“Iron sharpens Iron, so one person sharpens another” is a verse from Psalm 27 I find myself meditating on lately.
When I was younger, a similar sentiment lived in my mind, “steel boats and iron men” was a phrase used to describe the men that served on submarines. It was hard duty, and it took young hard men, singular in purpose, to push that boat through the water and complete the mission.
In both iron metaphors, men became iron through hard work and accountability to each other and a vision.
Both phrases play into my ongoing internal monologue that I have an obligation to be like sharp iron in order to live up to the mental image I hold for myself. Standards.
Somewhere in my middle decades, the sharpened iron I worked with my hands became my work skills, my abilities to lead men, to make prudent financial decisions, to return value to shareholders. My body became softer but my ability to lead an organization became the razor’s point.
When I was younger, the focus was internal, sharpening myself to what and who I was. Then it became, for lack of a better term, performative iron, sharpening which served nearly everyone except me, sans my income, and did nothing for me physically, mentally or emotionally.
As you get older to start to develop perspective that is impossible to have when you are younger. What that perspective gives me is the ability to see the symmetry that has formed on my own personal life’s arc. 41 years since I left home to join the US Navy, I’m rapidly turning toward within again, making myself the focus of the iron sharpening.
Kettlebells have given me an anchor to tie myself too. Day after day, week after week, I progress through a program that sharpens me like nothing has since the submarine. I watch my body composition change, I watch my strength rise, I see the change in mindset, bringing true balance to the needs of the company shareholders as well as my life and what I want to accomplish in my last active decades.
While I lift iron to sharpen iron, the thinking i do while exerting myself compounds the benefits.
Of late, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the first and second readings from the fourth week of Lent. In the first reading, God has sent Samuel to Bethlehem to look at Jesse’s sons and find the next King of Israel, ultimately choosing David. Rejecting the first group of sons, the Lord said to Samuel “…Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they Look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."
That really sat with me about how we should strive to see each other as God sees us, from the heart out. A personal rejection of what the modern world considers attractive (mental, physical, moral) is something I truly believe in and which led me to stop watching and consuming film, television, print media. It’s not that you can’t find beauty and truth in the modern world, I just have chosen to stop looking while I detox.
The second reading that same Sunday felt like a divine wake-up call:
“…For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light.
Therefore it says,
"Sleeper, awake!
Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you."”
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians spit hard truths then, as it does now. “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness…everything exposed by the light becomes visible…sleeper awake!”
To the religious thinker, this one letter from Paul more or less sums up how we are taught to live our lives as Christians.
To the secular readers of this, how do you read and not accept as insightful philosophical thinking at worst, and truly the enlightened words of our creator at best (you might flip flop best and worst depending on your POV but you get the idea.)
Iron sharpens iron. The kettlebells are absolutely sharpening my body, sharpening my personal discipline, but that iron sharpening provides me a mental clarity to open my sinful mind to these thoughts about how God sees us (our heart) and what we should value (the light).
I begrudge no one their need to provide for their families. Judge me if you must about allowing myself and my life to be co-opted by a corporation for their enrichment, but I did what I felt I needed to do to provide for my family the best standard of living I could provide. I choose to celebrate that I knew when it was time to leave a toxic environment, and now I know it’s time to prepare for life after work.
Sharpen yourself, find accountability through brotherhood. Do your best and don’t be afraid to change directions as the seasons of your life change.
