differences
exist because of the way the
different bodies
translate the demand of work
placed on their
bodies. What makes the distinction?
Genes,
biomechanics, hormones, exercise
emphasis,
nutrition, cellular response,
muscle fibers,
neural activity, mental encouragement,
and
other elements which make up
the "vocabulary"
of a person's body communicating
within itself.
All of these things can be translated
into
a sentence that fully expresses
"what
the body is thinking" when
it is performing
this kind of work. In fact, everything
is
translatable into language and
re-translatable
into other types of language
such as mathematics,
music, light, and so forth. But
at the root,
there is always a discussion
taking place,
and the key is to listen in and
understand
that discussion in order to gain
a deeper
dimension of insight and effective
response.
Even though we all want to improve
and perfect
what we have, there is a stamp
of individuality
on each of us which can be a
blessing and
a challenge. But those things
speak volumes
as to who we are. The problem
is that we
are often unable to translate
their existence
into understanding. So they remain
secrets
locked up. The Song of Solomon
mentions two
kinds of women, one who is like
a door, the
other who is like a wall. That's
abstract
and provokes a question as to
its meaning.
But what is means is that one
is resilient
by nature and impenetrable, whereas
the other
is more accommodating and maleable.
And these
personality types also have physical
characteristics.
So your muscle development is
also a reflection
of your personality and innate
being. We
can overcome what we find deficient,
but
it will always bear your stamp.
And that
is a good thing because God made
you that
way for a reason. Even still,
though I tend
toward the more angular muscularity,
and
find gaining natural thickness
a real challenge,
I recognize that my fast twitch
fibers are
firing at full speed because
of my reflexes
and coordination, and able to
perform rapid
movements of considerable power
and intensity.
And that reflects my personality
too. But
as I build the muscles toward
a more rounded
shape, by performing specific
exercises,
I'm asking of my body that it
build more
diversity into itself, and that
will require
me to accept the subsequent personal
changes
required to receive it. All that
we do affects
us body, mind, soul, and spirit.
Sometimes there are competing
elements within
us that are hidden, which block
the translation
of our will into substance. And
only when
we uncover these blockages, can
we pass them
and move on to greater fullness.
And that
is good to do, as long as we
don't lose our
true, unique selves along the
way.
Peace,
Sevi
|
|