Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Thy Kingdom Came

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  Matthew 5:4
In church one recent Sunday, we were asked to discuss the things that we know for sure about God.  Honestly, I couldn't come up with much.  Frank said he knows there is a God.  I couldn't in all sincerity claim even to know that for sure.  Things were looking pretty ungodly to me.  Since then, though, I've been taught a few things I'd like to add to my list. 

Jesus spends a lot of his red print time trying to convince us that the Kingdom of God is weird and unexpected.  It's not like a mighty tree; it's like a mustard weed.  The prodigal son gets a party after dividing the inheritance and wasting it away in profligate living.  Jesus hangs out with lepers, prostitutes, tax collectors, fishermen, and partiers.  The enemy is the friend.  Death is not death.  If you're really thinking about any of it, and not just hearing the same stories you've heard hundreds of times, it's pretty clear that the Kingdom of God is crazy, scruffy, ugly, and somehow enchanting anyway.  But even if you are thinking about these things, reading thoughtfully and considering how they might look in your own life, it's shocking to come face to face with it.

We spent the following Tuesday getting ready for my uncle's funeral.  I've already written about him and some of the conflicting feelings we had about his death.  It only got worse as more and more of the mess was revealed.  I drove to his funeral with my parents, and we had one of those rare real conversations that for some reason doesn’t occur all that often in our family.  My mom cannot let go of the indescribable filth in which he was living, and since she had to sort through it for an entire weekend, I don’t blame her for that.  My dad had some theories about how some of it happened, but eventually all of them break down.  How can a person go so far past the line and not care, not even seem to notice?  Yeah, leaving tonight’s mess to clean up in the morning and then not getting to it in the rush to get somewhere else makes sense.  How often do I do that?  But eventually things calm down and you clean it up.  And I would never ever leave meat rotting on my floor, finish a can of Coke and drop it, or see the bugs infesting everything I owned and decide to buy a little roach motel.  Honestly, for as creepily brilliant as my uncle was, he was also a complete moron.  Or else he was the laziest most disgusting person any of us had ever come across.  It just didn’t make sense, or else it only made sense in a world without grace.

I had shown my family what I wrote about Rick, and they all said it was right-on.  So in conversation, from the advantage of being a generation removed, from the sheltered position of beloved niece, I tried to remind us, occasionally, of his good qualities.  I have seen them, although, truthfully, only a little, and not enough to wipe out for us all the far more powerful and tangible reality of his brokenness.  We arrived at the funeral home, my aunts, a cousin, my parents and I, still not sure how to feel, and really not sure how a funeral service for such a person would turn out.  We all commented on how bizarre and surreal the whole thing was.  We were all shocked and grieved and a little bit nervous and uneasy.  In our experience, Uncle Rick was frustrating and uncomfortable to be around as a rule, and we fully expected his funeral to reflect that.  We wondered if anyone but us would come.

And that, my gentle readers, is when the Kingdom of God arrived on the scene.

Right at the beginning of the visitation a few people arrived.  They were normal, friendly, kind people.  Some were from his church.  Some were from work.  Some were wearing suits.  Then more people showed up.  The people from his work were in shock.  He had gone to work on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, called in sick Thursday night, and when everyone arrived back at work on Tuesday morning after the holiday weekend, they were told he had died.  They said they had no idea he was so sick.  They said work was very somber that day.  They all dropped everything to come to his funeral.  "Nice people!" we said to each other.  Really, very nice of them to come (especially for someone like Rick, we added in our heads.)  Then more people came.  The room in which the service was held was one of those double-long rooms that could probably be divided for very intimate services, and by the time the service began, it was perhaps more than two-thirds full.  Huh.

The pastor's address was excellent.  He used a passage from Isaiah and Romans 8:18-30:
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that[h] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
 26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[i] have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

I remember thinking at the time that he had taken our mixed emotions and started to unmix them.  I felt better.  I felt better about being baffled by Rick’s life and death.  I felt better about Rick, and I felt better knowing that he had been in relationship with such a man as that pastor.  I felt, even, hopeful.  Maybe God had a secret and bizarre plan; maybe it was OK, even though I would never see how.  I thought, at the time, that I would remember that sermon for quite a while.  But now I don't remember much of it, because after the minister spoke, he invited others to speak.  I had not prepared anything.  I had written something, but it was not material for a memorial service, so I didn’t even bring it just in case.  I am the writer in my family, so if I had failed to come up with a eulogy, I honestly wasn't expecting many other people to have one.  I was wrong. 

The first person to speak was the leader of the "study club" at my uncle's church.  She was a retired teacher and had started a program to provide at-risk kids in grades 2-5 from a local school with a mentor.  She said she beat the bushes looking for volunteers, and Rick was one of the people who agreed to help.  The bubbly study club lady didn’t make a face at this point, but I have to wonder if she thought, “Oh great!” at the time.  I promise you, my uncle was unkempt looking, had no teeth and smelled funny.  There are reasons for that that no one at his church knew, but there was no way to avoid seeing and smelling him.  I have to wonder if the study club lady thought his participation was going to be interesting at best.  She never made any indication, though, that she was anything but grateful to him.  She was without doubt a woman with great compassion and grace in that regard, and thank God for her.  The first year, she gave Uncle Rick a little girl with an attraction to breaking the rules.  The little girl would not sit still and would not stay focused.  When my Uncle Rick found her exploring the sanctuary one day, he offered to give her a tour of the church.  My uncle, as we in his family know, didn’t like to play by anyone else’s rules.  When the study club lady told that story, we got it.  Brilliant.  Student #1 breakthrough.  My family and I looked at each other.  One of the frustrating things about Rick used to reach out to a child in need.  Perfect, but we had never thought of it.
My uncle’s student the second year was a boy with a behavior disorder.  He would get dropped off after school and be angry at the world.  The cheerful study club lady only pissed him off.  He was surly and uncooperative.  And then my uncle stepped in, said, “I got this,” and took over.  Ten minutes later, my broken uncle and his b.d. student were talking and laughing, leaning back in their chairs.  By the end of the session, the books were open and they were talking academics.  I physically felt my jaw dropping open a bit.
The third year in the program my uncle was given the toughest case, a girl who had been referred to the program repeatedly, a girl with whom no one had made any headway.  My uncle’s summary of her was that she was “working hard at becoming functionally illiterate.”  And yet, when he died, he had school materials for her in his car.  The study club lady looked at his picture and said, “I’m not letting you off the hook with this one.  You’ve got some big guns on your side now, and I expect to see evidence that you’re using them.”
I won’t attempt to write down everything everyone said.  The Disciple Bible Study teacher talked about Rick’s encyclopedic knowledge, surprising close reading skills, and photographic memory.  Of course, these things would not be apparent except for my Uncle’s willingness to share his opinions and to talk at length.  Yes, we knew that.  But the teacher said it was wonderful and added to discussion and that Rick never argued or corrected anyone without kindness.  His entire Disciple class was at the funeral.  They wouldn’t have missed it. 
A man stood up and said that he and Rick often stood around and shot the breeze while the man’s wife cleaned up.  We chuckled because of course Rick wasn’t involved in the cleaning up.  Although my uncle did not look the least bit athletic, his exceptional intelligence and memory, not to mention the amount of time he spent watching TV, gave him the ability to discuss all sports at length and with detail and depth.  So that’s what they usually talked about.  Then one day, the man told us, Rick said, “Well that’s enough of that.  What do you think of these new Broadway revivals?”  He then started to summarize and critique The Pajama Game.  The man raised his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders and said, “And that’s all I’ve got….”  He was shaking his head as he returned to his seat while the rest of us laughed.  Yep.  Rick talked as if he knew everything about everything.  And maybe that wasn’t too far off the mark.  The hundreds of books in his apartment were too bug infested to consider saving, but his co-workers cleaned out his office and sent the personal items to my parents.  Among the three books he had at work were two political thrillers, and Dante’s Divine Comedy, with a number of bookmarks and dog-ears.  Seriously.        
Uncle Rick’s boss stood up and said that Rick was at work just as we had heard from everyone else.  He had worked at the same job for 28 years.  He was, by all accounts, very good at what he did and remembered every little thing that ever happened at work.  My dad told me Rick was once offered a promotion, but it meant moving to Indiana, and he couldn’t be bothered with that and so stayed in his same night job for the rest of his life.  When his current boss first arrived, he asked her how she could be his boss when she didn’t know anything.  Sometimes he would just mumble something incoherent as he walked past her.  But eventually she won his respect, and he would stop and talk in her office as he was leaving work and she was arriving.  They talked about their faith lives. 
The most amazing story, though, is worth repeating at some length.  My uncle’s church was Friendship United Methodist, and being Wesleyan, they believe in community.  Clearly, they also believe in grace.  They are encouraged, during the fellowship hour between services, to talk to people, to reach out, to be friendly, to be part of the community of faith.  My uncle, a loner who smelled and talked loudly and didn’t like to play by other people’s rules, nevertheless took this to heart.  The church secretary told us that Rick’s habit was to circle around the various conversations happening during the fellowship time until he found one to hover near.  He would stand outside the circle, listening, and then suddenly be in the midst of it.  I could picture that. 
The church secretary had, in this manner, talked to Rick in the past, although never about anything personal.  She had of course never mentioned to him that she was having some personal struggles.  One Sunday, while she was standing in a conversation group, Rick circled around the outside of the group, reached in, and dropped a bag at her feet.  “This is for you,” he muttered, and walked off.  Have I mentioned he was an unusual person?  I imagine conversation stopped while some eyebrows went up.  “What is it?” asked someone else in the group.  A third person picked it up and pulled from the bag a brand-new book with the receipt still in it.  The book she held up as a prop was not pristine and had, she said, been read everywhere, including the bathtub.  The book was titled God Never Blinks: 50 Lessons for Life’s Little Detours and looked like a self-help type of book with some spirituality sprinkled in.  She wasn’t much of a self-help book type.  I don’t blame her for setting the book aside.  A few days later when she saw Rick again, he asked her, “Have you read that book yet?”  She said she had not.  The following Sunday he accosted her again and asked, “Have you read that book yet?”  She explained that she was really busy and getting ready for a trip but would take the book with her on the plane.  She did so.  She said that she cried most of the five-hour flight to California because it felt like the book was written specifically for her, about her, maybe even by her.  She kept reading parts of it to her husband and saying, “Doesn’t that sound just like me?”  He verified later that she had been doing this even after the plane trip, sometimes calling him into the bathroom to read a passage.  She said the book spoke to her so deeply and was so exactly just what she needed that she keeps it next to her bed and expects she will read it over and over.  How did he know she needed that particular book?
When she returned from her trip and saw Rick at church, he asked again, “Have you read that book yet?”  She was able to say that she was almost done with it.  He asked her which chapter she liked best.  She was surprised that he had read the book, since it had come to her looking pristine and unopened, but then he said, “Chapter ten is my favorite.” 
She went home and reread chapter ten, which was titled, “God never gives us more than we were designed to carry.”  It was a chapter about a family with a Downs’ Syndrome child in the early 1970s, a time when more often than not such children were institutionalized and were nearly always marginalized.  To make matters worse, the mother died, leaving the father with five children, the youngest with Downs’ Syndrome.  The father, rather than treating his Downs’ Syndrome son as a burden, made him the center of the family, and when the father grew old enough that his children began to make arrangements for the care of the youngest sibling when the father passed away, they all wanted him.  The child who was different and disabled was not a burden but a blessing.  That resonated with my uncle.  And now with my family as well.
As my dad said at the funeral, Rick was a frustration to his family.  He always had been.  But the stories we heard that Tuesday night opened our eyes to the possibility—no, the reality—that no soul is too broken, too odd, too smelly, too opinionated, too irresponsible to be an instrument of the divine.  In fact, maybe people like my Uncle Rick have less getting in their way when it comes to being infected with the Holy Spirit.
The trouble I have with the Holy Spirit is that it doesn’t have as many compelling Bible stories.  The Old Testament has hundreds of stories about how God is with God’s people.  The gospels are story after story about how Jesus acts with God’s people.  But other than the story of Pentecost and some testimonials from Paul, I don’t hear much about the third part of the trinity.  I’ve been taught that it exists, but how?  What does it look like in the world?  It occurred to me, as I listened to the stories of the mysterious behavior of my oftentimes difficult and disgusting uncle, that I was at last hearing stories of how the Holy Spirit finds its way into a human life, and from there, into more lives.
How can one possibly explain what happened to us at that funeral except to say that the Kingdom of God was among us?  Just as Jesus promised, it found us through the prodigal son, the leper, the unclean.  We were shocked and then humbled and brought to tears.  The world turned inside out for us, and we left a funeral rejoicing.
Paul, in 1 Corinthians 1:26-30, explains it better than I can:
 26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
Amen, Paul.  So be it.  And thanks, Uncle Rick, for teaching me a few things the way no one else could have.  I hope I never forget.  I suspect you’ll be laughing and rubbing your hands for a good long time over that one.  That joke was on us, and it was your best yet.  In fact, I’m going to retell it….

Monday, June 13, 2011

Ragnar Relay: Madison to Chicago, June 10-11

Saturday, June 11, 2011
Crazy as it sounds, I am reluctant to go to sleep tonight because then today, Friday still for me, will be completely over.  I suppose now that I have showered and brushed my teeth and hair, it already has ended, and nothing is left but a grumpy intestinal tract, a sunburned face, some sore quadriceps muscles, and a renewed passion for running so strong that it makes me want to cry to think about it.
To be completely honest, I wasn’t sure if this weekend was going to be a good thing or not.  In particular, I didn’t know what my foot was going to do, and it seemed to me that that had the potential to ruin the whole thing for me.  I have just had enough with injury and inability and being the weak link.  It feels awful.  And I’ve been a bit disconnected from the running group for a while, so although I am friends with everyone who was going to be in my van, I was feeling cautious about that as well.
Fortunately, as soon as I woke up on Friday morning, well before 6am,  I was excited.  I was excited just to be going somewhere and to maybe be running, although still pretty nervous about the foot.  Mary picked me up a bit after 7am, and we met the rest of the team and all trooped up to Wisconsin.  We made a gas/Wendy’s stop, a grocery stop, and a chai stop (for me.)  I started to feel like things were going to be OK one way or another.
We arrived at the park in Madison before noon and decorated the vans.  We hung around a bit and attended the mandatory safety meeting.  Then I hurried back to the car to change out of my jeans and team shirt and into running clothes.  I had been watching the weather prediction obsessively.  It seemed very likely that we were going to get rained on constantly, and the temperature was supposed to be quite chilly.  But in spite of predictions, the weather was perhaps 60 and overcast before my first run.  I put on a tank top and shorts with a long-sleeve over for before the start line and went back to find my team.  I had only a few minutes for pictures and race numbers and last instructions before the 1pm teams were told to line up.  There were maybe 20 or so teams in our group.  The MC read off the team names.  Of course when he read off “Fox River Trail Runners,” I got the loudest cheers.  Both vans were there to see the start.  As the MC announced that we were seconds away from starting a 197 mile race, I could not help but smile.  How incredibly cool.  I was at the beginning of a challenge and an adventure. 
Still nervous about my foot, I started out at the back of the pack.  Honestly, since I am still not up to my normal running mileage and speed, I was worried that I was just going to be left in the dust.  For a few minutes I was left behind, but then I passed a few people and found my rhythm.  It is rarely smart to abandon all self-control and common sense at the beginning of a long race, and I was testing out my foot as well.  I talked to a guy briefly who said he had just been recruited to his team the day before and that in running the nine-minute pace we were at, he was going way faster than he had promised his teammates.  I picked the pace up and he slowed down, and I probably never saw him or his team again. 
My run started out around Lake Monona in downtown Madison.  It was lovely to be running, and although my foot was a bit uncomfortable, and I was still anxious about what that meant for the overall race, I was happy to be running along the water and through the city.  I felt myself beginning to relax into the run.  My foot did hurt, but not more than usual, and I accepted that it was going to do what it was going to do.  Too late to back out.  At the very least, I was going to do this first run and enjoy it. 
My team passed me in the van and honked and yelled and then had to stop at a stop-light.  I ran past them.  Then they passed me again.  Then I was held up by some traffic in the busy downtown.  It was not a closed course, so I did have to stop at intersections and wait for the lights to change, which was a very odd experience during a race.  I followed the signs, or so I thought, and since we were still only a few miles from the starting line, I could follow the runners in front of me.  Because I had had to hurry back to the van to change, I had been told that I missed an announcement about a detour in leg one.  I figured it would be marked or that the people ahead of me would know what to do.  We ran down a street that was all torn up.  Strange, I thought, that they would detour us into construction.  In spite of the construction, however, and the frequent need to stop or slow at intersections, I enjoyed the urban neighborhood I was running through.  There were co-ops and bead stores and markets and older but not fancy homes that looked very down-to-earth and like they housed my kind of people. 
Eventually, though, it did seem like we had been running through construction for a  long time, probably a couple of miles, and the three people ahead of me all slowed and stopped at an intersection.  “Are we lost?” I asked.  The two women and one man who had once been ahead of me said that we probably were.  None of us had maps or cell phones.  None of us had memorized the street names on our route.  “Well,” I said, “I know that we pretty much follow the lake the whole time, and our exchange is by the lake, so we could head toward the lake.”  We did so, and after a couple of blocks-worth of running, we saw a guy with an orange flag.  Ragnar gives every van a couple of safety flags (for a $15 deposit) and demands that every non-runner use one when crossing a street.  We had made fun of this over-the-top safety precaution, but they actually came in very handy in this case because someone used their team flag to point us in the right direction.  Within a block or two we saw more Ragnar directional signs and finished without further confusion.
Although I am sorry that I probably missed some non-construction scenery, I am, in retrospect, grateful for the course confusion.  Once I turned my attention from my foot to my possible lostness, and then to the people with/against whom I was running, I allowed myself to really race.  I picked up the pace a bit to pass two of the people with whom I had become lost.  Both were ultra runners, meaning they were ultimately going to be running twice as much as I was, but they did not just have foot surgery either, so it was a valid victory.  They were very fit runners, and I was definitely picking up the pace.  A third woman stayed out ahead of me and gave me something to chase down.  I finished my run feeling stronger and faster than I began it. 
My team’s uniform was a brightly colored orange and yellow tie-dyed shirt, and I saw a few in the distance as I approached the exchange.  Then I saw Brian moving away from the exchange.  I was really glad that both vans had come to see the first hand-off but was a little disappointed that they were going to miss the actual hand-off.  Why not wait two more minutes? Then I saw Dan, the person to whom I was handing off, sprinting toward the exchange area almost as hard as I was, apparently quite recently alerted to my approach.  I slapped the bracelet on his arm without hitch.
At the next couple of exchanges, I was good to my foot, sitting and icing more than is generally my inclination, but I really wanted to run on it again, so it seemed worth it.  The second van stayed with us for a couple of exchanges, and Mary and Max (captain and two-year-old) stayed with us for several.  I spent an exchange or two trying to find out about a friend who had been in surgery all day, but once I heard that he had come through, it was easier to hang around with my teammates and chat.  At one exchange in a small town in Wisconsin where someone had driven their riding lawnmower to the gas station and pulled it up to the pump, I went into the gas station to buy ice for our cooler.  The guy in front of me at the counter, possibly the owner of the lawn mower, was asking the employees what all the commotion was about.  The one handling the money said, “It’s some relay from Madison to Wisconsin.”  When the guy with the checkbook said, “Yeah, but why?”  She answered him, “I don’t know.  I can’t figure that part out.”  They turned around and looked at me.  Seeing it from their perspective, it was a good question.  “We’re doing it because we love to run, and it’s what we do for fun,” I told them.  They shrugged and didn’t appear completely satisfied with my answer.  It is, I must admit, something that a non-runner could probably never understand. 
When Ryan, our sixth runner was out on the course, we met up with the other van again.  They had stopped for a meal (we hadn’t had lunch—except for my Starbucks wrap and some food from the van) and attended the orientation for van two.  The exchange from van to van was fun.  We felt more like a team than I had thought we might. 
When all of our runners were in, we had a couple hours off, so we went to downtown Lake Mills to Carp’s Landing and had what was, by then, dinner.  That was a bizarre treat: to sit down to a nice meal with your team in the middle of a race.  It had the effect, as most shared meals do, of making us feel like family, like we belonged together.  We were a very agreeable mix of personalities with no sore thumbs and no one being rude or rubbing anyone else the wrong way. 
After dinner, we went to the next van-to-van exchange where I would be picking up the baton.  The number of vans there was astonishing!  Hundreds of vans with hundreds and hundreds of runners!  By then we had caught up with earlier waves of people.  I saw a pair of women I know slightly, and they had started hours before we did.  We had been on the road for over 13 hours by then, but since each of us had actually only run once, it seemed a bit odd that we were feeling tired.  Perhaps it was because we knew what lay ahead.  Both dusk and a light rain were falling when we arrived at exchange 13, and it was getting chilly as well.  We decided to hunker down in the van to rest until we received word that the last runner from van two was on his way.  I did not fall asleep, but we all lay there in the dark piled on top of each other perfectly silently and motionlessly lest we wake each other.  My foot ached a bit, and my hip started to get sore from being curled up and bearing all my weight, but the silence and stillness seemed too sacred to disturb until it was absolutely necessary to do so.
It was full night and still raining and chilly when it was my turn to run again around 10pm.  Ragnar demanded that all night-time runners wear a reflective vest, head-lamp, and tail-light for safety purposes.  In addition to those precautions, I was asked to take a cell phone on my leg as it was going to be on a trail and I would have no contact with my van along the route.  I wore a billed cap both for the rain and for the purpose of supporting the headlamp, and it worked fairly well.  I had a pocket that attached to my race number belt for my cell phone.  I also carried a small flashlight.
The exchange was in a large wide-open park near Waukesha, WI.  The previous runners were coming out of the thick foggy darkness, and we could not see any features beyond their headlamps until they were actually in the exchange, so a few hundred yards out, a race volunteer would shout out the number of the team coming in.  Todd came in at full speed, put the bracelet on my wrist, and I set off into the darkness as well.  Immediately my tail light fell off, and I turned back to retrieve it.
I had to run on a street for a short bit and then turn into a parking lot and thence onto the trail.  The runner ahead of me missed the turn.  I tried to call to him/her but I do not know if he/she heard.  The only person who responded was the guy behind me.  “Are you going the right way?” he demanded, not very kindly.  “I believe so!” I said, and flashed my light onto the sign right in front of us. 
Once we gained the trail, the grumpy guy still right behind me, we were completely alone in the absolute darkness of a foggy, drizzling night.  The path, as it turned out, was a paved one, and a fairly smooth one at that.  The foliage was thick and glistening with rain on both sides of the trail, and it smelled green and lush and clean.  It was late at night, and I was out running on a dark trail through lush verdure in the rain.  I took a deep breath and smiled all the way down to my belly, perfectly happy.  I was pushing my legs and my core pretty hard, but my soul was relaxed and free and about as blissful as it has been in these many long months of injury.  I said to the guy maybe 20 feet behind me, “Isn’t this glorious?”  He didn’t respond, but the vibes coming off him were not adequately joyful, so I left him in my dust, or more accurately my puddles.  I pushed just a little harder, and after a while I could no longer hear his footfalls.  I was a solitary runner in the deep night.
My second run was 4.3 miles, and for almost all of it, I was completely alone in the thick, dark silence of the trail.  The mist danced ahead of me in my headlamp in bright silver sparks, and I heard only the rattle of my jostling taillight, my own footfalls, and the wind in my ears as I flew down the trail.  I was working hard, but I was at complete peace.  I could see no civilization, no light, no stars even, but I felt completely at home, as though I was at the single best spot in the planet, and I was the one privileged to be there.  I could hear and feel myself working hard, pushing against the ground faster than I’ve run in months, but I was also airborne.  That run alone was worth the surgery and ensuing recovery.  It was worth every sucky careful run I’ve had in the process of getting back into shape.  That run was a perfect embodiment of why I run.  I felt my most joyful me.  It was even, dare I say it, a reason to live here on this planet at all.
Eventually, in the distance, I saw blinking red lights.  They turned out to be at the promised water station.  I did not need sustenance beyond the sheer pleasure of running, but I thanked the volunteer for being there in the middle of the wet night for us runners.  He told me cheerfully that I had one mile to go, which left me with a strange dilemma.  A glance at my watch told me that if he was right, I was running surprisingly well, and I felt like I could certainly maintain the pace.  But that would mean less than eight minutes more of the perfect run.  Slowing and prolonging it, on the other hand, would mar its perfection.  I dug in to hold on for another mile, to give my full self to the joy of running. 
Just past the water station, a bit ahead of me was figure in a reflective vest with a flashlight swinging from side to side.  The person was moving so slowly that I assumed at first that it was a volunteer looking for cups discarded after the water station.  As I approached, however, I saw that it was a fellow female runner, just a different level of runner.  I do not like to be passed, and I was not passed the entire relay, but I also am aware that by zipping past a much slower runner, I may have a demoralizing affect, so I like to offer encouragement instead.  For this one I said, “Woo hoo!” as I passed her.  She jumped and made a startled noise.  “Oh, I didn’t mean to scare you,” I said, “I meant to cheer you on!”  She laughed and thanked me, and all was mended. 
I emerged from the trail and the woods and exchanged the bracelet in a wet, open field.  I was sad to end the perfect run, the perfect half hour, but I was also decidedly euphoric.  Running was back.  I was a runner again.  I was home.  I was in love. 
Pleasantly, during the course of my run the rain had diminished from drizzle to mist to tangible fog.  The rest of my team ran their night-time legs, ending at about 1am at a large high school where the other van had been resting for an hour or two.  We debated resting there as well, but ultimately we decided to drive ahead to the next van-to-van exchange site so that we would certainly be ready to run when it was our turn again.
I think I actually did doze off for a few minutes while the van was being driven by someone else.  By the time we blearily grabbed our pillows and sleeping bags and made our way from the van parking area to the church that was offering a place to rest.  Four of us stumbled into a dark room with room for four more and unrolled our bags.  I went off to find a bathroom; all had very long lines.  By the time I was able to lie down, it was 2:30 am. 
It felt wonderful to stretch out flat in the dark, but although I was content and relaxed, I did not fall asleep.  My phone made a sound—a text from a teammate.  I tried my back and my stomach and could not fall asleep.  A bit before 3am a phone call informed me that I should be ready run again around 4am.  I had set my alarm for 3:20, figuring that would give me adequate time to get back to the van and put in my contacts, maybe eat a bit, and get back to the exchange site in front of the church.  I found, however, that I was not going to be able to sleep for those last twenty minutes either.  I had to pee, and I was hungry, so I crept out of the room and again stood in the bathroom line, which was still very long. 
No one was talking in line.  It was 3am and we were runners in line for a bathroom.  When else do you have such fodder for small talk?  I asked the women around me when they had started running.  The one ahead of me in line had started at 8am, and when my eyebrows lifted in amazement, the woman behind me said she had started at 6am.  “Wow!” I breathed.  I must have been not entirely awake, because before I thought about it, I said, “Well that’s good!  You must be about done….” And then I realized that of course they were not any more done than I was.  They were still outside Racine and had to run to Chicago.  Oops.  Swallowing foot….  Of course, then they asked me when I had started.  When I guiltily admitted that we had started at 1pm, the one woman said to the other, once a complete stranger and now a comrade in endurance running, “Oh, she must be one of those elite runners.”  I do not usually think of myself that way, but put into the perspective they had provided I thought that yes, we probably had been allowed to start at 1pm because we were going to finish on time even with a late start.  “Well the people in my van are all good runners,” I said.  “We can generally average paces somewhere between 7 and 8, but the people in the other van are really really fast.”  To comfort them, I added, “But that means that we don’t really get to sleep.” 
“How long is it going to take your team to finish?” asked one of the women, in awe.
“Well, we were shooting for around 24 hours,” I answered her.
Both women looked impressed.  One was hoping to finish mid to late afternoon.  The other one was hoping to finish around 7pm.  She said the course closed at 9pm.  37 hours out on the course!! Wow.
Leg 25 was mine, and it happened at 4:05am.  Save for a brief doze in the van on the way to the exchange, I had been awake for about 23 hours.  I hadn’t had a meal since 6pm the previous day.  So my insides were a little confused by the experience.  Luckily, the porta-potties outside the church had no line and I was able to frequent them.  I wished I had known about them before standing in line inside.  The conversation might have been worth it, but just flushing was not.  I was well beyond niceties by then.  I had a bite of Clif bar and a vanilla gu with caffeine and just hoped for the best.  My right quadricep was also starting to twinge a bit.  My foot felt no worse than it did on the first run, so I considered myself, overall, ready to go.  My previous run had been such a soul-lifting experience, that, honestly, I would rather have been running than sleeping at four in the morning anyway.  The weather was still hovering between precipitation and just heavy fog, but the air felt a little warmer to me and I decided on a short sleeve shirt and shorts.  I had tights and a long-sleeve at the ready, but I decided that if I got cold, I’d just run harder.
As before, my team number was called out before I could actually see Todd.  A man was running toward me, and I stood so that he would run right into me.  My team shouted, though, “This is not him!”  That guy gave his bracelet to someone else, and I stood at the ready.  When Todd actually ran up, he put the bracelet on me and I ran off down the street.
The venue of my third run was not nearly as spectacular as the previous run.  I was running down what would have been a moderately busy street at any other time of day.  Even at 4am there were a surprising number of cars.  Most of the run was on the side of the street.  Toward the end a sidewalk became available.  As before, I was able to both push and relax into the run.  So often when I am racing I hear other runners around me, particularly at the beginning before we’ve all spread out and grouped ourselves by ability level, complaining about the heat or the cold or the damp or the early hour.  In a long-distance relay, you almost never get to run with someone for long enough to have a conversation, but all of the people I passed on my third run looked far less happy to be there than I was.  For one thing, I reminded myself, they were much slower than I was and probably didn’t have the kind of speedy team I had, so they had been on the road a lot longer than I had.  And the scanty 3.8 miles we had to cover on our leg would probably take them longer than it would take me as well.  Add to that, then, that some skinny woman was zooming past them, and yeah, I had some advantages in the spirit department.  But as with any other race, the thought most prominent in my mind was gratitude and joy that I could be out running instead of doing anything else.  The question from the gas station earlier that day, or, excuse me, technically the day before, crossed my mind.  Why would you run from Madison to Chicago through a day and a night and a day if not for the joy of doing it?  What else would I rather be doing?  Whenever I passed someone I would look at my watch and try to estimate how much longer we had to go.  When I passed someone who looked like they were really suffering through their run, I would tell them they were doing a good job and how much further we had to go.  It wasn’t until the end of my run that I passed a couple of women who were closer to my pace.
My team likes to keep track of how many people we pass during the relay and tally them on the side of our van under the heading “road kill.”  This earned us some disgusted looks when we drove back into Geneva with the markings still on the van.  I assume the older man who looked appalled probably thought we had intentionally been running over small animals.  I passed ten people on my third leg, most of them probably from starting waves many hours before ours.
About half-way through my run, the birds started to sing.  We were still an hour before sunrise, but I managed to be out running at the mysterious moment when birds decided it is close enough to morning to start making noise. 
My favorite moment of my last run, however, was near the end, when suddenly the course dipped down and turned right, and suddenly I was running along Lake Michigan.  We had run half-way across Wisconsin.  I knew that was going to happen, of course, but it was still surprising when I realized it was there.  Had I been running in the daylight, I’m sure I would have seen the lake before I was right next to it, but in the darkness and the fog, I could not see it even when I could hear the waves on the shore quite clearly.
I didn’t have much time with the lake, and I spent it trying to pick off some runners who were actually running.  I finished on as much of a high as I had begun, and when I met up with my team, minus Dan, who was running, and they asked if it felt good to be done, I told them that I was sad to be done, and that I would take someone else’s last leg if they wanted.  I was mostly kidding, of course, since the original plan had been for someone else to take my last leg if my foot was not doing well.  Ryan called me out on it, though.  “Really?” he said.  “I have eight miles of goodness.”  OK, so maybe not.  Probably not a good idea for my foot, my quad muscles, or my tummy.  Maybe next time.

After our van was done running, we went to the exchanges for the other van to cheer them on as well.  We joked that we should have kept track not only of roadkill but also of u-turns, as we saw that another team had done.  At one point we were lost for so long that when we arrived at the exchange site, we thought we must have missed seeing Javier come in.  We called the other van, but no one answered.  We looked at the crowd around the exchange but saw no one.  Then I said, “Wait, is that him?” 
“No…yes!” said Ryan.  “I think that is him.” 
“We have to get out of the van!!” Chuck, Ryan and I screamed, but we were clearly not going to make it out in time.  So we yelled as loud as we could and beat on the windows of the van, hoping our team would notice us as they exchanged right in front of us.  The sudden screaming and banging woke up Dan and Dawn, both of whom had been asleep for the last couple of hours and had no idea where we were or who was running. 

We were all starting to get a little weary and loopy by the end, and driving through traffic from Evanston to Montrose harbor for the end of the race was tricky.  Thanks to some uninhibited driving, we pulled into the parking lot about the time we expected Todd to be arriving.  We all piled out while Dan went to find a parking place.  We hustled over to the course and waited for Todd about 30 meters from the finish line, which was on the beach.  Within minutes, Todd appeared.  The rest of our team appeared as well, and we all put on one last bit of speed to run Todd in as a group (minus the people trying to park,) wearing our yellow and orange tie-dyed shirts.  What a complete blast from start to finish!

We ended up finishing well under 24hours, in spite of some initial skepticism.  When we were walking back to the van to get some things we needed but had abandoned in our rush to see the finish, I was reminded that I was one of the worst skeptics.  To be fair to my team, it was my part in the projected finish that was in question for me.  I thought I could very well single-handedly bring our time down enough to make us miss the ambitious goal.  I knew that no one would say anything to me about it.  They probably wouldn’t even think uncharitable thoughts about me silently in their heads.  They are kind people.  But I was dreading letting them down.  I was hoping they wouldn’t come away from the weekend wishing someone else had been invited on the team rather than me.  I ended the experience pleased not only that we had, in fact, finished in less than 24 hours, but also pleased that while my pace was not what it maybe could be in peak injury-free fitness, I still was able to give it my best shot and had some pretty respectable runs.  I felt like I was a runner again, like I belonged among runners, belonged on that team of runners.  The time didn’t matter much beyond the indication that I could, finally, return to running, that I can maybe starting putting some races on the calendar.

And speaking of putting races on the calendar, as we were approaching the end of our journey, we all agreed that we would certainly be up for another such relay again in the future.  Maybe another Ragnar?  Maybe Hood to Coast?  But we also agreed that one per season is probably enough.  That kind of sleep deprivation is best enjoyed only on special occasions.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Prayer

Yes, yes, I know that the nature of most things involving God is meant to remain a mystery to us who are still here seeing through a dark glass.  His ways are not our ways.  Blessed are those who believe even though they have not seen.  And so on. 

But I must say that I really really do not understand prayer, and I’m a little pissed off about it.

I have been thinking a lot about prayer these last few months.  It keeps coming up as the most essential thing I must do as a follower of Jesus.  It's how Jesus recharged, and Jesus knows I could use some recharging.  Mother Theresa claims that everything starts with prayer.  It's how you make big decisions and carry on with your little duties.  It keeps you in connection with God.  It can be simple and humble or long and involve candles. 

I have been trying to make prayer more instinctual and to discover who I am as a pray-er.  I think I have noticed that my prayers feel more real when they are physical.  After my uncle died, and the mystery of his seemingly graceless life was foremost in my mind, I found myself wanting to pray on my knees, preferably with my face on the floor too.  And then when the miracle of how the Holy Spirit was working in this most unlikely person was revealed, I wanted again to be on my knees.  Last night I was running with my relay team-- the ones who showed up, which was only the fast men.  It was very hot, and even when they promised to run my pace, I lost them after a couple of miles, so I was running in an unfamiliar forest preserve in the stifling heat with a sore foot by myself.  It seemed like a good time to pray.  I sang a few hymns and held up to God a few people.  I asked God to run with me for a while.  See?  I’m trying.

Yesterday a friend called me from the east coast and told me that she is just being eaten up by the situation of a little girl in her community.  She has a tumor on her brain stem that has permeated most of the brain, up to the cerebrum.  My friend is friends with the girl's mother and has known the little girl since she was born five years ago.  Her name is Gabby, in case you are a believer in prayer and can add yours to those already being sent out.

I am praying for Gabby because I know what it’s like to be desperate and to have even unknown people care about my desperate situation.  Shortly after my sister had her kidney transplant from my mom, I ran a race in another state.  On the way home from the packet pick-up, a friend of a friend, someone I had met in college but really only knew through others, asked about Cassie and my mom and told me that her church had been praying for them for weeks.  You could say that the fact that doctors were able to remove a functioning organ from my mom and put it in my sister, where it would resume working, and that my mom survived the procedure as well is a testament to the brilliant advances in medical science in the last century.  Or you could see it as a God-given miracle.  I have no problem with seeing it as both, for it certainly is amazing enough to be amazing in any way you choose to look at it.  But regardless of whether or not you see their on-going renal health these five years later as an act of God, I continue to be grateful to that congregation of people in another state praying and praying for my family.  Even if God did not exist, I would still have felt lifted by their prayers.  And so, having heard the story of Gabby, I added her to my recent list of people for whom I feel that I am, indeed, praying continually. 
Last night before I fell asleep, I said one more prayer.  I prayed for people I’ve been praying for for a while.  I also prayed (again again again) for Gabby and for her family, for them to have strength and courage and for Gabby to get well, if that can fit into God’s will.  I prayed for a friend who is having quadruple bypass surgery.  I asked, again, for him to be well, if that can fit into God’s will.
Then I started to get confused and maybe even a little angry.  Gabby is five.  Why would it not be God’s will for her to get better?  Surely he does not want her or her family to suffer, and if it is already God’s wish, what difference does it make if I pray continually for her health?  Who am I that God would say, “Oh yeah, I do love that child and her family,” and make everything OK?  And if that’s the way it is, why wasn’t God already fixing it? 
Joe, the one planning to have heart surgery, is a grandfather, and not just to his own grandchildren.  He is a leader in the church, a friend and father-figure to us in the running club, a devoted husband.  He is very beloved here on earth.  As far as I can tell, he lives for the Kingdom of God here on earth; at least he does as well as any of the rest of us.  We depend on him.  And so surely God understands that.  Surely some of his will can be accomplished through extending Joe’s life another decade or two.  If that’s not the case, then are my prayers going to make a difference?  If it is God’s will that Joe’s surgery go well, what is my will compared to his?
So I guess the thing that bugs me about these prayers is what God does with them.  Does God even receive them?  Psalm 139 says that God knows a word before it is even on my tongue, so clearly David thinks God does hear my prayers, but what if they are all just in my head?  Or do they reach God and bounce off?  Is God is like a parent who hears the pleas but cannot fix things?  Is God like a parent who could choose otherwise but makes us unhappy for our own good, for some more worthy long-term purpose we cannot see?  How can that be possible in the case of a brain tumor in a five-year-old? 
I have heard numerous people say they believe in the power of prayer.  I understand that my prayers could change me, if I feel that all day I am in constant conversation with God.  It makes sense that prayer could work in that way.  But when it comes to the kind of prayer to which one expects an answer or a response, it all breaks down for me.  Maybe God answers prayers, but maybe the answers are things God was going to do anyway because God was already God before any of us said a word.
I suppose when you get down to essentials, what God does with my prayers is not really my concern.  The only decision I must make is whether or not to keep on praying.  I’m sure my prayers will come and go, as they have in the past, but for now, the decision is made.  I will keep praying for my friends and for my strangers because they are in my heart, and their troubles are simply too big and for me to do anything about but pray.  If God is waiting for me to love people and to pray for them before God acts, well then I’m disappointed in God and feel less like praying to God.  If God was going to come up with something wonderful whether or not I prayed, then God is as a loving God ought to be, in my opinion, although it renders my prayers pointless.  It may not be my place to understand, but a little understanding would certainly help.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Next



Adam has finished his last day of first grade.  More accurately, his last hour of first grade.  He'll come home in a few minutes and the summer before second grade will begin.

With our last Adamless hour, Gretchen and I biked (I biked and she rode the trailer, which was more fun for me than for her, as she made clear) over to the grade school to drop off a flower for Adam's teacher and to pick up his epipen.  Then, because there was still a little time left, I rode around a nearby prairie preserve.  Gretchen complained the whole time, but in spite of that and the 90 degree heat, I felt wonderful.  I love riding the bike when I do not have to worry about getting hit by a car. 

I don't know how biking is going to go this summer.  Last summer we biked to swimming lessons most mornings.  But last year I could get in the pool with Gretchen, and this summer I will be stuck sweating on the the sidelines.  How sad!  I also don't know if the kids are just too big to both fit in the trailer this year.  They have both grown significantly since last summer.  It just might not work.  And neither one is proficient enough on bikes to ride their own.  And so good-bye to a lovely little season in my life that was biking with my children behind me.  I'm glad I did it.  I will miss it.  I could be very very sad about that.

But G and I can bike again in the fall.  We'll walk to preschool twice a week most weeks, and I will love that.  It will be a new season of contentment.  And eventually my children will ride their own bikes.  Eventually they may go with me on long long rides.  Who knows what life will bring.

I think that is the secret to not breaking down into weepy tears on the last day of first grade: having lived long enough to learn that life is never ever going to stay put.  A perfect state of balance, once achieved, will shortly be upset.  Someone will grow or change or get involved in a new activity.  Someone will be born; someone will die.  Kids will outgrow some pleasures and grow into others.  Careers will end or change directions.  If one must mourn, one must also place trust in the future, that beauty and joy can be found again somewhere new.

This summer we will visit aunts and cousins and maybe the zoo.  We will go camping.  We will go to the library and the pool.  Maybe Adam will ride his bike without training wheels.  I will get up early and ride or run as the sun is rising.  The sun will stay up late and the neighbors will meet us in the back yard.  We'll whip up some mudslides and eat beans we grew in our new garden--maybe not together.  And if we look back, we will also look forward to the unknown blessings that await us.  Next.