You’d think that running starts in your legs. But really it’s in your lungs. In fact, the first key to running the race may be measured breathing. Let breathing get out whack or get away from you, and you’re lost. But concentrate on it – pace yourself with it – and you may be off to the races. That’s what Pastor John Christiansen said on Sunday as he discussed the parallels of trying to run marathons and trying to run the race God sets before us. His words rung true to me.
I can remember about twenty years ago, when I was first trying to learn to run distances. A good friend, a veteran of many races and long runs, ran beside me. He was older and under control. I was younger and struggling to keep up. So, he explained how he pushed and paced himself. He said he did it with his breathing – inhale on two steps, exhale on four. Over and over, he kept his feet moving in pace with his breath and metered his breath according to the rhythm of his feet. I tried that and found it worked – I could settle in to a pace that was a push, but measured and tolerable – and faster than when I’d just flail along. Perhaps it was because my body “knew” that air was taken care of and it could concentrate on other things.
I recall another conversation from ten years before that. I was trying to learn to walk with God and a good friend was coming alongside. School was almost over and we’d soon go our own ways. He knew I was going to need help if I was going to run the race and He wanted me to know I didn’t need to run alone. So, he told me about the Holy Spirit and how God had sent Him as my helper. Then my friend told me that I could “breathe in the Holy Spirit.” I have never forgotten that. I later learned that God “breathed life into Adam’s nostrils,” and that when God first sent the Holy Spirit to help the disciples, it arrived as “a mighty rushing wind.”
I have never taken this idea literally – that I can inhale the Holy Spirit. But I have often remembered that I could breathe God in like a prayer even at times that I couldn’t utter one. And just as paced breathing quickened my running, breathing in the Spirit quickened my spirit. I have since found that it is a little like a prayer - I breathe in a full deep breath, hoping God will fill me like my lungs. And it is a little like an attitude adjustment – as getting on my knees reminds me of where I stand with God, breathing Him in reminds me that He is as close as the air I breathe. And it is a little bit of faith – that if he breathed life into Adam’s nostrils and sent the Holy Spirit like a might rushing wind, then perhaps with this breath, He will come into me.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
RUNNING CONSPICUOSLY
I want my children to grow up thinking of me (and themselves) as runners – for running to be woven into their fabric. Athleticism is something that can be passed along. My father did that for me.
When I was a little boy on summer vacation, Dad would play hours of tennis in a pair of knee-length cutoff jeans and Sperry deck shoes until the sweat poured off of him in sheets. He reveled in the effort, even in the perspiration.
My father was quite a man and quite a forerunner. He was conspicuous about it and he rubbed off on me. I am six years removed from my father’s death and I am 40 years removed from those summer days. But his exertion remains a thread woven into my fabric and it is visible every afternoon when I step out into the heat and sweat pours from me as I run.
Now it is my turn to be conspicuous.
Recently, while tying on my sneaks on a Sunday afternoon, my oldest asked if she could ride along with me. My first inclination was to go alone -- running is practically meditation for me. But I hope to rub off on her too, so I said, “Sure.” She left behind a friend with our youngest daughter, put on her helmet, climbed aboard her pink flowered bike with the wide, knobby tires and off we went, just we two.
Along the way, she remarked on things I see silently so often – Lee Middle School getting rebuilt, the tidy houses on the right that were once so rundown, the vegetable garden that I always stop to look at, the clean scent of the lake…
She’d see and remark, then we’d talk – new things to her, but to me, things I see so often. The conversation flowed from her, though I labored to speak as I huffed/puffed and the sweat poured... and a hope kindled - that perhaps many years removed from now, she will recall that this is what we do. Perhaps someday, she and some little follower of her own will run and that they will both accrue all the benefits.
There is a spiritual parallel…
Recently when I was headed out the door with my journal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moleskine) and our Labrador for a morning walk and quiet time when my youngest daughter asked if she could walk along with me. My first inclination was to go alone – the morning walk is often the only meditation time that I take to focus on God. But I hope to rub off on her. So I grabbed my daughter and my Moleskine and my dog and off we went.
Along the way, we remarked on things I silently journal every so often as a sort of prayer to God – the names of people with problems, the things for which I’m thankful, the circumstances that scare me, the fresh morning…
It was hard to talk about these things – these things are so familiar to me as I silently journal, but hard to put into words. Still the conversation did flow. I hoped I was being conspicuous enough. That perhaps she and some little follower of her own will one day walk and talk about their prayers and that they will both accrue all the benefits.
When I was a little boy on summer vacation, Dad would play hours of tennis in a pair of knee-length cutoff jeans and Sperry deck shoes until the sweat poured off of him in sheets. He reveled in the effort, even in the perspiration.
My father was quite a man and quite a forerunner. He was conspicuous about it and he rubbed off on me. I am six years removed from my father’s death and I am 40 years removed from those summer days. But his exertion remains a thread woven into my fabric and it is visible every afternoon when I step out into the heat and sweat pours from me as I run.
Now it is my turn to be conspicuous.
Recently, while tying on my sneaks on a Sunday afternoon, my oldest asked if she could ride along with me. My first inclination was to go alone -- running is practically meditation for me. But I hope to rub off on her too, so I said, “Sure.” She left behind a friend with our youngest daughter, put on her helmet, climbed aboard her pink flowered bike with the wide, knobby tires and off we went, just we two.
Along the way, she remarked on things I see silently so often – Lee Middle School getting rebuilt, the tidy houses on the right that were once so rundown, the vegetable garden that I always stop to look at, the clean scent of the lake…
She’d see and remark, then we’d talk – new things to her, but to me, things I see so often. The conversation flowed from her, though I labored to speak as I huffed/puffed and the sweat poured... and a hope kindled - that perhaps many years removed from now, she will recall that this is what we do. Perhaps someday, she and some little follower of her own will run and that they will both accrue all the benefits.
There is a spiritual parallel…
Recently when I was headed out the door with my journal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moleskine) and our Labrador for a morning walk and quiet time when my youngest daughter asked if she could walk along with me. My first inclination was to go alone – the morning walk is often the only meditation time that I take to focus on God. But I hope to rub off on her. So I grabbed my daughter and my Moleskine and my dog and off we went.
Along the way, we remarked on things I silently journal every so often as a sort of prayer to God – the names of people with problems, the things for which I’m thankful, the circumstances that scare me, the fresh morning…
It was hard to talk about these things – these things are so familiar to me as I silently journal, but hard to put into words. Still the conversation did flow. I hoped I was being conspicuous enough. That perhaps she and some little follower of her own will one day walk and talk about their prayers and that they will both accrue all the benefits.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
on running the race
When the little kids start the race, there is joy on their faces. They're young and it's all fresh.
When the big kids start the race, faces are grim. They are ready to pour it all out. They know it's going to burn.
Not that they shy from the race because of that. I find with the high school age boys that I coach in lacrosse, they want to pour it out. The grim aspect is almost attractive. They burn to do something great - to take on some great endeavor. It's what draws people to run marathons and to test themselves in efforts like those offered by Outward Bound.
Now, imagine Jesus as He started his race. Imagine the joy He must have felt with His first miracle -- turning water to wine to honor His Father and on behalf of His mother at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. Imagine Him a little like those little kids in their first race. Exhilarated. Even smiling.
It wouldn't always be like that. In fact, we find Isaiah says of Jesus, He would be a man of sorrows. And anyone that has ever gone deep into their reserves, deep in a race has a little understanding of what Isaiah means. It's why, at the end of a race, a runner is often tempted to just sit down on the nearest curb and have a good cry rather than exult.
But for now, imagine Him at the outset - the pain at the end is out there looming, but it's still low on the horizon. For the moment, there is the exultation of sensing He's begun the run He was born to make. As Eric Liddell said in Chariots of Fire, "I feel His pleasure."
Video of Eric Liddell:
http://danziebarth.blogspot.com/2008/01/and-when-i-run-i-feel-his-pleasure.html
When the big kids start the race, faces are grim. They are ready to pour it all out. They know it's going to burn.
Not that they shy from the race because of that. I find with the high school age boys that I coach in lacrosse, they want to pour it out. The grim aspect is almost attractive. They burn to do something great - to take on some great endeavor. It's what draws people to run marathons and to test themselves in efforts like those offered by Outward Bound.
Now, imagine Jesus as He started his race. Imagine the joy He must have felt with His first miracle -- turning water to wine to honor His Father and on behalf of His mother at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. Imagine Him a little like those little kids in their first race. Exhilarated. Even smiling.
It wouldn't always be like that. In fact, we find Isaiah says of Jesus, He would be a man of sorrows. And anyone that has ever gone deep into their reserves, deep in a race has a little understanding of what Isaiah means. It's why, at the end of a race, a runner is often tempted to just sit down on the nearest curb and have a good cry rather than exult.
But for now, imagine Him at the outset - the pain at the end is out there looming, but it's still low on the horizon. For the moment, there is the exultation of sensing He's begun the run He was born to make. As Eric Liddell said in Chariots of Fire, "I feel His pleasure."
Video of Eric Liddell:
http://danziebarth.blogspot.com/2008/01/and-when-i-run-i-feel-his-pleasure.html
Sunday, March 15, 2009
the joy of the race
I attended field day at my daughters' school last Friday. and I got to watch countless kids race the 50 yard dash.
Hebrews 12 tells us to run with endurance the race marked out for us by fixing our eyes on the one that ran it before us (Christ) who for the sake of joy that waited for Him at the finish, despite the pain.
Well, you watch kids and you see the joy of racing.
Hebrews 12 tells us to run with endurance the race marked out for us by fixing our eyes on the one that ran it before us (Christ) who for the sake of joy that waited for Him at the finish, despite the pain.
Well, you watch kids and you see the joy of racing.
When the race begins, two or three of them get silly grins on their faces. A few others get this very determined look that suggests some sort of fire burning inside them. Most of them at one time or another look down at their own feet wondering if they're fast. And fast or slow, they all churn to the finish line. But three quarters of the way there, the legs and lungs start burning and these little guys have to trudge on to reach the finish. From start to finish, along the entire stretch, parents, teachers, administrators and kids from other grades (a great cloud of witnesses) cheer them on.
You realize that God put something in the heart of each of these kids to run the race. That for the sake of whatever joy awaited them on the other side of that finish line, they'd endure the burn in the lungs and legs. On a micro-scale - like Jesus did.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
on being a daily runner and Christian
I find that I feel a lot more like a runner when I try to run every day.
For years, I’ve subscribed to the idea that you take a day off between your runs. But recently, while coming off the flu and an enforced hiatus from my roadwork, I read a book by Haruki Murakami (http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Talk-About-When-Running/dp/1846552206). In that book, he talks about running daily and it struck a chord with me.
So I thought I’d try it. I started slow and short (about 11 minutes a mile and about 3 miles per run per day). After about four of these, I found I wasn’t overly fatigued. My times were improving. Plus I found that my legs and hips were tightening up in a good way. Like I was tightening the strings on an old baseball glove or tuning up an old banjo. Even my lower back and abs were ‘tautening up.’
For now, the daily runs are my approach. They’ve been a pleasant surprise. Before this, I’d scheduled one and two day breaks into my running schedule because my bones and joints are older now (I just turned 50). But I didn’t see the weight loss I’d sought and my body hadn’t tautened up – and I didn’t really feel like a runner. But going daily changes that.
I think there’s a parallel in this with trying to be a “Christian.” I think it's what Josh Christiansen (Associate Pastor at Orlando Community Church http://www.orlandocommunitychurch.org/index.htm) hit on when he coined the term, "daily Christian."
If you’re going to see the strings of your spiritual life "tautened," being a Christian, it has to be more than a Sunday morning thing. Like the difference between reading my Bible and praying daily versus sporadically. And I know that there are other places where being a daily Christian would show too.
Like running daily, it becomes part of what I am. It seeps into my thoughts and my conversation. And like the changes to my waistline and musculature, I find my life slowly tightening up in a good way.
For years, I’ve subscribed to the idea that you take a day off between your runs. But recently, while coming off the flu and an enforced hiatus from my roadwork, I read a book by Haruki Murakami (http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Talk-About-When-Running/dp/1846552206). In that book, he talks about running daily and it struck a chord with me.
So I thought I’d try it. I started slow and short (about 11 minutes a mile and about 3 miles per run per day). After about four of these, I found I wasn’t overly fatigued. My times were improving. Plus I found that my legs and hips were tightening up in a good way. Like I was tightening the strings on an old baseball glove or tuning up an old banjo. Even my lower back and abs were ‘tautening up.’
For now, the daily runs are my approach. They’ve been a pleasant surprise. Before this, I’d scheduled one and two day breaks into my running schedule because my bones and joints are older now (I just turned 50). But I didn’t see the weight loss I’d sought and my body hadn’t tautened up – and I didn’t really feel like a runner. But going daily changes that.
I think there’s a parallel in this with trying to be a “Christian.” I think it's what Josh Christiansen (Associate Pastor at Orlando Community Church http://www.orlandocommunitychurch.org/index.htm) hit on when he coined the term, "daily Christian."
If you’re going to see the strings of your spiritual life "tautened," being a Christian, it has to be more than a Sunday morning thing. Like the difference between reading my Bible and praying daily versus sporadically. And I know that there are other places where being a daily Christian would show too.
Like running daily, it becomes part of what I am. It seeps into my thoughts and my conversation. And like the changes to my waistline and musculature, I find my life slowly tightening up in a good way.
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