Looking down the road

Just the two of us - my 4 year old son and I - flew up to the DC area to visit my mom. On the first drizzley morning there, I rose early for my run. My boy lay sleeping in the other bed as I pulled on my running gear and stepped out into the twilight.

Mom's apartment looks down the Potomac along a shallow bend in the river. There is good running and biking all the way down to Mt. Vernon (and up to Cumberland, Md.). On this morning, I ran down along the river to a little marina, then turned around and headed for home.
I had felt uneasy about leaving my boy - afraid it would upset him waking up in a place that he didn't know. I also knew that my mom would be there for him and probably take him to the window to track my progress running back up toward them. We call that looking down the road.

Looking down the road is sort of a family tradition. I became aware of it as a boy when I realized that my grandfather stationed himself at his desk early in the day when we were coming to see him. His desk looked down the road so that he could see us rounding the turn and coming down the homestretch to his house.

In turn, I had looked down the road for him when we went to the small airport into which he flew home. I would stand quietly with my grandmother and listen for the whistle of turboprops hoping to see his plane on the horizon, then watch him all the way in to the ramp where we waited.

Years later, my family looked down the road for me when I ran the Disney Marathon. They positioned themselves at every possible viewing station. Through the long miles, I imagined them up ahead of me. Knowing they were there helped pull me along.

And when we buried our beloved great aunt, the last of her generation, I imagined her finally in the embrace of her brothers and sisters after they had looked down the road for her these last years of her life.

Now, as I ran the last solitary mile in the drizzle along the Potomac I imagined my mother and my son looking down the road for me. With every clearing of the trees, I waved so that if he was watching, he'd know I was thinking of him and getting closer to a reunion with every step. In the last quarter mile, I could see that my mom had opened the window and stood my boy up on a chair to see me. "Dada!" he yelled clear as a bell from 8-stories up. "Elijah!" I returned, just as clear.

After we flew home, I continued to dwell on the runs by the Potomac and the idea of looking down the road. I found myself longing to see my own father at a distance and to hear his voice. He is gone now almost seven years. Yet I imagined him waving at me across the gulf of eternity getting closer to reunion each moment. Yet it seemed like fantasy to imagine such a connection and I despaired over that realizing my son would despair too one day.

But on subsequent runs, I kept mulling this and something occured to me. My father does wave at me across eternity. Not literally, but when people do the things that I know he would have done, it is as if it's him. It's the same with his words. When people speak words to me that I know he would have spoken, it is as if he has spoken to me. My own mother, my wife, my brother and sister, my pastor, a trusted mentor, my godmother - many people have done this for me. By their actions and words, he is there.

I thought I'd had a major realization when it occurred to me that Jesus does the same for us and the heavenly father. It turns out, the author of Hebrews has been explaining this to people for nearly 2000 years. In chapter one, in the first three verses, he tells us God has spoken to us in His son who is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being. God becomes alive to us in the actions and words of Jesus.

And it turns out that people do the same for Jesus. He said that when we care for the lowest, we've cared for Him. Jesus is alive in the people who need us most.

I have heard it said that children have difficulty conceiving of God as loving, just and upright if they don't experience those traits in their own dads. My own dad's life and words would still speak to me if he'd been less of a man. But they would not speak well of him or God. I suppose that's one reason it's important - for the sake of our children - to remember who we are and who we represent.

But no matter how our dads lived their lives, Jesus' life and words can speak to us across eternity of loving, just and upright God - just as I spoke to my son who was looking down the road.