Tuesday, March 15, 2005

An imbalance to restore

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Time passed, a current, a churn. The 2 young women, trainers at a gym, were stretching between classes. Ainsley's leg was raised in an impossibly perfect liftt. She looked like a beautiful slim bird. She pressed her spine into the blue foam and switched the 2 legs like a magician waving 2 scarves. They sliced the air acutely. Elf was a clumsier model altogether. She lay back and let that hard abstraction Exercise crunch her stomach like a hungry ogre. She was feeling too happy to concentrate. She watched as her friend seemed to "dance upside down".

Still I think you're going to have to do it (she finally said). You're going to have to learn how to pray for him and with him. I'm talking about, well you know who I'm talking about.

Oh no, Ainsley said. It is logically impossible. I pray but when the object of a prayer is so impossible, so false, then the prayer becomes false. And therefore worthless. No prayer is possible. Not for him, not now, not yet.

She had collapsed to the floor, as if invaded by an imbalance. The 2 of them began vigorously exercising, immersed in a willful pain whose purpose they wouldn't have been able to describe, though that didn't mean they didn't know what it was.

Elf said later: you must have been called to do this. The fact that it disgusts you so much is probably a sign that you must do it. Maybe. Why would something be disagreeable if it weren't also important.

But I can't have been called to do something I am physically unable to do!

I don't see why not. Lots of people have had exactly that happen.

If exercise is so painful yet necessary and deeply sought, wouldn't the same thing be true of the ultimate exercise? Namely, of course, prayer?

And if it were only easy would it need to be done?

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