I’ve been stuck at week two of couch to 5k since June last year.
I get to week three or four, and then life gets busy, or the toddler gets a bug, or I have an essay to write.
So, I miss a week or two to attend to the thing that needs doing first and when I start up again, I’m back mercilessly at week two.
Me and narrator Sarah Millican, at the gym, going nowhere fast.
I’m against New Year’s Resolutions. Partly because only 8% of people achieve their ambitions and therefore, quite frankly, it’s not worth the bother.
But mostly because as a person of faith I’m sceptical of personal and individual wellbeing goals using up so much of our time and effort when we have adventurous lives to live together.
The feminist author and activist Bell Hooks wrote that she was dubious of any form of spirituality that pays too much attention to individual self-improvement and too little attention to the practice of love within a community.
Perhaps a shared resolution to live together well in 2023 is the one worth committing to.
I reckon that if Jesus was into New Year’s Resolutions then it would be to love one another better. And it was a particular kind of love – shared in the midst of complicated lives lived together – that Jesus cared about the most.
The children’s book, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse sums up the awkwardness of all this togetherness with a conversation between the boy and the mole: “Sometimes I want to say I love you all, but I find it difficult” confesses the mole.
“Do you?” asks the boy. “Yes, so I say something like ‘I’m glad we are all here’.”.
Somewhere I am “glad we are all here” are the Warm Welcome Spaces popping up in churches, libraries and community centres across Reading and around the country.
Warm Welcome Spaces are community spaces which give anyone worried about utility bills a chance to turn down the heating for a few hours and let go of the fear of the ever-ticking smart meter.
You can find the Warm Welcome Spaces near you at www.warmwelcome.uk
Whether you are a retired person, a young family, or working from home you can find one to suit you, as the site tells you whether they are child-friendly and if they provide tea, refreshments or Wi-Fi and charging.
They are a real act of togetherness, where you’ll find warmth, kindness, solidarity. It takes courage to step into a new environment, but I encourage you to use any residual New Year’s Resolution determination to give it a go.
Siobhan Antoniou, student minister at St Andrew’s United Reformed Church, writing on behalf of Churches Together in Reading
