Mental Cramp

I woke up in the night with cramp. It sometimes happens – my feet, ankles and calves seize up. It’s painful. I think it comes from many years, many miles, running on streets and pavements. I have to get up, stretch, exercise; it goes away.

I wondered about mental cramp – times when the rigid mind seizes up; there’s no flexibility or movement; it causes pain.

So what causes mental cramp? On TV last night…

Pride: Sir Keir Starmer is in Washington for talks with US President Joe Biden; allies of Kyiv are discussing Ukraine firing missiles at targets inside Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin suggests that Moscow would regard Western missiles fired into Russia as a serious escalation of the war.

International mental cramp; rigidity, inflexibility. The personal pride of leaders, perhaps national pride, continues the suffering and death of many innocent people and prevents peace.

Problems: There was the story of Jon Bon Jovi helping a woman in distress, on the ledge of a bridge in Nashville, Tennessee.

Other people walked past – the woman had a problem – it wasn’t their problem. They had their own business, didn’t want to get involved – mental cramp. Bon Jovi talked to the woman and helped her back onto the bridge…

Prejudice: Olympic athlete Jessica Ennis-Hill was featured on ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ They traced her father’s family back two hundred years to a sugar plantation in Jamaica.

There was a snap shot of the slave trade through one family. Powerful slave owners – men with mental cramp.

Pride, problems, prejudice – causes of mental cramp – bringing inflexibility and pain.

This morning I was reminded of Solomon. God says to him: ‘Ask for whatever you want me to give you.’

Solomon replies: ‘Give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.’

Solomon asks for humility, wisdom, a heart of service… the exercise that brings flexibility and takes away the pain… the antidote to mental cramp.