On the Track

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.  1 Corinthians 9:24

...let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1b-2a

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 2 Timothy 4:7

Westmont Track

There are plenty of helpful comparisons between running a race and the life of faith. It's one of the ways that the idea of pilgrimage works so well: we are actually on the move. Work is involved. Lately, I have been thinking less of racing and more of putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes that means ambling; but other times literally putting one foot in front of the other has seemed nearly impossible and painful. 

This morning I continued my physical therapy on the track over at the college. I do not need to go in for  PT appointments anymore, and that is because the rest of my recovery needs to be made through my faithful pursuit via exercises I have been given. I have not arrived (this is not the end, but it is the road...), even though to watch me walk you cannot tell which ankle was damaged. 

I have been doing a lot of walking for the past week and a half, getting ready for today: attempting some jogging. Just a bit. Running only the straightaways, not the long graceful curves at the ends which could put me off balance (that is yet to come). I tried to run in a balanced way, concentrating on the left ankle and treating it the same as the right even though it is not the same. If not for the the voice of authority (in this case, my physical therapist) assuring me that this is okay I would have quit. It did not feel right. As I continued, though, I parsed out what was wrong and it was not actually pain--only discomfort. It is certainly not right even though when I'm walking I may be the only person who can tell. Once I started jogging, the appearance of normalcy was much more difficult to maintain.

In this case, it's not all about appearances (even though I really would prefer that no one see me staggering/hopping/awkwardly trying to wrest strength from the weaker side). If I "baby" the injury, protecting it from the discomfort as much as possible, then it will not improve. And I am tempted to think think that it can't improve, not really, and to think that its status now is more or less how it has been and how it shall ever be. But that is not the case. The past 15 weeks are littered with Ebenezers: bearing weight. Driving a stick shift. Going from the prescribed toe raises while sitting down to doing them while standing on the weak leg alone (that last makes me feel a little like I'm flying).

But flying I am not around the track, at least not yet. I'm working through the mental gymnastics of parsing pain from discomfort. It seems that the weakness uses the same neural pathways to my brain to resist. The message is that running is wrong, damaging or impossible. I have it on authority that this is a lie.  In this case the struggle is not only possible but good: a strengthening and a movement toward growth, toward recovery of how I am supposed to be. 

Thus like so many before me, I'd like to try to use this sports metaphor to my enrichment. And when things seem wrong, painful or potentially damaging (like apologizing for real ugliness I have shown and been, for an example) I hope to hear the voice of the Authority that points through the discomfort toward flourishing rather than heeding the whisper of weakness that would carefully "call it a day."  

In the weight room of the YMCA in my hometown hangs a sign with Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." It made me laugh a little back in the day, what with the context and out-of-contextness of it all. But today I am okay with it hanging there, so long as hanging in our minds is 2 Corinthians 12:9 (and not only Isaiah 40:31). I am slow to learn, and quick to shift attention; but I am hoping that here I may have found a helpful metaphor I can walk with for a while yet.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

2 Corinthians 12:9

...but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:31

"Saturday after Ash Wednesday"

This Lent, I have decided to spend some time with Albert Holtz's Pilgrim Road: a Benedictine Journey Through Lent. It's a short devotional book that Holtz wrote while on sabbatical, traveling through South America and Europe. There's an entry for every day of Lent (excepting the Sundays).  I assigned it for my course last fall. The students wrote on about half of the entries, which I assigned all out of sequence in order to line up with either course themes or our geographical locations. I am very familiar with that half of the content (having read those entries repeatedly and then read 30 student reflections on each of them), but I haven't used it myself in quite the same way. After only four days I am already deep in reminisces of both the physical and spiritual journeys of Europe Semester, while trying to hear my own voice about those as well as my current processing. So I thought I'd process a bit aloud, both on the content and with regard to the memories associated with the locations I've been able to visit.

Each of the first four days (Ash Wednesday-this Saturday) were among those assigned (and therefore familiar), and three of those were places we actually visited. So this week I've been able to revisit Canterbury, the Channel Tunnel, and 95 rue de Sèvres in Paris. Rue de Sèvres was Saturday's devotion and focused on faith taking action. That particular street address in Paris is the worldwide "motherhouse" of the order of St. Vincent de Paul, which has emphasized caring for the poor and actively serving in a variety of ways (as opposed to remaining within the cloister to pray in comparative isolation). Early on, when we did this segment in Greece, we read that inside of the building is a map of Paris with a bunch of red dots all over it, and that "each dot marks a place in Paris that was somehow touched by Saint Vincent during his life: an orphanage founded, starving people fed, a hospital staffed with sisters, a retreat preached, a school begun. There are dozens of these dots, each one telling a story of charity, of boundless energy, of commitment to spreading God’s love on earth." (Holtz, Loc. 436-439 Kindle Edition). Students considered what a map of their hometown would look like, where they may have left "red dots."

I've gotten to see the map, and that address is also one of the few in Paris that I know by heart (I had to take taxis there after the ankle debacle). We did not know back in Athens, but it turned out to be where our classroom in Paris was located. And it's where I was able to teach, and watch pilgrimage-return videos, and hear earnest debate on whether Fantine, Eponine and Javert died well or died poorly. Oh my goodness, I loved teaching that class so much. Even when it was terrifying.

And so while I'm here in Santa Barbara reading and trying to think about how to "Start with love," as St. Vincent would say, I am also seeing the building pictured above and hearing how there was very loud construction on the street. And how just a bit farther down the street  was my "office," Le Weekend Cafe,  which I walked past three times that first morning before getting up the courage to walk inside.

I don't speak any French. I did, in fact, initially address the barman in Spanish, hoping that maybe we could go that route instead. We ended up with English. From then on, Tuesday and Thursday mornings I sat in the front window, arranging power point slides, drinking coffee and eating flaky croissant (and occasionally using the Wifi from Le Bon Marche across the street...). I rocked to disco music and felt the vibrations from the Metro under my feet.



Le Weekend was one of many places where I was an outsider and yet was welcomed. I never expected this in Paris. This cafe played a large part in dismantling my stereotype of the haughty Parisian. When I walked in on crutches for the first time after a couple of visits, I was met with sympathetic cluckings and questions, and laughter at my nonverbal jokes. I now sit at home and can picture the windows being washed, the construction crews jamming the place for a coffee during their 15 minute break (ok--half hour), and the well-heeled traffic going by. I can also see the penitent and the poor heading into the chapel at St. Vincent's after leaving Le Weekend on my way back to the classroom after my au lait and croissant.

On Fridays this semester, I still meet with some young women who were in that classroom in Paris with me. We've been working through the book of Ruth together and recently spent quite some time on the idea of insider and outsider status (and the ever-shifting lines that define that). It's not just in the ancient near East or in Paris that people need to be made welcome, nor are strangers the only outsiders, although those are good places to begin. "Start with love," St. Vincent would say, and scatter so many red dots around a map of Paris. And I have mental maps of my own covered with many, many dots, of places and hours where I have been shown love and allowed to rest. For how exhausted I was for much of the time in Europe, from this distance what I see more clearly were the many small bits of rest and welcome.

And as I have received, may I learn to give: Welcome. Rest. Holy challenge. Love.

Ash Wednesday

This morning may have been my last physical therapy appointment!

Exactly 14 weeks after my unspectacular fall at the Louvre and my over-dramatic exit via the glass pyramid of the same, I have been cleared to do almost anything (like hike or wear cute shoes). I have my list of exercises that should enable me to start jogging soon. I can (must) walk on the beach.

The only restriction is No Running On Soccer Fields, which means no Sporty Sports. Yet. (Oh, Sporty Sports! The inaugural day was documented here, but it was the first of many in Europe and we have even had a couple since returning.)

Sporty Sports has almost nothing to do with today, except that I wanted to pass along the news of my almost complete recovery.

As I drove home today from physical therapy, Meg and I listened to music gifted to the children from the amazing Maddie during a visit last weekend. She said it was music that they enjoyed together last fall.

I know that in Europe there was much music and happiness. Last fall I listened  2-year-old Meg sing T-Swift's "Trouble" and heard more times than I can count how "This Girl is on Fire." And it was very dear today to hear her squeal, "Miss Maddie learned this one!!" (meaning she taught me this one) as one song after another took us back to the little apartment in Athens, or the bus on the way to anywhere. As we listened, though, I was increasingly aware of how I knew of those things going on but actually had very little idea of what the days looked like for Maddie and the kids while I was teaching or grading or touring. I knew what they did, but I didn't get to experience, to see, to laugh and dance to the same things.

And then I felt a little left out.

Even though I know there was no way for me to be in all of the places at once, I felt a little pained about missing some beautiful moments. As if anyone could ever have all of the beautiful moments in the world.

And then this song came on:

It's from the end credits of the film Prince Caspian, which the kids watched a lot in Athens. On the last night there, as we packed up to move westward, Charlie sat on our balcony singing this song and crying. The following morning a yet-five-years-old William came to me with tears rolling down his cheeks, saying he had said goodbye and sung this song out to Athens for the last time. It has been incredibly poignant for the children (and therefore to me) as we repeatedly pulled up stakes from places we had come to love and had little reason to suppose we'd ever see again.

Anyway, the song came on and I got a little weepy. But not over Athens, not exactly. I think I was surprised that this particular song was part of Maddie's repertoire with the kids, although of course that makes sense. Mainly I felt overwhelmed by how many perspectives were possible to a single experience, and was wishing hard that I could have experienced more than only mine. It's like when you take a video of a piano recital or talent show, and that IS the talent show to you. Your perspective is the only one you have...until you later the see the video of the same event taken from someone else's seat. And you see so many things that you may have missed.

It is good to learn to see other perspectives. But I was not sad about not understanding someone else better. I am pretty sure I was sad that I missed experiencing everything. I am pretty sure that the sadness  was related to the snatches of eternity I've talked about before. Specifically, I think it is the flipside: instead of the delight of getting to experience and enjoy the past along with the present--and with the hope that in the future we'll be doing just the same with the days that are here now, like so many petals on a flower--there is the pain of knowing the absence of experiences. Of having missed something beautiful, and of feeling as though it will never be, but will only always be a loss.

It seems strange to speak of missing experiences when we are freshly back from Europe. But everything I did not do there is like a permanent loss, as I can't go back and buy the kids a dessert crepe in Paris, or get to their beloved Luxembourg Gardens with them before I tear up my ankle and can barely get anywhere. It did not happen, and it will never have happened, and that is that.  (At least here at home there is the illusion that I can get up and do something tomorrow instead, while the truth is that we are only given each day once. This side of eternity.)

When I started typing out this blog, I didn't know what I would say in the middle but I planned to get to the end and say that in essence I am sad that I am not god (omnipresent and all), and would really really like to be, and that crashing up against my finitude is as good a place as any to be on Ash Wednesday. And there is, to be sure, some Veruca Salt in me:

"I want the world! I want the whole world! I want to lock it all up in my pocket--it's my bar of chocolate--give it to me now!"

And maybe that's what the sadness is, and maybe there's more going on. I am grateful for this season we're embarking on and hope for time to reflect, sort things out, and keep or start walking in the right direction.