FROM THE VICAR
During my recent illness, I took up running. I had heard many times that it was good for your mental health, so I thought I would give it a go. After all, it doesn’t really cost much to just go out and run. What I had heard was right, it did turn out to be good for my mental health. To my surprise, I have even found myself enjoying it.
In all honesty, it might be stretching the truth to call what I do ‘running’. It’s more like a gentle jog, often with a bit of walking thrown in as I tire myself out. I don’t go very fast, and I don’t go very far. You certainly won’t find me entering the Hambledon Hilly any time soon! But what I have learned is that the more often I go, the easier it gets; and the easier it gets, the more I enjoy it, and the more often I want to go. Conversely, when I don’t go very often, it gets harder, I enjoy it less, and it’s more effort to go in the first place.
It’s easy to think of the word ‘habit’ only in a negative way, of doing something that we know is bad for us but can’t manage to stop – just another word for ‘addiction’. But a ‘habit’ is really any kind of repetitive behaviour. Some habits can be really good for us. My running is a bit like that. The more I am in the habit of doing it, the better I feel, both mentally and physically.
What is more, habits change us. The more we do something, the better we learn to do it, until in the end it becomes second nature. The Christian life is full of these good habits. Prayer, reading the Bible, worshipping together – these are all good habits, and like any habit, we get better at them the more we do them. That’s why Jesus tells us to do radical things like love our enemies. He doesn’t mean ‘have warm feelings about your enemies’, he means ‘behave in a loving way towards them’; because when we get into the habit of behaving in a loving way towards somebody, eventually we really do begin to love them. The reverse is also true. If we constantly behave badly towards somebody, eventually we end up thinking badly of them.
I think the last 18 months have changed a lot of our habits. Some of us have got out of the habit of commuting to work every day, and might now be thinking that we don’t particularly want to start that habit again. We might have little choice in the matter, but it might also be an opportunity to rebalance life so that we spend more time at home with our families, and of course contribute a little less pollution. Maybe there are other habits we have broken which it would be better if we didn’t re-start. On the other hand, I know I am not the only one who has got into the habit of taking more exercise than I used to, and that is an example of the kind of good habit we should be trying to continue. The great thing about good habits is that it is never too late to start one.
One of the habits that I think a lot of us have developed recently is the habit of looking after and looking out for each other. I have certainly been grateful to so many people who have been looking out for me in recent times. It is a habit I think we all should try and continue – and like all habits, the more we do it, the easier it will be for us to keep doing it. It is the kind of habit that will continue to make our community an even better place to live, and it is certainly the kind of habit of which Jesus would approve.
Fr David