The original Powerhouse Gym in Highland Park, Michigan is a legendary gym. Opened in 1974, it was founded by the hulking brothers Will and Norm Dabish. When you enter the workout area there are two large “Walls of Fame” showcasing all the famous athletes and bodybuilders that have called Powerhouse their home. Former NFL players, WWE stars, national champion weightlifters, and olympians all came through this grimy gym off of Woodward avenue to train with the best.

Go there today on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday at 4:30am and you will still see humongous women and men breaking a sweat and throwing some weight around. Look closely and you will see a new generation of freakish superathletes rising up to one day take their place in framed photos on the wall. Even at this early hour the squat racks are slamming, the bench press is ringing, the barbells bend under the heavy burden of many forty five pound plates. Look closely into the hungry eyes of these human specimens pushing their bodies to the brink and then keep looking. Look further. ALL the way towards the back, by the treadmills and kettlebells. And back there, way in the back, you’ll see a middle-aged dad - a white man - exercising, struggling uphill against the passage of time in a sisyphean battle with his body.

The gym is not a church, and most of the time it isn’t a house of worship. But it is a place of spiritual formation. There is a religiosity to the work being done here, a liturgical calendar of sorts that is followed by the “430am Faithful”. This reaps benefits to our physical health, and if we can manage to not be pulled astray by the worship of body - after all we came from dust and to dust we shall return - it can be beneficial to our souls as well.

We all engage in spiritual formation, because we are all being formed into the likeness of whatever we devote our time, energies, and attention to. It could be politics or XBOX, marijuana, gardening, education for young children, office work, horseback riding, comfort, safety, the couch, not upsetting others, or mapmaking.

Since COVID I’ve tried to be more intentional about my Christian spiritual formation, structuring my life and engaging practices meant to make me look more like Jesus. I read the four gospels much like us gym-goers gaze upon the glorious visages of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronnie Coleman hanging on the walls. We ask ourselves - do we look more like him, day by day?

Perhaps God gives us bodies to serve as physical metaphors for our souls. If this is true, then maybe even the seemingly mundane experience of a bicep curl or an overhead shoulder press can provide clues as to how God changes the contours of our hearts and the direction of our lives.

It can be common when beginning to engage in spiritual practices - things like prayer throughout the day, meditation, liturgical readings, observing sabbath, giving away a part of your salary to those in need - to constantly ask ourselves “How do I feel about what I’m doing?” We constantly assess and analyze.

Take for instance meditation. This is a wonderful exercise, open and available to every single person on the planet regardless of circumstances. And in my context in the US, meditation is perhaps a necessary activity to keep us grounded, connected to reality, and able to discern wisely our direction as individuals and a society.

But what actually happens when you meditate?

You find a comfortable position, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths…and begin to ….meditate.

Seconds later it begins. Your mind starts to wander: “I wonder if the 49ers were able to pull it off in overtime?”

(ahem) “...I’m supposed to be meditating!”

“That thing my coworker did yesterday was so annoying…I’m supposed to be meditating!”

(silence, tranquility….

….. the chorus of a Dua Lipa song)

“I’M SUPPOSED TO BE MEDITATING!!!!”

You attempt to persevere in this practice for a few more days, but eventually you give up in discouragement. Our culture and your own expectations says that you’ve failed, but the gym would tell you otherwise.

The gym would tell you that your thoughts and feelings have almost no importance or bearing in this situation. Many mornings, when we’re at the gym there is exactly 0% of me that wants to be there. I have dozed off from time to time while sitting on the benches. And to be clear, I’m not there due to some superhuman iron discipline, far from it in fact.

I have a partner who meets me there to lift and is expecting me to be there. I come due to the power of obligation (yuck) and an unwillingness to let another person down. Over time, this nearly Catholic sense of duty has dug a neural trench in my brain and morphed into a habit, no different than vaping or floral fridays. This is the exact opposite of positive feelings.

If we follow our feelings too much, we’ll follow the inevitable waves of a life lived in prayer. We’ll feel elated when an insight or “word from the Lord” comes to us during moments of quiet. And we’ll be devastated during those long stretches when we hear nothing in particular and we’re supposed to be reflecting on Psalm 90 but we just can’t stop thinking about our mixed feelings towards Beyonce’s country album.

The gym teaches us that if you come at the appointed time, and do the appointed exercise, then growth and formation will happen. Unlike the ups and downs of our so-called “spiritual feelings” the growth is cumulative and often unseen. Our muscles grow, but not consciously. The process is unseen, shrouded in mystery, and so slow as to not warrant our “constant evaluation” (the spiritual equivalent of those gym-goers compulsively gazing at themselves in the mirror). In other words, if you put in the time and do something consistently you WILL get stronger.

Even in difficult seasons - caring for ill or dying family members, intense periods of work, or having young children in the house - you can maintain your soul, your body, or your practice, and maybe even grow in it.

We often come to processes of formation with an attitude of perfectionism. “If I can’t do it like ______, then I shouldn’t even bother at all.” But the gym teaches us that a little bit is always better than nothing. If you can’t go run for an hour, how about taking a walk with your kids for twenty? If you can’t do comedy as a full time career, why not use it in your church ministry and enjoy the practice once a week?

And if you can’t pray and zen out inside a pristine bamboo forest, your mind a blank slate like the tranquil Buddha, why not pull your car into the parking lot of a Wendy’s on your way home from work and meditate alone for a few minutes? Have faith that God or the Universe will meet you in that tiny moment. It’s not much, but every little bit helps on your journey towards becoming the person you’d like to be.

You Will Get Stronger

Further reading