The 6 Mile 5K

I had barely taken my suitcase to my room when Mark spied the 5K run advertised in the local newspaper.  We quickly agreed to enter our names (though I had some misgivings, still not feeling fully adjusted to the altitude).  That night we drove the route of the race, and with a GPS device as well as the odometer on the car we measured the distance.  It turns out that "5K" actually meant 5K each way.  So the 5K to which I had readily agreed had just turned into a 10K I was dreading.  Now you may be snickering at my reluctance to run a 6 mile race, but that is because you didn't have "tacos al pastor" from the local marketplace the night before.  At the time even I was still unaware of the full effects that dining decision would have.  The night before the race all I felt was a slight queasiness, a rumor in my gut of impending doom.  I know Cortés befriended Montezuma and then betrayed him; I'm not excusing that behavior.  However, I think anyone who has had what the natives fondly refer to as "Montezuma's revenge" will agree with me that Montezuma is misplacing blame in a very cruel way.

I woke up the morning of the race with a sense of urgency.  While Mark was getting dressed, drinking some water, and pinning on his racing number, I was dutifully worshipping the porcelain goddess.  My bowels were on fire; my stomach, now in a million separate but miserable pieces, was floating up and down at will within my abdominal cavity.  While my organs continued to play anatomical bumper cars, I tried to steady my mind for the race to come.  I knew the whole game had changed.  The six miles would no longer be measured by strides but rather by the number of times my red, swollen butt cheeks rubbed together, stealing a little more skin from each other with each loving stroke.

With these pleasant thoughts and many more, I suited up, and Mark and I set out for the start line a few blocks away.  A pastor friend of Mark's named Mauri met us there.  He and I had some time to get to know each other before the race began, and I actually began to feel slightly recovered from my earlier sickness.  An odd assortment of participants lined up in front of the "Nueva Allianza" building.  One professional runner wore shorts coming down no farther than his high thighs with expensive running shoes and a slim build.  Others looked well over seventy and wore jeans and sandals.  After several speeches (the race was sponsored by a political party), we were off.  Mauri, Mark, and I ran abreast for the first half a mile, but their stride didn't feel quite right to me.  So I increased my pace a little and soon left them behind.

I felt good, cheered on by the many smiling faces and eager exclamations of bystanders.  A mechanic looking up from his work to see the runners go by.  A mother and her daughter eager for diversion on their walk home.  Many kids who gave each and every runner the feeling that their performance meant something.  It seemed the whole city had turned out to watch my elation turn to suffering as I realized that the bridge I thought was the halfway mark was not, my pace was much too fast, and the relief I was feeling at the beginning of the race would soon be ending.  Though we had driven the route the night before, I got confused.  I only remembered one yellow bridge, the one that came just before the turnaround, but apparently there was another much earlier in the race. 

By the time I got to the actual halfway point, my chest felt like someone was beating on it mercilessly with a sledgehammer, my legs wanted to give out, my mind wanted to give up, and my breakfast wanted to come up. 

I walked.

Mauri and Mark caught up with me, looking as fresh as they had at the start of the race.  Their coming spurred me to pick my pace back up at least enough to run with them for a while, but I soon slowed to a walk.

Clasping my water bottle in one hand and stomach in the other, and with head held not all that high, I finished the race walking.  I had started well enough that I still ended up finishing in seventh place within my age group, but my body paid me back for that foolish feat for days after.  My pride still pays me back.

10 More Minutes

This semester I am taking Creative Nonfiction Workshop.  In addition to the longer pieces we work on (which I will post), we write for a short while off of prompts each class period.  I have several short, incomplete pieces I will share from this in-class writing.  Today in class we were supposed to write a childhood memory from our own perspective when we were a kid.  Here is my INCOMPLETE response to that prompt.  It is kind of fun.  Enjoy.

10 more minutes.  If I get up now, john and Sarah will think I'm such a little boy.  The big kids don't get jittery on Christmas morning.  They sleep until we wake them up so they can wake Mom and Dad up.  I wonder if Christmas will stop when I stop being excited.  Who will wake up the big kids so they can start Christmas?

Ok, Mary is awake.  She's still little.  She's only 1 year 10 months and 27 days less little than I am.  I'll get up now and play cards with her just so she doesn't feel too little.  Besides time passes quicker when you're playing slapjack then when you're trying not to be little.

I hop out of bed and look down.  There are my blue pajama pants; they make me feel a little bigger.  Just knowing that I'm wearing karate pants makes me bolder.  I feel like I could turn a flip or punch a bad guy, but I better not right now.  John and Sarah would be annoyed if I woke them up a whole hour and a half before they were allowed to wake Mom and Dad up.  If I'm going to be this little still, it's better not to draw attention to it.  I slept for as long as I possibly could!

Instead of doing karate with imaginary bad guys, I settle for that card game with my sister.  I'm so glad we all get to sleep in the same room on Christmas Eve.  We always bring in games to pass the time until we can go through our stockings.  I think Sarah and John still like it even though they pretend not to.  They still play the games with us...

Summer Reflections Part 2

Sorry it has been so long since the last post.  I've had this bit written for a while but thought I needed to change it or add to it.  Now, so far removed from the summer it seems, I decided to just post what I have because I want to move on the writing about other things.

Current 2 – Radical Living

My journey toward radical living for Jesus Christ is a process that has been happening for a few years now and will continue for the rest of my life.  Christ is constantly changing me, constantly growing me – any time I let Him.  Even at times when I feel no change and see no possibility for growth, Christ is holding His chisel to me preparing to mold me more and more into his likeness.  Sometimes I wonder if I, a big block of misshapen stone, am even recognizable as the masterpiece of God which I will one day fully become, but at those times I take comfort in the teaching of 2 Peter 1:5-8:

         For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.  For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The extent to which these virtues have been realized in my life certainly matters, but a nugget of truth is present in this passage that gives me hope.  The direction I'm moving counts for a lot.  This list of virtues doesn't seem to describe me very well often times, but I must look inwardly and ask myself whether I possess them in increasing measure.  I am in process, but as long as I remain moldable, as long as I keep moving in the right direction with a broken and contrite heart, I won't be "ineffective and unproductive in [my] knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

You will notice in the passage that the virtue we add last, the virtue to which nothing can be added, is love.  And my thoughts this summer have often centered on the idea of "loving better."  How can I love better than I'm loving right now?  How can I love my brothers and sisters in Christ better?  How can I love the world better?  How can I love God better?

Now, on one hand the answer to these questions is simple and mystical.  I must embrace God's love for me and let His love overflow to everyone around me.  I'm working on this.  Although I lack discipline, I am trying to get to know God better by spending time in His word and spending time talking to Him.  I am beginning to see myself the way He sees me, and walking in this love is freeing me to love others and to love him back will all that I have.  However, I also know that if I love God I will obey his commandments.  I know that if I don't clothe my brother then the love of God isn't in me.  I know that love without action is no love at all, and so I couple the mystical with the practical.

All summer, and for quite awhile before that, I have been trying to find practical ways to love.  I have been asking myself what it would look like if my whole life centered on love.  Of course, every aspect of my life would be transformed, but the Lord has specifically been teaching me about a discipline that would help me to be a better lover

Simplicity

If we did nothing that we did not see our Father in Heaven doing, certainly our lives would look radically different.  We would not be living at all, and we would be experiencing life for the very first time.  I desire to pursue this ideal in every possible aspect.  I hope to one day see with heavenly eyes ancient, ever-present visions of things above, to peer through the window of heaven and witness my God.  If or when that happens, I may well see my heavenly Father doing something, and I pray I will have the courage, when that day comes, to sincerely mimic Him.  However, until I am blessed with such heavenly vision, I content myself to read the gospels and to start trying to live the way Jesus lived.

It is one thing to respect what Jesus taught.  Some of us really even believe what He taught.  Beliefs can be written down; doctrinal statements can be signed; sermons can be preached.  But until we allow these truths to be translated, through our actions, into a visible, tangible love that can overcome fear and doubt, we have done nothing to further the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We spend so much time talking, much less time thinking (which has a little bit of intrinsic value), and almost no time doing.  How glorious it would be if every Christian in the world picked up a Bible tomorrow as if for the first time, and, putting all our glorified guesses behind us, we committed ourselves to action.

Instead of discussing whether it was the rich young ruler's possessions or his love of possessions that disallowed him entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven, we would be selling our possessions and giving to the poor.  Instead of thanking God a million times a day for our material blessings, we would start building a bridge from both ends to span the gap between ourselves and the poor/poor in spirit, those who will receive the Kingdom of Heaven.  In his book Irresistible Revolution, Shaine Claiborne says and proves that in light of the dire state of our world, "…generosity is determined by what a person has left."  The point is that when we consider the woes in our world today, there is no point (short of solidarity) at which we can say, "I've done enough.  There may be children starving every day, but I've made an adequate contribution."  For those who follow Christ, nothing is adequate except for everything.

Dozens of generations of devoted Christians seeking to follow Christ in radical ways have given rise to the Christian discipline of simplicity.  Simplicity is a comprehensive quieting of our chaos.  When we allow the perfect peace of Jesus Christ to conquer our chaos, we will find that what is left will be little, but it will be pure and will have more value than a thousand diamonds. Instead of cluttered desks and garages, makeup kits and cologne bottles, ipods and laptops, and all the other things that take away our space to breath, we will find outer simplicity. Instead of endless worry, a constant, unhealthy introspection, a deafening drone of inner voices, and all the other evils that plague our minds, we will experience simplicity of the heart.

Some would like to divorce these two, but it cannot be done.  In the majority, there are those who prefer to ignore physical simplicity in their pursuit of simplicity for their hurting hearts.  This dualism must be fought.  The physical and spiritual are spliced together, and we fool ourselves if we think that our actions have no effect on our spirits.  Take this fallacy to its end and you will find a heap of rubble where once stood Christian theology.  In the minority, there are those who think that any mention of simplicity of the heart is some back-handed justification, some cowardly attempt to ignore our tragic separation from the destitute and the greed that has infected the church.  As much as the physical and spiritual are tied, we must have our eyes fixed on things above.  If our acts of self-denial and sacrificial giving have no eternal value, why do we bother?  Furthermore, it is tragic to think that in attempting to mimic one of Christ's virtues, we often devalue another.  Who would deny that Christ walked in both kinds of simplicity?  Therefore, we must follow His example by seeking both with all that we have.

Simple living has no intrinsic value.  It is necessary and even desirable because it is a vital baby step on our journey towards simplicity of the heart.  It is a daunting task to find and keep inner simplicity.  Though it may seem nearly impossible at times, outer simplicity is actually much easier than inner simplicity because it is more tangible.  If you tell me to find inner-simplicity, I have no idea where to begin.  However, if you tell me to make my life (outer) simpler, I can give away my stuff.  It may burn a bit, but in the end they are only things, and giving them away is quite freeing if it is done not out of legalism but out of an inner longing for simplicity of the heart.

In trying to begin living more simply, I have found this to be true.  There are times when my eyes are set on the simplicity of the heart that I am really seeking.  At those times, I could easily part with my most prized possession.  It is when I'm not seeking inner simplicity but rather am trying to follow a trend or trying to be a certain type of person that I feel those old attachments to "stuff."