Day 122 – tomorrow is race day – 13.1 miles

As I prepare for tomorrow’s race, I am filled with anxiety – why am I doing this?  what if I can’t do it?What if I fail?  It feels impossible – how will I do it? In the midst of this anxiety, comes the remembrance of the pilgrimage that brought me to this point – a pilgrimage of hope – that on this journey I might be transformed so that I  might be an instrument of transformation for others.  Remembering that this race is in many ways a pilgrimage in mind, body, and spirit, helps to calm my fears.  I am racing toward hope – hope that I might be changed into someone who more fully embodies the grace and love of God in Jesus Christ; hope that my body might be transformed more fully into an instrument of God’s grace – to live more incarnationally in the world, honoring the sacredness of not only my body, but the bodies of all beings and the earth; hope that I might learn to be centered in the presence of the God who is closer to me than my own breath, even when all round me is or feels like it is in chaos.  To be transformed by the God of the impossible is my goal and so I run toward hope….

Day 121 – I have been away from the blog for a long time

I have been away from the blog for too long - but still running.  The last few months have taken me to the Philippines where God is doing amazing things from seeds of hope planted over the past two years – livelihood programs in communities of extreme poverty are being designed and implemented.  What a joy to be a part of it.  God is also working in El Salvador.  I have just returned from a trip with 20 members of Bellaire United Methodist Church.  We are working with the school in Mira Flores – the community for which I am running.  We have much to do – a new building needs to be built.  Land has been given.  We need to buy the adjoining lot and also fund the materials.  The community can contribute much of the labor.  It is exciting, but we need your help.  In Morazan, the plans for the community center have been drawn and we start building in January – after the rainy season.  There also we will use local labor.  We want to put a computer lab in the center and are looking for a company that can donate computers.  We met with the Governor of Morazan who is working with community leaders to come up with a plan for economic development.  We want to participate with the community in that plan – more to come on that later.  For now, I am in San Francisco preparing to run the first leg of the 52 mile race of running toward hope – my first half marathon ever – I have some anxiety about whether or not I can do it – but I am going to run in hope that together we can find a way – that I will finish this race as the first leg of 52 miles and that, in the same way, we will finish the race in El Salvador – one step, one dollar, one project, one person, one community at a time – keeping our eyes on the prize – the abundance of God for all people.  And so we run toward hope….

Day 74 – 9 Miles and Muscle Trauma

I hit a wall at 6 miles, just 12 days ago, and could not go further.  So I waited, staying with the 6 miles, until several days later, I was able to run seven. Then, about a week later,  I ran 8 – it was a battle mostly of the mind.  How true that is in our spiritual lives as well – “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,” Scripture tells us.  But it was also a matter of patiently listening to and preparing my body through committed regular exercise and drinking more water, as well as changing the way I eat (I’m still working on that one!)  Having made 8 miles last Saturday, and having had the best homemade chicken pot pie on the planet the night before ( made by Eileen Sheppard, a member of my congregation – she also makes the best Filipino egg rolls) and therefore loaded with wonderful carbohydrates, this past Thursday I decided to go for 9 and I did it!  Talk about exhilaration - wow!  I had plenty of energy for the run – thank you pot pie!- but around mile 8 my legs, particularly my right leg, began to seriously fatigue.  I was determined to make 9 despite the pain in my right knee and thigh – it wasn’t too bad – so I pushed through.  It took me two hours and I was running behind schedule,  so I did not walk it off as long as I should have.  Instead, I walked around for a minute or two, hopped in the car, and started my day of sitting in front of a computer, writing and preparing Sunday’s worship bulletin.  By evening, I was in pain and my right leg was so stiff I could hardly move it.  I researched what to do on-line and talked to my runner husband and the answer was ice and rest and stretching.  Yesterday, I wanted to run (that in itself is no small miracle – remember – I started this whole thing hating running!) but my body and the experts all said no – rest, ice, stretch; rest, ice, stretch.  I was impatient and discouraged, but I listened.   Today I was feeling a little better – not so much pain but still very stiff. So, I ventured out slowly – very slowly – walking first, followed by slowly jogging a mile, then walking when my shins started to join the chorus of stiffness, and then listening until I began to feel muscles loosen enough to jog slowly again. By four miles most of the pain and stiffness had subsided and my impulse was to keep going, but my growing body wisdom said no – give you body time to recover; allow it to heal and ease back into distance.  So I did – I stopped after four miles. Today the stiffness is much reduced and I am better – still a little stiff, but much better.  I came back to the house and tried a trick my soccer playing son taught me – I immersed myself in a bathtub filled with ice and water – burr! But wow did it help my leg muscles.  

I am learning that just as we have to listen deeply to our bodies in learning to run, so it is in our spiritual life and our work of accompanying marginalized communities and persons in their journey into hope – we have to learn to listen deeply to the movement of God’s Spirit and to the community we seek to accompany.  When we try to force our own agenda and timetable on that life and work, we often cause injury.  God’s ways our not our ways and sometimes the movement of God does not proceed at the rate or pace we want. We have to learn to be patient.  We also have to allow ourselves and others time to heal and not try to force a schedule on them or ourselves that does not honor the journey that has preceded our entry into the work and allow that journey to speak to us about how to be present with those who have suffered marginalization and trauma in a context that brings its own wisdom and insight.  Our task is to learn to listen deeply and then to honor what that listening tells us, despite the pressure from our performance driven culture, that infects even the church, to show results.  The result is the journey itself – a journey into relationship with the God WHO IS, with others, and with our own selves.  Oh, that we would learn to honor and celebrate that journey with its deep wisdom and rich grace, rather than numbers that can be quantified and displayed on a chart.  In this run toward hope, what is important is my relationship with running, my body, those for whom I run, and the God who runs with me – be it nine miles or two.  It is in the end, all about a relationship.  I invite you to run with me toward hope as we learn to  build relationships that honor one another and the God who made us all and is ever-present to us –  if only we would learn to listen for the breath of the Spirit within us and the world.

Day 61 – Hitting the Wall

Yesterday, I decided it was time to push from six miles to seven.  I set out early with full determination and I failed.  When I finished six miles, I hit a wall.  I could not make my legs or my mind move an inch further.  People who run had told me this would happen, but once I got past the shin splints, I thought I could just keep adding one mile every week or so – no problem.  I was discouraged and wanted to give up this whole endeavor.  Yes, I had made to six miles – a life time best -  maybe that was enough.  Maybe I had lost my mind thinking I could run a half marathon.  May this was impossible – at least for me.  Upon reflection, I think that is often how we understandably are when attempting to change the realities of poverty.  When we hit the wall; when we fail; we take that as a sign that there is nothing more that we can do – the problem is too big for us and we resign ourselves to six miles – after all that is all we can do.  It makes me think of a passage in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Church at Ephesus.  In this passage, he tells the Christians in this congregation to equip themselves for a struggle – the struggle to overcome that which is evil in the world – that which is not of God, that which is separated from God’s original and redemptive intention for humanity, the earth and its creatures – poverty, marginalization, invisibility, oppression, the misuse of power, exclusion, etc.  Then his letter says, this, ”and having done all, stand.”  Sometimes we have to stand at the wall; stand firm in our position; until the wall either moves or comes down.  When we have done everything we think we can possibly do, humanly speaking, God calls us to stand in the gap between present reality and the goal of bringing into being God’s future, until the gap begins to close.  At times it feels overwhelming to me – this crazy idea that I could do anything that really matters on behalf of my new friends in El Salvador – and in those moments, God calls me to stand in the gap until 7 miles, then 10 miles, then 13 miles, then 26 miles, then 52 miles, becomes a reality and until together we begin – one dollar, one mile, one marathon, one community at a time – to close the gap between the present reality and God’s future for all people, the earth, and its creatures – until all are welcome at the table of God’s abundance as family, in body, mind, and spirit.  Stand with me until we all are running in the same direction – toward hope.

Day 58 – Broken Wings

I have been away from the blog for a while.  The press of preparing to be in the Philippines and El Salvador this summer, the demands of pastoral ministry, and the joys of two graduations in my family have filled the days to more than over-flowing.  I hope to get back into a regular rhythm of blogging each day, at least until I leave for the Philippines on June 20.  I am up to six miles several times a week – that in itself seemed impossible 58 days ago when I could not even run one mile.  My goal is to hit 7 miles on Saturday.

Running longer distances for me, (6 miles is a long distance in  my context), often involves a battle in my mind.  When I am present to my body, my surroundings, and just this moment, the run is not so difficult and at times even enjoyable.  However, when my mind starts focusing on how much further I have to run, it gets exhausting and feels overwhelming.  Learning to be present – that is the challenge in all of our life moments, isn’t it?  The wonderful thing about being present to the moment is that we see with new eyes things that normally don’t even register because our minds are focused elsewhere.  Yesterday as I was running, I noticed two doves sitting perfectly still in the grass along the path – a very unusual sight - so unusual that it made me stop for a closer look.  As I walked closer, I noticed that one of the bird’s wings was out-of-place, broken.  It couldn’t fly and must have been in pain. What was astounding was that the other bird sat perfectly still beside it, standing guard, accompanying its mate in this precarious dilemma.  (There is a cat that roams this area of my run – they were in grave danger.)  The other bird was perfectly healthy and could have easily flown out of harms way, but chose to stand with the injured one – to accompany it in its suffering.  The healthy bird could not fix the broken wing of its mate, but it could give it the comfort of presence and also try to ward off other attackers – like me.  When I got too close, the diversionary tactics started.  I ran home, got a box and a towel, and with the other bird doing its best to keep me at a distance, I gathered up the wounded bird and took it to the wildlife rehabilitation center.  

As I pondered the events of the morning , two thoughts struck me.  First, the image of these two birds was a profound image of the ministry of accompaniment into which we are called – to walk with others in their suffering as together we move toward hope for a better future.  We may not be able to fix it for them, but we can be a voice for the voiceless, a defender of the weak and marginalized, and an accompanying presence that says, “I am with you always, even to the end, and if need be, at the risk of my own life or my lifestyle as I know it.”  The second thought was this:  I took an hour and a half out of a very busy day that did not have an hour and a half to spare, for a helpless bird.  Why is it that we are not willing to take that much time to help our brothers and sisters who daily live at risk as they teeter on the edge of mere survival?        Where is our humanity?  As I was sharing the story of the bird with a friend, he jokingly said to me, “Diane, you interfered with the natural order of things – survival of the fittest – cats eat birds.”  I laughed and replied, ” I don’t believe in survival of the fittest!”  “Survival of the Fittest” may have some evolutionary relevance, but it does not reflect the gospel or even my understanding of what it means to be truly human.  The gospel says that all members of the community are important, especially the “least of these” – the weakest members are in fact a reflection of the God who took on human flesh and become incarnate among us, becoming weak for us that we might find our strength.  If we want to see Jesus today, we will find him in the world’s poor and marginalized.  If we are to preserve our humanity, we must include those at the margins by inviting them into the family circle as brothers and sisters for whom Christ died and give them the seats of honor.  I think it was Jon Sabrino, one of the two Jesuit priests who survived the massacre of the priests at the University of Central America in El Salvador because he was out of the country at the time,  who said, “If we are to be truly Christian, we must first be profoundly human.”

As members of the human family, I invite you into a ministry of accompaniment with those who are suffering and marginalized in El Salvador – run with me and them into a better future – a future of hope.  I am asking that you give one dollar a mile, for the 52 miles that I will run, and invite 10 friends to give the same .   Go to www.togetherinhope.org and click on Running Toward Hope – please help my new friends – the children of Mia Flores and the families of Perquin/Morazan.  If you can give more than a dollar a mile, we could use some larger contributions as well.    Our goal is to raise $150,000 and its going to take all of us to do it.  Run with me toward Hope.

Day 41 – 5 miles is the new bottom line!

When I was a little girl, I loved the story of Cinderella.  Rodgers and Hammerstein  produced a musical that I watched every time it came out on television.  I can still sing most of the songs in the musical version.  One of my favorite songs from that musical is called “Impossible.”  The words went like this:  

“Impossible, for a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage. Impossible, for a plain country bumpkin and a prince to join in marriage.  And four white mice will never be four white horses, such folderol and fiddle-dee-dee of courses. Impossible!  But the world is full of zany’s and fools, who don’t believe in sensible rules, who don’t believe what sensible people say, and because these daft and dewy- eyed dopes keep building up impossible hopes, impossible things are happening every day!”

Now, that was a fairy tale, but the song makes a valid point.  We often don’t accomplish what needs to be done because we don’t believe it can be done.  We quit before we ever really try.  But with a little imagination and faith, impossible things can happen.   Unlike the story of Cinderella, the faith I claim in the God of Jesus is no fairy tale – it’s a faith in the God of the impossible who actually wants us to end poverty.  But like the song suggests, I think we often fail as the people of God for lack of imagination. What could God do, if we let God be God?  What could God do through us, if we dared to believe what our own scriptures tell us ?  Jesus said, “Because I go to the Father, greater things thine I do, you will do.”  Wow – how many of us are willing to walk out in faith on that one?  What might happen in our world if we did?  Or how about this one:  the writer of the New Testament book of 1 John says to the believers, “As Jesus is, so are you in the world.”  That’s another “Wow!!”  How might we change the world so that God’s kingdom might come on the earth for ALL people, just as it is in heaven – if we started living into that one? 

I have this book of sayings.  My favorite one is this one:  “What would you do, if you knew you could not fail?”  You see, when we step out for God, in faith, seeking to bring God’s abundance and justice for all of us, we can’t fail – oh, we might have set backs; it might look like failure at times, but God’s kingdom IS coming on the earth for all people and we have the chance to help make that happen – we get to partner with the God of the universe; the God of the impossible.  Pretty awesome, huh?

Saturday, for the first time in my 53, almost 54 years of life, I ran 5 miles.  And I did it again this morning.  Pretty awesome!  Forty-one days ago, that was impossible for me.  I still have a long way to go to run a half marathon and then a full marathon – that still feels pretty impossible – but today, I believe I actually might be able to do it when the time comes, if I keep working, keep pressing on, keep running toward hope.   Ending poverty for my new Salvadoran friends seems equally impossible, perhaps even more so.  But, what would happen if, just as I started from not being able to even run a mile, to now running 5, to continuing to push toward 13.5, then 26, then another 13.5, we stepped out believing that we could end poverty and started making changes one step, one half mile, one mile, at a time and kept moving toward the finish line? I believe we would actually get there. 

Please run with me toward hope for my new friends, the children of Mia Flores and of Perquin, Morazan in El Salvador.  If everyone who reads this blog gave $52 dollars - a dollar a mile for each mile I intend to race, that’s one dollar a day for a year, and told their friends to do the same, we could meet the goal of raising $104,000 for these fabulous children and we could begin to end the cycle of poverty, one child, one community at a time.   If you want to help, go to www.togetherinhope.org, click on the “Get Involved” page and click on “Running Toward Hope.” 

Run with me – the God of the impossible is running with us.

Day 32 – 4 Miles with no pain!

I decided that today was the day to push a little harder and run 4 miles and I did it!.  I tried to keep my back straight and my feet light and to just be present to the moment.  It helped that it was a glorious day!  The sky was so blue and the trees so green that I could almost taste the color – it made me think of the scriptures – “Taste and see that the Lord is good “- and – “the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows forth God’s handiwork. ” Yes they do!  Such beauty! Such gift!  As long as I was present to this moment I did well.  But my “monkey mind” kept trying to remind me how far I still had to go and how much my lungs were starting to ache, and how I could not do this.  But I kept pulling my mind back to the present -” in this moment I am in this incredible body, in this incredible universe and loved by the God who created me. ” It doesn’t get much better than that.  It was a battle for my mind and my constant planning for the next thing rather than being present to God and to life in this moment.  I wonder if we were more present if we would be able to see God present in the faces of my new friends and all of  the  poor in the earth?  I wonder how we might be changed?   The Apostle Paul, in one of his letters to the Corinthian church that was divided and having lots of squabbles, said this: 

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”  

You see I believe that some of those mirrors that shine forth the glory of the Lord are the faces of the poor.  I also believe that when we see Jesus in their faces, the Spirit of God will set us free and we will be transformed into the image of God ourselves.  May that day come sooner rather than later – And so I pray: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth even as it is in heaven.”  Run with me to bring into manifestation in the earth, the kingdom of God for my new friends in El Salvador.

Day 32 – Listening to the Rain

It was raining this morning when I woke up to go running around 6:30 am. I was at a women’s retreat and in a small cabin.  I started to make myself get up and go despite the rain, but my body urged me just to rest.  I actually listened to it.  I know there will be times when I have to push my body when it does not want to go out and train, but today I chose to let myself rest.  I opened the cabin door and went back to sleep listening to the rain – its gentleness washing over me.  It was a gift that I gave myself.   I cannot care for others if I do not learn to care well for myself.  Part of caring for myself includes learning to listen to my body and honor what it tells me.  I don’t do that well, but I am learning.  Part of caring for others, especially the poor, is learning to listen to them rather than impose my own agenda on them.  They are wise and know what they need – we just need to listen.  May I run toward a hope that will meet their needs rather than my own need to “fix” their problems.

Day 30 – No pain

I ran three miles today with no pain -  a major mile stone.  I woke up early and warmed up my legs using the exercises that my son had given me.  Then I thanked God for this amazing body and blessed all of its parts from head to toe.  Then I made it for three miles.  Good job body!

Day 29 – Running as a Sacramental Act

Our bodies are sacred space - that is straight out of the Bible  which tells us that our bodies are the temple or dwelling place of the living God.  Any woman who has given birth to a child knows the sacredness of her body.  Today is my son Ben’s 21st birthday.  What an amazing young man he has become and is becoming!  I remember the moment he was born and all the moments from his conception until his birth – this incredible life growing in my body.  What a miracle!  Giving birth is as close to a divine act as I think we can ever experience as human beings.  And yet, giving birth is just one example of how we are sacred vessels for the miraculous movement and creation of the God of the universe and all that is and was and is to come.   Yet we live as if these bodies are not sacred ground.  We pour all kinds of poison into our bodies – junk food, soda, etc.  My poison of choice is diet coke – I have to give that up – its next on my list.  We do not exercise.  We sit around in front of screens all day and don’t even talk to each other, look each other in the eyes – the windows of the soul, or listen to the sound of our own and others voices – instead we email and text.  We are losing sacred ground – the sacred ground of our bodies.  I had a long phone conversation with my friend Michael as I was driving up to women’s retreat today.  He suggested that I might deal with the pain in my body when I run, by treating running as a sacramental act – pray for the parts of my body before I run, bless my body, acknowledge its incredible worth and claim what it is – sacred ground.  Neat.  I told you running was a spiritual exercise!  What would happen in our own lives and even more so in the way we treat the poor, if we began to live into the reality that bodies – my body and the bodies of others – are the dwelling place of God?  Would we let them starve, be sick, be without shelter, clothes and basic life necessities?  I don’t think so.  We wouldn’t do that to Jesus – and guess what – Jesus says – I dwell in them – the poor.  Wow – we have some work to do. Run with me toward hope that not a single child will be without what they need to live and thrive.  Let’s start in El Salvador and let the flow just keep rolling down until all the earth is invited and welcomed to the table of God’s abundance in body, mind, and spirit.

By the way, my friend Michael Eller takes people out into nature to help them open to the flow of Spirit in and all around us – to create an open sacred space where we can do some spiritual work.  If you are interested, go to his website www.firstlight.us .  He takes individuals, families, groups, and he  honors your journey.  I and my kids have all been out with him  both with me and by themselves.