Journal Entry 081210: CornFest 2010

Saturday night was our CornFest #4. We had about 60 people (counting babies) in our house in Midland to eat fresh sweet corn. It’s become an important tradition for our family and for many of our friends. The freshly-picked corn is wonderful, and watching a room full of people gnawing away on bright yellow ears is a fun spectacle.

But there is more.

We do this, in part, to honor to Cyndi’s family who grew this corn on their farms in northeast New Mexico, and show them we value their lives. It is also homage to Cyndi’s Grandfather, Forrest Atchley, who passed away in 1999, who was a larger-than-life patriarch in every sense of the word. Even as we are preparing corn at our house in Midland I still picture Forrest standing proudly beside his pick-up, the bed filled with fresh corn, his heart full and face grinning as dozens of family and neighbors gather around to shuck the husks from the ears, cook the corn in a giant black cast-iron pot, and serve it to everyone.

But the most important reason we do this is for the relationships. I doubt we’d go to this much effort just for food, but feeding relationships is a different matter.

Each year shucking the corn is a big part of our tradition. We don’t do any of it ahead of time, but save it all for our guests. This year I loaded up the ears in my gray yard cart and hauled it around to our side yard under the porch. As guests arrived at our house they were invited to shuck a few ears … not, as many suspected, to earn their dinner, but rather to share in the experience. For many this is their first time to handle corn in this way, and we didn’t want anyone to miss the opportunity. At first the shucking operation was random and chaotic, but eventually my organizational-wizard friends, Paul and Joe, had it moving like a rehearsed assembly line.

We also cooked hamburgers. When I say “we,” I mean that Cyndi spent the afternoon grinding wheat and baking fresh buns for the hamburgers, and my friend Mark stood next to the hot grill and cooked all the hamburger patties and hotdogs, while I walked around with a full heart and big grin in true patriarchal fashion. I guess I learned a lot as Forrest’s grandson-in-law.

We had a lot more young families this year, which means we had a lot of babies and young children. In fact, they set up baby camp in our hallway, stacking diaper bags and blankets along the south wall. It was fun to see the kids running around playing with each other, and then later, seeing them with corn kernels pasted to their noses and cheeks.

We also had a lot of grandparent-aged families, which of course make up our own peer group, friends we’ve grown up with and known since we were all having babies of our own.

It occurred to me later that I should have made arrangements for the older crowd to hold the babies and give the younger moms and dads a break. It probably would’ve made both groups happy.

The next morning at church Paul said, “You and Cyndi do way too much work for all the rest of us.” (It was an interesting comment from the hardest working man I know, who is famous for giving his time and efforts to other people.) It reminded me of a conversation from the movie Jeremiah Johnson …

Bear Claw: “You’ve come far, Pilgrim.”

Jeremiah Johnson: “Feels like far.”

Bear Claw: “Were it worth the trouble?”

Jeremiah Johnson: “What trouble?”

Sometimes we go a long way to make and keep relationships, but it doesn’t seem that much trouble. It doesn’t feel that far.

I don’t know if having a houseful of people over to eat corn is a lot of trouble, but I know it isn’t too much. Our friends are the weight and glory of our lives, and the only way to sustain and grow relationships is to feed them. We would be so much poorer if they didn’t come over often. We are surrounded by families, young and old, who love us and love God, and they are one of the biggest means of grace for us. How would we know God apart from the relationships he has given us?

Ode to Sweet Corn, by Garrison Keillor

As we travel along on our earthly path
Through this beautiful world God has made
Tramping along at a stately pace
Like elephants on parade.
We discover the pleasure of grass and sun
And music and light and talk
And the joy when a day of hard work is done
And you've cleared five acres of rocks.
The joy as you climb in your bed at night
The joy of the brand-new morn
But of all these pleasures the greatest delight
Is a supper of fresh sweet corn.

O that fresh sweet corn that the Lord sent down
So we know how heaven will be,
No grief, no tears, just the young golden ears
Plenty for you and for me.
Though the road be hard and deep is the night
And the future we cannot see
Take my hand, dear Lord, and I'll be all right
If you'll save a few ears for me.

Photos from CornFest 2010: http://www.flickr.com/photos/berrysimpson/sets/72157624684712432/

Photos from the original CornFest, at the Tramperous Ranch, in Union County, New Mexico: http://www.flickr.com/photos/berrysimpson/sets/72157624684712432/

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 0080510: Renewing

I recently enjoyed a big buttered sweet roll with coffee at the Frontier Restaurant in Albuquerque, while Cyndi and Tanya attended an early yoga class. When I was in high school we came to the University of New Mexico for All State Music, and it was part of the ritual to eat breakfast at the Frontier. I hadn’t been there since 1974, and I wouldn’t have thought of going there this time except Cyndi reminded me. I came to renew a memory and reset an experience. The sweet role and coffee were good but the renewal was better.

Have you done something like that recently? Have you returned to an old haunt or repeated a previous experience simply to reinforce your memory?

The first time I remember doing something like that intentionally was going to Mesquite’s BBQ in Lubbock in a blinding rainstorm one afternoon in 1994. I was on my way back to Midland from a business trip to Vernon, Texas.

The memory I was after happened when Cyndi and I were first married and she was still attending Texas Tech in Lubbock we met at Mesquite’s for lunch one blustery winter day. It was one of our best dates ever. Cyndi was especially attractive in her soft sweater and I was so hot for her I couldn’t sit still. I go back to Mesquite’s every chance I get to relive that moment.

Last week I went to Dallas with Cyndi. She was attending a church media conference called Echo at Watermark Community Church, and I did what I usually do – take a backpack full of books and my journal, and go underground for a couple of days. I also ran one lap around White Rock Lake Thursday morning and it was great.

Well, in fact it got hot and humid and it was really brutal and I got dehydrated and I was lucky to make it all the way around. But besides that, it was great. White Rock Lake is one of our favorite places to run and I am disappointed  if we are in the area and don’t have time to make it.

Unfortunately I was too worn out after running to go to our favorite La Madeleine Restaurant afterward and reconnect another great memory. It’s mostly a cold weather memory anyway.

One winter Saturday Cyndi and I ran the Lake and then warmed up over coffee and tea and buttered bread with jelly near the big fireplace at La Madeleine at Preston and Forest. This time, it would’ve been hard to imagine Cyndi’s silhouette against the fireplace after a 90*F run, so I didn’t go. But running the Lake was great; more about renewal than fitness, and I was glad for the opportunity.

And this past weekend I took my 7-year-old nephew, Kevin, on a two-night camping trip at the Ft. Davis State Park. We joined Corey and his son Carter. I had two objectives for the weekend: (1) do manly stuff with Kevin, like sleeping in a tent when there are bugs inside, eating hot dogs when they have dirt and ashes on them, hiking without complaining, using the bushes, and playing in the fire; and (2) repeat some of the experiences I enjoyed with my dad when we used to go to Ft. Davis, like touring the fort and climbing the rocks alongside the highway. We did all of those and Kevin had a good time. He came home with cuts and scrapes to show off to all the other men and to draw sympathy from the women. It was a successful weekend with Kevin, but it was also great for renewing my memories.

I’m not sure why I am telling these stories about memory renewal; it isn’t a nostalgia grab, or merely reliving the good old days. I think this is connected to one of my favorite verses that I recently rediscovered in my Daily Bible, Jeremiah 6:16, “Stand at the crossroads and look; and ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it.”

Refreshing old memories has less to do with sentiment and more to do with asking the questions again – which is the good way? How can I walk in it?

P.S. Much to my surprise, the White Rock run did me some good. My legs and knees had been stiff and sore the entire month of July, but after 9 miles around White Rock Lake, they felt much better. Who would’ve expected that? Memories aren’t the only things that can be renewed. It works for knees, too.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal Entry 072910: Can't be done?

While my tendency to try new things and experiment is a part of my personality I am most proud of, a couple of weeks ago I might have carried it too far. I was lucky to walk away.

I could blame Seth Godin for it all since his writing challenges me to be brave and adventurous. His has become one of the most influential voices in my life these past months. He told a story about an ultra-lightweight backpacker: Wolf was carrying a super-small pack which weighed 14 pounds including food and water. When asked how he got his pack weight so low, he replied, “All you need to know it that it’s possible.” Godin says that somewhere in the world someone is doing something that you decided couldn’t be done, and they are calling your bluff.

I have been running once a week in my Vibram Five-Fingers shoes, which are actually gloves for the feet and not really shoes and have nothing to do with fingers. I’ve written a lot about that already. But barefoot running, or in my case, quasi-barefoot running, has intrigued me, and I have continued to read internet accounts of people who run truly barefoot –skin on the ground - on a regular basis. There is a back-to-earth hippie element to it that does not attract me in the least, but there is also a foot-strengthening and mid-foot strike element that has real value. I have weak and tender feet and I have used that as an excuse not to try real barefooting, but those stories I read – they keep calling my bluff.

So one Tuesday I decided to finish my regular three-mile Vibram run by doing a few laps on the track in my naked bare feet. It is a modern rubberized soft-surface track, smooth and flat, so it seemed the perfect place to take the next step. I ran to the track, pulled off my Vibrams, and the first thing I noticed was the surface of the track was scorching hot. I couldn’t believe how hot it was. I had expected it to be much cooler than the concrete sidewalk or asphalt street. I guess I thought it would be more like that surface around swimming pools that never really gets hot even in the middle of a sunny day.

I was wrong. It was so hot I knew I couldn’t stand still and get used to it like you do when the bath water is too hot. This was hot enough to do serious damage to my feet. So I hopped across the track to the football turf assuming green grass – even artificial turf – would be cooler.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The turf was just as hot as the grass. I couldn’t believe it. So I hopped a few yards across the turf to a large patch that was painted white, part of the sideline markings. Even thought it was white, it was just as hot.

I stood on that scorching turf and pondered my options. I knew I couldn’t stay where I was without burning my feet. I had to move back across the hot track and grab my Vibrams and get outside the gate to a cooler place. And I had to do it right away. Not only were my feet burning, but it was so hot I was holding my breath. I had to move immediately.

I bounced and hopped across to my shoes. It was so hot I didn’t even care whether anyone was watching me or how nerdy I looked. I grabbed my Vibrams and staggered out the gate to the real Bermuda grass and collapsed on the ground. I was glad to be off my feet.

Even though this bout of barefooting was a failure, I am certain I will try it again in the fall when the surfaces are cooler. I want to get stronger and I think this will help. I want my knees to last a few more decades and I think this will help with that, too.

And I suppose I should’ve known better about the hot track. It is Texas in July, after all. And the air temperature that day was over 90*F. I am a man of hope, but in this case hope was not enough.

As I am typing, two weeks later, my feet feel much better. All the tenderness has healed. I have run a couple of times in my Vibrams, enough to know I did no lasting damage dancing across the hot track. I will be back; the experiment continues.

So I ask, what are you trying that’s new? What are you working on that can’t be done? Let me know … I’d like to hear your story.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal Entry 072210: Being one of us

Maintaining family ties can be a lot of trouble. We might have to drive eight hours across the central New Mexico wilderness just to spend an afternoon with family who flew across the country to spend the same afternoon with us. We might spend hard-earned money on trivial things like matching T-shirts because we want to be one-of-us.

We do it because we love each other, but more than that, we do it because we love the bigger idea of family. We want our kids to live in a world larger than our own small household. We want them to feel a part of the big family and know they are not alone in the world. Going to a lot of trouble to keep a big family together is important. And it is worth it.

We go to the trouble to be with each other because being one-of-us is more important than personal dislikes or old offenses or personality differences. We might have to temporarily suspend old grudges, overlook recent transgressions, and accept ongoing crazy behavior. Some of us introverted types have to set aside our discomfort and mingle with distant family we barely know. Some of the more extroverted types look forward to a bigger family stage.

July 17 is a big day for family in my life because the reading assignment from my Daily Bible comes from Isaiah 51: “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn.”

I like this notion of “the rock from which you were cut.” Isaiah went on to point out Abraham and Sarah, so we know he was referring to people, ancestors, predecessors, parents and grandparents, when he wrote about “the rock.” He reminded those of us who seek the Lord to draw strength from our family.

A few years ago when I helped my grandmother write her autobiography and family history, I was reminded how many Baptist preachers and deacons and church officers and women’s leaders are in my tribe. There is a rich vein of grace and strength that runs through my DNA, and I feel the blessing that comes with that. It is my provenance. I am part of a big story that extends for generations. Isaiah 51 also reminds me that I am part of the quarry and it is my duty and obligation to be faithful and strong for those coming after me.

And when I am with my inlaws I recognize the deep quarry from which my wife Cyndi came. I can see the veins of strength and creativity and adventure and we-can-do-that-ourselves running through her family, the very same characteristics that caused me to fall in love with her over 30 years ago.

One thing about quarries - they are seldom from homogeneous rock. There are always variations and fractures. Blocks of stone cut from the same quarry are never absolutely identical. They are all a little different.

And so it is with a family quarry. We are not a homogeneous band. We may be alike, but we are also different, with many variations and shades and fractures. And we unwittingly pass along some variations or impurities we wish would remain hidden, and we propagate fractures we wish would heal.

Whenever any of us have a role as leader or teacher we have an obligation to those in our care, in our circle of influence. But most of those relationships are voluntary, so the pressure is less. They can walk away. Family is different. Babies are stuck with the family they fall into. It is up to us to rise to the occasion, to be solid rocks.

And there is more, from Isaiah 58: “Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”

Simply being a strong building stone hewn from a deep quarry isn’t the whole assignment for a family man. We are also rebuilders and restorers. We have a duty and obligation to understand the age-old foundations of faith and trust and acceptance and forgiveness and grace, and raise them up. As one-of-us it is our responsibility to be a Repairer of Broken Walls.

As it turns out, I don’t mind the trouble of family maintenance. In fact, I like it. I want to be part of a big and deep quarry. I want to live my life in a world that is bigger than my own opinions. I want to be one of us.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 071510: Making plans

This week I started a new phase of my life. I have been in the office of a Midland oil and gas consultant two hours a day re-learning an economics software I once used when working for one company or another (there have been too many to remember exactly). I’m exploring the possibility of doing some contract work for this group. It is a tentative move back into the workforce after six years of being self-employed.

I am actually looking forward to the change in schedule and change of pace, but it didn’t come to me easily since I love my own freedom and independence above anything a job can offer. Months ago, when I first started thinking I should make a change, I wasn’t happy about it. I prayed, “God change my heart about this and make me ready.” I’m more ready now that I was then.

I spent too much time fretting about my daily schedule and how will I get this all worked out so the company will be happy and I will be able to do the writing and studying that I want. But I eventually decided I shouldn’t worry about it so much in advance. I had to trust that I could work out the details as I went along.

That hasn’t been a natural approach for me for most of my life. I usually want to have all the details worked out before I start something, so that once I finally get started it will all click along like clockwork. I love it when the contingencies are covered and surprises are accounted for ahead of time like a caper from the Italian Job. It makes me happy and proud.

But that sort of thinking can also paralyze me. If I don’t start a project until I have all my details lined up, which may be never, I may never get started at all. It was that sort of thinking that kept me from going backpacking all those years. I finally made myself go to the mountains anyway, even though I was unprepared and went with marginally adequate gear. I had to push myself over the hump of preparation and finally make the trip. It’s true that I suffered from being wet most of the time and I was way too cold in my broken sleeping bag, but I survived and I learned how to prepare better for the next time. Now I am pretty good at it … but, I almost never got started because I was too worried about being ready.

I once heard David McCullough say in an interview why he likes to write turn-of-the-century books. He said he loves the feeling of discovery and possibility of the era. He quoted an engineer from the late 1890s who turned to his crew as they were about to fire up some new industrial-age contraption and said, “Let’s start it up and see why it doesn’t work.”

The engineer wasn’t being fatalistic or negative. Quite the opposite. He knew he could fix the problems once they were identified, but he also knew he couldn’t foresee the problems without starting the project first. I need more of that sort of thinking in my life. Start now, fix it later on-the-fly, stop using detailed planning as a stall tactic.

Yet I know this about myself: I am neither happy nor productive until I work out my schedule, until I develop a system. Only then can I live beyond the distraction of details and let my creative mind flow. I tend to value process over events, at least in my own personal life, and I am never settled in my soul until I have the process worked out.

Maybe I am like the Rich Young Ruler, trying too hard to get my life perfect while God is whispering, “I will take care of you, just follow me.”

The reason this discussion matters to me is NOT because planning ahead is wrong or because details are not important. There is no glory in living an improvisational life if the result is running out of gas in a church bus or suffering from blisters after a marathon. Having details work out according to plan is a good way to live.

The reason it is important is because my motivation for planning (or stalling) is too often about my fear of looking stupid. I would rather sit down and stay home than risk looking like a beginner. For me the part that demands the most courage is not the risk of the event but the risk of public failure. I wonder how many opportunities I’ve missed because I was afraid to look silly.

Cyndi says we should all do something brave every day. For me that means living with a lighter touch, taking more chances on new ideas, being more improvisational. At least, that’s my plan.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 070810: Who do you love?

We started class with a list of things we could all agreed were wrong (murder, adultery, stealing, not respecting the women in our house (especially your mother), letting your cell phone ring during class, and like that) and things that were more subjective – things that some thought were always wrong but others didn’t worry about at all (alcohol use, movie ratings, dancing, gambling, yoga, acceptable attire for church, and so on).

The class was discussing I Corinthians 8, in which Paul addressed a divisive issue in the church. Some of the people were eating meat that had been used in pagan worship and they were doing it without concern or reservation. They didn’t believe the false pagan idols had any real spiritual significance and, after all, it was the best meat available. So why not enjoy their freedom?

There were others in the church who had been freed from those very same pagan practices and for them eating this meat was way too close to their old way of life before Jesus. It caused them a great deal of spiritual pain to live so close to the edge.

It’s easy for me to imagine the church members falling into two camps – one preaching careful consideration of new believers and following a close set of rules to prevent any possible drift back into paganism … after all, we aren’t the same people we used to be and we should live differently now. Eating this meat is one more slide down the slippery slope of losing our identity in an increasingly immoral world.

The other camp preaching freedom under grace and asking why we shouldn’t enjoy the best food when we’ve been set free from laws and rules – and maybe this group celebrated their freedom by serving BBQ at their church parties and wondered why everyone didn’t attend.

Paul started this part of his letter, not with a checklist of rules as we might expect, (and wouldn’t such a list have made our lives easier since all we’d have to do is check off the items as we obeyed) but with this statement: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” (NIV)

The Phillips translation says it this way: “We should remember that while this “knowing” may make a man look big, it is only love that can make him grow to his full stature.”

Apparently the controversy in the church at Corinth had descended into intellectual debates with both sides using their superior insight and wisdom to browbeat the other side. It is easy to imagine; even today there are hundreds of websites and blogs used by Christians to hammer away at other Christians who disagree with them. They are certain if they yell loud enough and type hard enough and make their intellectually-superior argument often enough the other side will have no choice but to submit and humbly admit they were wrong.

Paul said we don’t need to know more, we need to love more.

He also gave this advice in verse 8:9, “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.” But why do I always have to be responsible for someone else’s weakness? How far do I have to go allowing someone else’s conscience control my behavior? Why not command the weaker Christian to wise-up and grow up? Is it fair that we have to continually adjust our life to accommodate the least common denominator?

I asked the class, “What if someone joined our group from a church that taught women should never wear pants in church – should all the women in our class stop wearing pants in order to accommodate her?”

The answer that came back from the class was brilliant. “What we have to do first, before changing our behavior, is get to know the other person. We aren’t here to patronize each other but to take care of each other, and we can’t do that unless we truly know each other on a heart level.”

We are always willing to change our life and our behavior for people we know and love. Our true value isn’t about how much we know, but about how much we love – and even more – it is about who we love.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 070210: Experimenting

OK, I’ll go ahead and admit it: There is no logic to running long distances. At least, none that make sense to anyone who doesn’t want to do it.

I can make a list of why I like it – the battle against my own desire to quite early, the peace of meditation-on-the-move, the self-awareness that comes from so much time alone within my own thoughts, the emotional transformation from finishing another marathon, the short list of skills required, feeling the earth under my feet and hearing the buzz of a community, the camaraderie of fellow distance runners telling war stories, the vanilla milkshake reward earned after 15 miles – but I understand none of those are enough for most people I know.

And marathon training, well there is no logic to running 17 miles on a hot Friday morning in June, either. All I say can say is that I still hear the marathon drumbeat in the back of my head and I’m not yet ready to hang up my shoes.

But I cannot forget that I have 35,098 miles on my legs and feet and knees, and like most people I am getting older and slower day-by-day, not than younger and faster.

I once heard Jim Rohn say, “Casual living breeds casualties.” I think one reason I’ve been hobbling on one bad knee since 2004 is that I got too casual about my running. I thought I knew all I needed to know. I stopped paying attention to things like strength training and stretching because I didn’t need them any longer. I was beyond all that simple stuff.

I forgot about what George Sheehan taught us: Our life is an experiment of one. I stopped experimenting. I stopped learning. And, I got hurt. Now I am getting better, slowly, but it took a lot of deliberate action on my part.

For example, I’ve been going to a weight-lifting class a couple of times a week. I never did anything with weights before that and I ended up with a lot of imbalance and weakness. I’m much stronger now, especially in my quads and glutes and back. I believe that will help prevent future injuries and stabilize existing aches and pains.

I’ve also been attending a Vinyasa yoga class about once a week. I spent too many years, about 50, not stretching, and this class has helped me overcome that a little. It has helped me learn better balance, and given me greater flexibility and strength. I even breath better, which has improved my trombone playing. Who knew that would happen?

A few years ago Cyndi and I discovered a technique known as Chi Running. I believe it’s allowed my sore knee to find peace, and taught me how to stop hurting myself in the future. I don’t buy into the chi energy part of the technique, but I do believe that learning to land on my mid-foot instead of my heel has stopped further damage and will allow me to keep running for a long time.

And because of the patient work of Gladys Nichols at Seton Medical in Austin I have strengthened my core muscles and worked to achieve better muscle balance. Before Gladys I couldn’t run more than 5 minutes at a time; since Gladys I have completed one marathon and I am currently training for my next.

Maybe the weirdest experiment I’ve tried in my journey is barefoot running. Well, not exactly barefoot, even though I tried that once and it took the skin on my feet a week to grow back, but I have been running once a week in a pair of Vibram Five-Fingers. I hesitate to call them shoes since they look more like gloves for the feet. They have helped me learn mid-foot landing better than anything else I’ve tried.

And I can’t go on without mentioning Jeff Galloway’s run/walk technique. Once I started using it on long training runs I realized I could finally hope for many more marathons.

So I’m sorry if I am boring you non-distance-runners with this litany of experiments, but I believe in living intentionally, and that means trying new things. Just last week I was reading from a devotional book and it quoted Hebrews 12:2 from The Message and it reminded me of my recent adventures. “Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished the race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed – that exhilarating finish in and with God – he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever.”

The first phrase that caught my attention was “began and finished the race we’re in.” Since I hope to keep doing that for many more years I felt a personal attachment to that sentence.

But the most important phrase was this: “Study how he did it.” I hope I can study Jesus with the same deliberate attention I’ve applied to my running.

I have been doing spirituality for so long it is tempting to get casual about it. But casual living breeds casualties, and I don’t want my life with Jesus to become a casualty; I want to be always learning, always experimenting, always hoping.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 062410: Judging arrogance

So my opening question to the group was: What is the worst thing about judging other people?

We talked about this for awhile, and agreed that judging gives you a false sense of superiority, it scares other people away, it can become a habit which leads to a judgmental lifestyle that turns into bitterness and cynicism, it wounds other people, and it masks our own problems.

My next question was: What is the best thing about judging other people?

Well, judging other people is very fulfilling, it helps us know whether to hire someone for a job, helps us evaluate a prospective son-in-law, gives us the ability improve other’s behavior, lets us know how to genuinely help other people.

The Bible says many things about judging other people; sometimes it tells us to leave all judging to God, other times it reminds us to make our own judgments about who we follow and who we associate with. It isn’t a simple discussion. We must engage the world around us if we want to share the love and life and grace of God, but we can’t engage effectively without picking-and-choosing, without passing a few judgments.

We were studying from I Corinthians 5-6, where the Apostle Paul wrote a lot about judging other people. He started off by stating his disbelief that the church had allowed a blatantly immoral situation to remain among their membership. He urged the church to drastic action … to pass judgment. Paul made it clear that he had judged the situation already, even from a distance.

I had been chewing on this question of judging other people all week as I prepared my lesson for Sunday morning. One day as I read from my Daily Bible, from the prophet Hosea, I realized it spoke to the issue of judging, if only tangentially. Hosea has always been one of the hardest books in the Bible for me to read because of what happened. The prophet (Hosea) was told by God that he should marry Gomer, a habitually-unfaithful prostitute, in order to communicate a message to the people. Gomer’s adulterous life and Hosea’s continued acceptance of her would remind the people of their own betrayal of God and his own acceptance of them. While it was a powerful real-life illustration, it seemed like too much of a burden for a man to bear, even a prophet of God. Surely being a prophet was hard enough without being saddled with an intentionally bad marriage.

When I read Hosea I wondered about my own prayers to know God’s will for my life. What if God told me he wanted me to do something terrible just so my life could be an example for the people around me? I didn’t want that. Maybe I didn’t want to know God’s will if that sort of thing was a possibility.

Then I realized my mistake. I had always put myself into the story as Hosea, wondering if God would do something like that to me. I should have put myself into the story as Gomer, wondering if God would heal me and take me back. I assumed I was always the faithful prophet and never the unfaithful sinner.

And then again, while running on Monday it occurred to me that when I asked those questions – What is the worst thing about judging other people? What is the best thing about judging other people? – I asked them from the perspective of being the judge, not the victim.

We assume we are the judges who know the absolute truth, and whether we hammer people with that truth or accept them with that truth, it is always our choice. At least, that was my personal perspective.

But what if I am the person being judged? How do I answer those same opening questions? Now what is the best and worst part about judging? How arrogant it was for me to think I was always the person in position to judge and never the person who begged “please take me in I need healing.”

What I know now is that I have a lot more thinking do about this topic. I just hope my own arrogance doesn’t keep getting in the way of my understanding.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal Entry 061710: Hunter Peak

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit,” wrote Edward Abbey. I thought about that as I finally drifted off to sleep, Monday night in my tent, in the Pine Top primitive campground. I was backpacking in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park with Chad and Cory and Clark. Our original plan was to spend Monday night at Pine Top, do the nine-mile Bush Mountain – Blue Ridge loop on Tuesday, spend Tuesday night at Pine Top, and then hike down Tejas Trail in the cool of the morning on Wednesday. But because of a fire, most of those trails were closed, and the only place we could hike was Hunter Peak and a small portion of The Bowl. It was a shame, but couldn’t be helped.

It took us a long time to hike up to Pine Top. We arrived at the Pine Springs Visitor Center early enough, but had to wait for them to open the doors, and then we had to wait in line through lots of discussions about the forest fire and where we could hike and what we could do. It was a bit of a shock to realize they’d been fighting the fire for five days, yet this was the first any of us had heard about it.

We didn’t start up the trail until 10:00 AM. I had expected it would take us four hours at most to reach the ridge line but the heat and altitude took its toll and demanded a full six hours. I was so exhausted when I finally got the top and set up my tent that I took an hour nap just to recover. I don’t think I’ve ever spent six hours on my legs under a 60-lbs. pack (24 lbs. was nothing but water). I thought of a definition I read somewhere: Backpacking is an extended form of hiking in which people carry double the amount of gear they need for half the distance they planned to go in twice the time it should take. 

Later that night we all sat outside and ate and talked theology and family and history until well past dark. In fact, I didn’t finally go down to sleep until 11:30 PM.

Tuesday morning we took a leisurely pace to meet at Chad’s camp to eat his pancakes. We felt obligated to keep eating so he wouldn’t have to pack the weight of pancake batter and syrup all the way back down the mountain. We were doing him a favor, taking one for our brother, and all that.

With full bellies we started hiking toward Hunter Peak, one of the only trails open to us, where we spent about an hour on the summit rocks taking in the view and eating trail mix and Fig Newtons and talking about life. The view from Hunter Peak is one of the best mountain views anywhere. It is the 6^th-highest point in Texas, at 8,368’, and drops almost 3,000’ to a desert floor that truly resembles the ancient Permian Sea that it once was. And to the south was a postcard-perfect view of Guadalupe Peak. Using my 6x16 Audubon Monocular we could make out hikers on the Guadalupe Peak summit near the stainless steel monument.

Looking at the Guadalupe Peak massive I wondered what it was about mountains that speak directly into the heart. Maybe it’s their size when viewed up close; maybe it’s their seemingly indestructible presence in an ever-changing world; maybe it’s the physical difficulty they cause when we try to climb them. Who knows? But sitting on the flat limestone rocks at the top of Hunter Peak surrounded by the infinity of the West Texas desert, talking about old favorite movies and rock-and-roll bands becomes more than mere casual small talk. The shared effort to get to that spot made us brothers of the trail, and the stories we shared made us brothers of heart. It was a good day.

Since we’d exhausted the only trails left open by the National Park Service, and since it was too hot to sit around the camp all afternoon, we hiked down to the parking lot. We didn’t get started down until 2:30 PM; we were on the wrong side of the temperature gradient this entire trip. We unloaded our packs into Chad’s pickup, sucked down ice-cold soft drinks from the visitor center vending machine, and drove home to our waiting wives.

I wish we could’ve made the Bush Mountain – Blue Ridge loop. I’m certain it is extra green this year after a wet spring. Every time I do a solo hike through The Bowl I wish I could show it off to more of my guys. And I wish we could’ve had another night in camp to share more stories. But one of the attractions to going outside into the mountains is the unpredictability of it. Nature dishes out whatever it wants, whether rain or snow or lightening or fire, and the hiker has to respond and adapt. The risk of last-minute plan changes is part of the charm.

And another thing. I’ve been doing this with the guys long enough to know I can’t evaluate an experience right away. The true value of guys-outside-together may not show up for months or even years. I’m OK with that. Men make friends outside, and the more often we get outside together, the better we will be.

One of the glories of my present life is that I am surrounded by good men; they are among the finest men I have ever known. It was a privilege and honor to share the trail with three of my best.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

Journal entry 061010: Standing full

Having standing water in the corner of my front yard is not the sort of problem I expected to have living in West Texas. Around here we usually want to find more water, not get rid of it.

We first noticed our water problem last summer while planting a new bush. Our yard is designed with low-maintenance in mind. One of my goals when we built a new house was to never have to mow the grass again, so we don’t have any turf grass. The house takes up most of our small lot, and the yard consists of Jasmine groundcover and trees and bushes. One day we noticed the plants in the northwest corner of our lot dying so we decided to replace them with something hardier. But when we dug the hole for the new planting it quickly filled with water and never drained. This was in the hottest part of the summer, and it was a dry year, and it was unbelievable that the hole would stay full of water. That seemed like a Louisiana problem not a West Texas problem. Out here we expect any wet dirt to become dry dust after one day of exposure.

So we spent last fall and winter brainstorming what to do about our underground swamp. We suspected some sort of barrier, like dense clay, was preventing the water from draining. And since the northwest corner was the lowest part of our lot, all the irrigation water ran to the area and accumulated. One solution seemed to be to dig out the corner until we found good dirt and then refill the hole with porous sand. I suggested an alternative might be to plant something that needs a lot of water, one of those plants we usually avoid, like salt cedar or kudzu, to drink up the water, but I knew they would eventually jump across the street and choke out our neighborhood pond and I would be thrown out of town.

So my first free weekend after Easter, I went to work. I couldn’t stall any longer. I dug for four hours on Saturday and another hour on Sunday (Cyndi didn’t think my Saturday hole was big enough). My hole was roughly L-shaped, eight feet on each long side and about three feet each width. I dug about 18” deep into a mixture of clay and soft dirt, apparently the result of the original landscaper tilling the soil to break up the clay. But then I hit a solid layer of clay and I couldn’t go any deeper with a shovel. I put about 2” of water in the hole hoping it would soak into the clay and make it more digable.

But Monday morning the 2” of water was still standing in the hole. It might’ve been deeper having gathered drainage form the rest of the lawn. And at the time of this writing, about three weeks later, I still have several inches of standing water.

So what do I do next is my biggest question. I could get a backhoe and keep digging until I get past the clay, but I’m afraid a backhoe would leave a bigger hole and more damage to my sprinklers than I want. Or I could rent a drill and try to sink deep holes into the clay to allow the water to drain. I have been offered the use of a pickax and a posthole digger, and I’ll probably try those next. But since I don’t know how deep the clay extends, and it may go all the way down to caliche, I have no assurance digging deeper with help.

This week I have been working through I Corinthians 4, and in verse 16 Paul said something that used to frighten me. He said, “I urge you to imitate me.” How could anyone be so bold and presumptuous is what I thought.

Of course, I said the same thing to my kids when teaching them how to run, or how to ski, or ride a bicycle, or read a book. It wasn’t scary to tell them to do it like I did. But when talking about spiritual maturity, like Paul was, I never felt qualified to be the example to be followed.

I was wrong. I thought being mature in Christ meant I was a reservoir of wisdom and knowledge, and I couldn’t hold myself up as an example until I was sufficiently full. But filling up just to be full could be just as destructive to those around me as my water-logged corner of the yard was to my plants.

To be a healthy place for my bushes and trees the soil has to be a conduit for water to pass through, not a jug from which water cannot drain. And so to be a healthy place for other people to grow closer to God I have to be a conduit through which God flows rather than a full reservoir. I can say “imitate me” if I am willing to give it all away.

One of my new rules for living is to give something away every day. I urge you to imitate me. You don’t want to be the sort of person to hold onto stuff and never let it out. You don’t want to hoard the ideas and insights and dreams God has given you. Give it away every day.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org