Running your own race

Hebrews tells every runner to fix their eyes on Jesus - but every runner has to run their own race.

You see this when racers run the mile. For most of the race, the fastest runners stay off the pace - behind the leader. They are saving their "kick" for the end, keeping enough wind and strength to burst in front and leave the other runners behind.

We saw this in horse racing this year too. Take a look at this video of the Kentucky Derby and pay close attention to the race as it rounds the first turn. There is a horse that is four or five lengths back of the pack, seemingly out of the race. The horse's name is Mine That Bird. www.youtube.com/user/kentuckyderby

To all appearances, Mine That Bird was out the race. In fact, the announcer seemed to count him out, mentioning him only once before Mine That Bird was three lengths in front. NBC's camera men did likewise - the horse was left out of the picture until the home stretch.

Several weeks later at the Preakness, NBC handled the camera work differently. Mine That Bird again ran the first half of the race at the back of the pack. He finished with another spectacular burst and placed second that day, though few doubted he'd have won had the race been longer. But for most of the race - back of the pack or not - NBC kept him in the picture. Everyone knew Mine That Bird was running his race.

Running your own race means keeping your pace and your cool. Through the years, I've learned that the hard way to the point where I now run my races by myself. I find it throws me off my pace to run with others. That was true at the 2009 Winter Park 10K. I started the race with my brother in law and nephew. We all had a similar time in mind for the end of the race. But both wanted to run faster earlier in the race than my wind and legs would allow. I could have pushed ahead with them, but eventually I'd have broken down. Instead, I had to slowly let them drift ahead. With 3/4 of a mile to go, I caught up to my brother in law and we finished together. In the process, I passed my nephew but did not even know it.

Running my own race was key to my success in this friendly race. It's even more important in serious competition. In lacrosse, we continuously preach to our players to "play our game." We do that because our game is pretty good - and because it will ride our guys through the opponent's runs.

Good opponent or not, we always expect them to make a run on us. By a run, I mean that they seize the momentum with a flurry of goals or hard-nosed play. When the run comes, the tendency can be to panic - to throw the ball away, or play undisciplined defense, or generally unravel. The opposite of this is to keep our heads, do the things we know to do and to "play our game."

I think Kipling spoke of this in his poem "If." In fact, his first 'if' is "if you can keep your head while all about you others are losing theirs..." If our guys do keep their heads, we often find that momentum eventually swings back our way and we find we're close enough to make a run of our own and maybe to win the game.

In the grander scheme, this is true of our lives. In fact, circumstances - even Satan himself - periodically makes runs at us. These runs are more than just the periodic bad day. Instead, they are like a swing of the tide against us when when suddenly our lives are pushing upstream against a powerful current. Suddenly the opponent has the initiative. It can come in the form of financial reversal, or serious illness, or discord with those around us. Whatever it is, the runs are brutal. They are for keeps.

Caroline Beebe had one of these runs against her when, as a teen just months from her prom, she contracted polio. No one can get in her head to learn how it must have devastated her, a young attractive athletic gal, to find her limbs painfully bending and her fortunes suddenly so changed. The story that my mother tells is that while she couldn't attend the prom, her friends dressed her in taffita and silk then came to her house after the big dance where Caroline received her guests as if she was royalty. One of many displays of guts and style that would define her life.

As she entered her 75th year, the hobbling of polio still barely slowed her down. But life had one more run to make at her. Cancer struck hard and throughout her. She was given less than a year to live. It seemed like life saying one more time that it would finish on top. But that would not be the case.

Cancer cut her life short, but she went out on her own terms. There is no better story of this than the following. On the same day that Caroline Beebe told friends that she had decided to discontinue her chemo, she also renewed her driver's license. Some of those closest to her were horrified - not because she'd discontinued medication, but because they knew what a horrible driver she was. But you cannot miss the fact that once again she was saying to life, you dealt the cards, but I decide how we'll play them. She was running her own race. And when it was through, we could only ask along with Paul, Where O death is thy sting? Where O pain is thy victory?

As Christians, the challenge for us is to run our own race - and keep our eyes on the author and perfector of our faith. If we do that, we'll have a taste of how it feels to be the miler, and Mine That Bird and Caroline Beebe. If we do, we'll find there is nothing life can take away from us.

you're ready for God when...

There was a time years ago, when I felt as if God was encouraging me to run distances - it's like meditation. There has proven to be something to that. The long runs are hard work, but there is a rhythm to them that lends itself to a sweep-down of my mind.

The sweep-down uncovers diverse stuff - to-do lists, filth, needy family and friends, logic, prejudice, jokes, curses...

It is one thing to be alone with those thoughts and to let them find their way in and out of my awareness. It's another thing to acknowledge the reality that God is along for the run (and there in every other part of my life!) and to observe those thoughts as if turning the pages of a catalog.

Doing so shines a different light on the to-do lists, those in need, my prejudices...

It's not that my thoughts are constantly on Him or that my train of thought is under constant joint-scrutiny. But as things come to mind and standout when I run, I have a sense that He has shined a light on them and I can see them for what they are and respond accordingly - shake my head in confession, or throw my arms out in prayer, or just keep chugging and mulling.

Iget to this place more easily while running than in anything else I do.

I'm not sure why, but it might have something to do with getting to the bottom of something inside myself. On a grand scale, there are a number of great examples of this in the Bible. Moses remained on the mountain forty days without food or drink as he received the law from God. Elijah walked forty days in the wilderness before he heard the still small voice of God. Jesus fasted in the wilderness for forty days before He began His ministry.

I don't mean to put a forty minute run in the same league with their forty days. But I think there is a parallel. That is, Moses, Elijah and Jesus drained themselves to be filled. I can only guess that there was an aspect of reaching the bottom of their human reserves but being buoyed with a new and different sort of filling up. I wonder if we get a small taste of that when we run.

Here's an example. I have recently been taking Jon and Betsy Hughes' (http://www.trackshack.com/) advice in trying to lengthen my runs. Last Tuesday, I ventured 2 1/4 miles from home before turning back. It had been months since I ran 4.5 miles. It felt good to be going the distance, but it was taking close to everything I had. I was churning along but about at the end of my stamina when I was about five minutes from home. It was at that time, that I was reminded of my children and all the question marks that remain in their future. There on the sidewalk beside Par Street, I could do nothing but throw out my arms and turn my face up to heaven and shout, "Lord - my family!"

I had a sense that He knew exactly what I meant - I didn't have to explain or elaborate the prayer. I also had a sense of being naked to the world - traffic was passing me in both directions and there I was running with my arms out, eyes closed, shouting at the sky (and no Bluetooth to blame it on).

For whatever reason, I don't pray that way - at the top of my lungs and from the bottom of my soul - in my quiet time (good thing, my family might say). Why is that? Perhaps it has something to do with reaching the end of my strength.

Peter Lord said, you're ready for Jesus when your desperation factor exceeds your embarassment factor. AA says the first two steps to change are to realize where your power ends and that a higher power can help. There is something about reaching the end of our strength that makes us ready for God.

I think I see this in a friend and co-worker. The other day, he stopped by my office to talk about our jobs and the question of how secure they are in this economy. Then he got quite emotional and asked me, "How do you..." But he couldn't finish the question for fear he would break down. "Do you mind if we step outside?" he asked. So we did.

The question he'd been trying to ask me was, how do you be strong for your family when your own inner strength is used up. He showed all the signs of a guy who is spent. You could tell he'd poured tremendous energy into his wife and two young kids to the point that he felt he didn't have any more to give. He thought he was showing weakness to reach this point - and worse to admit it. He couldn't believe that he himself was breaking down - as if to say, this sort of thing happens to other guys but not to him. And I think he thought that I had never reached that point myself.

I probably did a lousy job of it, but I tried to explain that he was ready for God. That if he had poured his energy out for his family then Jesus was probably proud of him. That if we keep our eyes on the author and perfector of our faith, then we will love our wives "as Christ loved the church, pouring Himself out for her." We will reach the end of our strength - and that's when we can and should turn to God.

The character of Eric Liddell said it better than I can in Chariots of Fire. In one of the great short sermons, he says that the strength to run "a straight race" is found within. If we look for Jesus there, He promises, "Ye shall ever surely find Me."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHT_nvaTXXk

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.

The pursuit of peace

Hebrews 12:14 says, “Pursue peace with all…”

We learned Sunday that we are to pursue peace – follow it – the idea of chasing something – go after it. (www.orlandocommunitychurch.org)

God does grant us peace – the sense of peace – to be at peace – Moses had it when he came down from the mountain – it shown on his face so brightly, people had a hard time looking at him. But the peace was shortlived and he still had about 40 years of tough sledding ahead of him in the wilderness.

Throughout that time, he had to wrestle with being God’s man seeking peace with his disgruntled nation. I can only guess that his wilderness recollections of that peace must have been confusing – everything from strengthening (remembering God’s presence and promises) to doubt (if it was fleeting, perhaps it wasn’t real).

My wife had a mountaintop experience with her breast cancer. It was Moses like. I recall visiting her for the first time in the recovery room – her face had a look to it that surprised me – peaceful, alert – remarkably so and so different from what you’d expect of a woman who’d just had a breast removed.

Afterward, she told me the experience changed the way she saw everything and everyone around her. It was so transforming she thought she’d be changed forever. But the other night she described her frustration at finding herself once again struggling - she wanted to yell at the kids and throttle her neighbor. The Moses-type glow on her face was gone and she was now in the wilderness where peace with those around her was hard to come by.

Hebrews says we are to pursue peace with others. Not sit still and have peace, but to pursue it. To draw an analogy from running, there is no peace at the end of the race if we don’t empty ourselves on the course. Empty your lungs of wind, empty your legs of strength – give it your all. It is the same on the athletic field – losing only REALLY hurts if you quit and winning never feels that good if you didn’t give your best.

So peace is something to go after. While the mountaintop experience is what we all want, we are defined as Christians by how we perform in the wilderness. This is different from yoga and the eastern religions (or at least my understanding of them) in which peace is something to be attained for oneself. While those religions are about us being at peace with ourselves, Christianity is about going after it with others.

I think that means we are supposed to get in the mix. Recall the cleansing peace of the mountain, but get down and dirty with those around us in the wilderness.

The Daylight Savings Time Challenge

On Sunday the clocks fell back an hour with eastern savings time. The clock on my computer made the adjustment automatically. But all the clocks in our house were off by an hour. That included the internal clocks that drive the awakenings of my family and me.

With the time change, and by rising early, I had expected to have an hour to myself that morning. It did not work out that way. Before I could get anywhere, my son emerged for breakfast, one daughter wandered in for a warm snuggle and even my self-described "not a morning person" wife was up and at 'em.

Rising an hour earlier than the rest of my house is what I now call, "The Daylight Savings Time Challenge." The challenge is to leave my alarm clock on last week's time and rise when it chimes. Last Saturday, that would have been 6:05. Sunday, with the time change, it was 5:05.

In large part, the challenge is owed to a conversation between Bob Edwards and Garrison Keillor during an interview on XM radio’s XMPR. Edwards asked how Keillor, an incredibly busy man could ever find time to write so prolifically. Keillor responded that he rises an hour earlier than the rest of his house - "If you get up an hour early, you can write a book."

The Edwards' question and Keillor's answer can be plugged into any number of conversations:

Q: Where do you find time to work on your masters? A: I get up an hour early.

Q: Where do you find time to run? A: I get up an hour early.

Q: Where do you find time to pray for your children? A: I get up an hour early.

The changing of the clocks seemed a good time to ease into it. I would just leave my watch set to Daylight Savings Time and let my body take advantage of that extra hour in the morning.

I find it’s natural to stay up late doing unimportant things (Sudoku, fantasy baseball). But, I won’t get up early unless it’s important. When I was a boy, I would rise well before first light on bitter mornings to hunt. But rarely would I ever do the same to study. Hunting was important to me. Studying not so much. These days, I’d fallen into a similar dilemma in my quiet times with God. I would rise early to run or workout. Exercise was important to me. But what about time with God?

On Sunday, Pastor Josh Christiansen (http://www.orlandocommunitychurch.org/) described how we fall into a devil's trap when we let a good thing (like running) be done to the exclusion of the most important thing. Early in Mark's gospel, we learn of something that was important to Jesus.

Mark 1:35 In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.

So the changing of the clocks seems like a good time to put some things back in order – the Daylight Savings Time Challenge.

my wife the model

From notes written June 23, 2009...
Today, a run will be hard to come by. Slate grey clouds roll in from the northwest dropping rain so heavy that I heard it well before I saw it. Thunder rattles my windows.
Why run, anyway?
There are good reasons. It cleans me out. I wind up thanking God for the motion and the heat – such a contrast to the sedentary way I spend my work day fastened to a desk breathing conditioned air. It’s good to do something tough. Running hurts, but the pain lasts just a few minutes and the pain gives way to endorphins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorphin).
Not always true for some of the tough hands life deals us. We had one of those hands dealt to us last week.
I had come home at midday to watch the kids so my wife of 20 years could make a followup visit regarding a mammogram. The test results had not been good. But when she came home with news from the doctor, I was shocked. The doctor prescribed a mastectomy. My bones and muscles practically liquefied. We discussed it for a long time – even mourned. But amid all of this, I had to get back to work.
After quitting time, when I returned home, I expected the worst. Instead, my wife astonished me. The house was tidy. The kids were quiet. She was on the phone putting together a grocery list for a family that has bigger problems than we have.
No one would have blamed her if she’d retired with her news, closed the bedroom door, shut off the world and holed up with her feelings. But when I arrived, there she sat working on someone else’s problems.
What a model.
Hebrews talks about Jesus running up ahead of us and how we should keep our eyes on Him to teach us how we should go. But Jesus came in first and many of us aren’t running at that pace yet. But back in the pack, every race has other runners to follow - runners who are not as fast as the winner, but who nonetheless run with their eyes on the prize - runners who, for the joy of what awaits them at the finish, run with purpose and even laughter - runners in whom others can see bits of the victor - runners who we can tuck-in behind and hang on as they pull us to the finish.
On that day, I tucked in behind my wife who was one of those runners to me.
Later that day, I ran 3.6 miles. It felt like 10K. My Nikes felt like weighted diving boots (http://www.divingmachines.com/dates2.JPG). But, I ran. When I finished, I felt relieved and cleansed (endorphins!). Gradually that feeling went away.But days later, the feeling of amazement that I felt from watching my wife still lingers. The bad news remains, but it doesn’t hang from me like it did before I saw her thinking of others. If she could think of others at a time like that, then I guess I can handle what life has in store for me, too.

The spiritual side of running

Years ago, I learned that there is a spiritual aspect to running. The lesson came courtesy of old-friend Paul Emery. Paul has always been off on one adventure or another and he always tries to drag others along with him. Somehow, Paul dragged me into his adventure de jour - training with John Christiansen to run a marathon.

Training with them began a pattern that lasted for about 9 months - rise before first light every other Saturday then wait under the street lamp in front of my house for John and Paul to run by. They'd come into view and I'd clamp-in and hold on for the trip. I soon learned that when these guys said they were going to run around town, they meant they were going to run AROUND town.

I also learned that it was natural through the hours and miles to talk about our lives and the people we touch. And every so often, John would respond by beginning to pray. We'd be huffing along, having just spoken about some problem or loved one and John would start, "Oh Lord Jesus, we ask..."

For me, prayer had always been either whisper or thought - rarely ever louder than a murmur. But these prayers were preceded by the heavy inhales of a 12 or 14 mile run and they were issued on the heavy exhales that followed. These prayers came from the diaphragm and most began with that "Oh" that comes from deep in the lungs and perhaps from deep in the soul. We prayed, not in our Sunday best, but in our sweatty mess. The rhythm of the prayers was not from a piano or pipe organ, but from the pounding of our feet and the punctuation came courtesy of the measure of our breath.

I learned from these guys that long runs lend themselves to thought and introspection. And I soon found it natural, while training by myself, to ponder and sometimes to pray. In the intervening years, my training has waxed and waned.

There have been times when I have sensed God encourage me to "run distances - it's like meditation." I have acted on that only in rare stretches.

But I was brought back to it again about two weeks ago. It was after church and dressed in my Sunday best, when I could feel my midsection pressing out against my belt. In the previous months, I had run consistently, but in short bursts of about 20 -25 minutes. I was in good shape, but not keeping the weight off. So I grabbed our friends, Jon and Betsy Hughes (http://www.trackshack.com/) and asked them if there was anything about my running that I might tweak for the sake of my waist line.

They basically encourage me to do the I'd sensed from God - run distances. So I've begun once again to build up my distance.

Once again, I find that when the run's uneven and frenetic start is behind me, and when the finish is still way out there, and when there is nothing to do but settle in with pace and patience, then the thinking begins in earnest. It IS like meditation. Perhaps, as with yoga, it's all in the breathing. Whatever it is, people come to mind - a cloud of witnesses - and it is natural to pray for them or praise Him with an "Oh" that begins from deep down inside.