The days that matter.

¹   To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
²   As the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
until he has mercy upon us.
³   Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
⁴   Our soul has had more than its fill
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.

¹My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; ²and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

³Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments. ⁴Whoever says, “I have come to know him,” but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; ⁵but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him: ⁶whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk just as he walked.

⁷Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word that you have heard. ⁸Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. ⁹Whoever says, “I am in the light,” while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. ¹⁰Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. ¹¹But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.

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I have been watching too much TV: the winter Olympiad is on, and the fact that it is in Russia and the precious petals are upset has led to me reverse boycotting the event. In this, a large number of athletes train, prepare for a race lasting no more than a minute, or a programme of moves that lasts but five.

For a medal of bronze, plated with silver or gold.

It’s Saturday morning and I’m writing this from the cold bleachers at the Arctic Edge ice arena while watching one of my daughters at her ice skating lessons.  This rink is notable because not one but two pairs of skaters competing in Sochi train here – Meryl Davis and Charlie White, competing for the U.S. and the Vancouver gold medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, competing for Canada.  Naturally all the little girls are gaga over the ice skaters in the Sochi Olympics.

We have chosen to be a television-free household, but we really wanted to watch the opening ceremonies yesterday, so we packed up the kids and headed over to my mother-in-law’s house.  And here is one little observation from watching that: for being such a small part of the population, homosexuals sure are the belle of the ball in the American coverage of the Olympic games.

Well, those two couples won gold and silver respectively, which is will make SSM’s kids happy. I am sure that these skaters have been training diligently.

For we all know that the only way to improve in sport, in fitness, is to keep on doing it. To set goals. to train, to not give up. The only way to raise a child is to be around the child: you have to feed the infant and change nappies consistently, love consistently, even if the little one is a complete troll today.

Some days you just grind. Some days there is no reward. Some days you wonder what you are doing… now.

But later, the recollection of that time will be bittersweet. For those are the days that made your life: on those days you kept your word, and without that integrity, we are not in the light, and our self-righteousness curdles in to hate as we slide into the darkness.

Do not go there. Accept the grind. For not all win a medal: except in the infant school, and there the teachers lie.