Journal entry 123010: Taking advantage

This in-between week is a soft time of the year for me - after the rush of Christmas and before the New Year beginning. I try hard not to waste it.

It should come as no surprise that I’m a goal-setter and a list-maker. I like to write my goals on paper in a list so I can check them off. When working with daily goals or weekend projects, I even draw little boxes beside each item so I have a place to put my checkmark. It’s one of my best qualities, and something I like about myself.

However, some of my goals have been on my list for so long they aren’t really goals at all, but minimal expectations. I don’t mean the ones that I’ve never accomplished, like weigh 175#, but the ones I do year after year after year. Such as reading a lot of books, or reading through the Bible, or working out every day …

Here are some of my thoughts concerning the year 2011. These aren’t exactly goals, yet, but they are the directions I am leaning. Think of them as more like guidelines.

As I move my office into my home I must take advantage of the moment and make other meaningful changes in my personal schedule and structure. A change of location shouldn’t be wasted.

I will continue to pursue reentering the engineering workforce. That shouldn’t be so difficult, in fact it should be obvious, but my desire for independence and my longing to write and publish are so strong they often trump common sense solutions. My preference would be for part-time contract engineering work so I can continue to devote serious chunks of time to writing, but I can already feel a change in my heart toward traditional employment if the opportunity arises. After all, I’ve been praying for months for God to change my heart for the next step.

I want to resurrect my use of memory verse cards when I’m running. One of the disciplines taught to me by my college friend Ray was to write Bible verses on small cards and memorize them. Later when I began running I would carry them with me and work on them, and the Word eventually wove its way into my heart. In the past years I’ve drifted away from that practice, and now I spend more time listening to podcasts when I run. I enjoy listening and I don’t want to drop it entirely, but I’d like to renew the influence of those verses in my life.

We have a lot of family photos that we used to display in our old house and most of them are still in boxes in our new garage even after living here for two years. I want to change that. The older I get the more I treasure the stories behind those photos, and they deserve better treatment. I want to find a place to put them, to remind me of how God has blessed our life, and to provide an opportunity to tell the stories.

I want to go backpacking in the Big Bend Ranch State Park before it gets too hot. I would love to hear any recommendations for a two-night base-camp type of trip.

I want to understand our TV better. One reason I don’t watch much TV is I get exhausted paging through all the channels I will never watch (home shopping, reality programs, Hollywood insider, etc.) trying to find something I want to see. Surely there is a way to hide the channels we don’t subscribe to and hide the channels we won’t watch. I just haven’t cared enough about it to engage the problem. I should do better.

I hope to accept help, even ask for help, more often. When people like me avoid letting other people help them, well, that sounds more noble that it really is, and it isn’t what living in community is all about. When Cyndi and I visited the Wittes in northern Uganda in 2005, we were appalled by the way the Karimojong people were always begging from each other, a practice guaranteed to dissolve a friendship in the United States. However, they needed each other to survive, and begging was an important part of their inter-dependence. I want to learn better communal skills from the Karimojong - not begging, necessarily, but letting other people help me.

I want to run two or three marathons, and at least one 50K. And I want to work hard to lower my pace from its current death-shuffle to (at least) a respectable trot.

I should spend the money to buy a replacement motor for our drop-down movie screen. I have avoided it long enough. The odds of me inventing a better, cheaper solution have diminished to zero. It’s time to move on.

My second book should be ready for sale in January, and I am currently working on my third. I have a huge backlog of writing, and after all these years I’ve finally learned how to pull it together in book form. Now, all I need is the courage to follow through.

I will be more aggressive inviting people to subscribe to my (free) weekly Journal Entries, and in marketing books and seeking opportunities to speak to groups. Writing and teaching are gifts I must follow with more intention if I am to prove faithful to the God who gave them to me.

So this is my recommendation to you. Understand that unexpected change should be seen as an opportunity rather than a burden. I used to believe that incremental changes were best, and often they are, but I am beginning to see the value of clumping my changes, especially with respect to personal disciplines and habits. Making a lot of changes at once creates energy and stirs up courage.

Take advantage of these soft times of the year when heart and mind are open to ideas. The rest of the time we live too rushed and too crowded to entertain new thoughts. Start your list now, and join me as we lean into 2011.

(Send a copy of your goals/leanings/guidelines to me. Maybe we can help each other. I would value any advice regarding my own list.)

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

To learn about Berry’s 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 122310: Traditional story

One of our oldest family Christmas traditions is to read the book, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, by Barbara Robinson. Cyndi reads it in the car whenever we drive from Midland to Hobbs for Thanksgiving, and it lasts almost perfectly from driveway to driveway. And we read an abridged version during one of our adult Bible study classes every year.

The book opens with this description: “The Herdmans were the worst kids in the whole history of the world. They lied and stole and smoked cigars, even the girls, and talked dirty and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain and set fire to Fred Shoemaker’s old broken down tool house. They went through the Woodrow Wilson School like those South American fish that strip your bones clean.”

Published in 1972, it’s a story of six unruly children who pause from terrorizing the town just long enough to secure all the main parts in the annual Christmas pageant in spite of the fact they knew nothing about the Nativity story. They joined the pageant because they heard there were snacks involved; but before it was all over, they illustrated the true meaning of the birth of Christ in a way never seen in the previous traditional, controlled, well-behaved pageants.

One reason the Herdman children were so effective when performing the Christmas story was because they were hearing it themselves for the first time even as they performed. And they played the parts from their own life experiences rather from the pre-conceived traditional images most people expected.

The story of Jesus, which is to say, THE STORY of all time, doesn’t land in our laps in pristine condition like a falling star straight from heaven. No, Jesus’ story flows through the lives of real people, and it bears the marks of their personalities and shortcomings and struggles and victories. It is amazing that God trusted human beings to bear his story through our lives.

There are so many ways to tell the Christmas story. We read the gospel accounts, we stage live nativity presentations, we give big choir and orchestra performances, we send Christmas cards, we decorate our houses and yards, we wear Christmas sweaters, we sing Christmas carols, and we give our dollar bills to the Salvation Army bell ringers. Maybe we do most of these because they have become warm traditions for us, but I believe the real motivation runs much deeper. We do all these things, because we are telling the story of Jesus through our lives and actions, and that story changes both the teller and listeners in more ways than we can know.

Last Sunday morning I read the genealogical record from Matthew 1 to our young-adult Bible study class. It might have been the first time in my life to ever read one of those long lists of Bible names out loud. I have taught adult Bible study classes for 20 years but I always passed over the genealogies. In fact I always wondered why the Bible included all those obscure names. But the genealogy of Mathew 1 is a list of people who had one big thing in common - each person could put on their tombstone, “I made it possible for you to know Jesus.” They weren’t all good people, in fact some of them were downright evil, but the story of Jesus flowed through their lives and ended up in our ears.

The Jesus story flows through the lives of Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, and the wise men. It flows through the long list of lives of Matthew 1. It flows through people who are more like the Herdmans than we’d care to admit. And it flows through you and me.

This year, let the Jesus story flow freely through your life. That is exactly the version we all need to hear.

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

To learn about Berry’s 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 121610: Transitions

Monday afternoon I found myself praying as I walked from the Village Car Wash on Andrews Highway to Whataburger. I’m much more patient to wait if I have someplace else to go and something to work on; if I’m stuck in the car wash waiting room, held captive by their loud TV, I quickly get anxious and irritable. So I choose car washes near to my regular spots, near enough for walking. And this time, I guess the rhythm of walking turned my mind to prayer.

I asked God for help during this current time of transition in our family, to open my ears and heart to hear and respond to what he wanted for me. And then it occurred to me that I’d continuously prayed for help through bouts of transition for years. It came as a surprise: we were always in transition. I had convinced myself that our past lives were more settled and predictable, but it wasn’t true. They only appeared simple in retrospect. None of those times seemed settled while we were living through them. Life was always moving and we were in transition all the time.

I often hear people wish that they could live in the past when times were simpler and language was softer and teenagers were responsible and life was at peace, but those days exist only in our imagination. The people who lived then never said to one another, “Aren’t we lucky to be living in simple times.” No, they were fighting and scratching for survival every day, just like all people have done since the beginning.

And I had to admit there was never a time when I said to Cyndi, “Aren’t we lucky to have such peaceful and stable lives.” For one thing I’d never say something like that out loud because I’d be afraid to jinx it, like mentioning a no-hitter during the game; but besides that, we’ve always lived on lumpy ground yearning for future days when things would settle down a bit. It never happened. Never will.

But Monday afternoon, even as I prayed and walked past the convenience store on my way to Whataburger, I realized that transitions were not something to simply live through, they were the essence of life itself. If we didn’t have unknowns ahead of us, if we didn’t have to improvise our way through the key changes, what a boring un-life we would have. Where would the energy come from? Where would our joy come from?

Cyndi reminds me that balance is only peaceful on the surface; underneath it is constant movement. When Cyndi is balanced on one leg in Warrior III, she appears to be completely relaxed and peaceful, but if you look closely you can see the muscles in her feet firing right and left and the muscles in her legs hugging the bones and her ribs stretching and expanding. Balancing requires a lot of movement, but it’s the movement itself that makes it all worthwhile. And it’s the constant adjustment and improvisation that makes our life worthwhile.

When would I turn to God if I weren’t living through moments of transition, wobbly on my pegs trying to stay balanced? Why would God want to give me a stable life that allows me to ignore our relationship?

So I kept praying as I walked toward Whataburger: “Help us through this current set of transitions and get us ready for the next round. Speak to me in my ears and in my heart about the correct decisions I should make and the wise path I should walk as I move my office location, consider more consulting work, learn how to write books, learn how to market books, dive deeper into the lives of my guys, share my home, help Cyndi transition from teacher to business owner, try to replace diminishing oil and gas cash flow, and try to keep running on bum knees. Thank you, God, for transitions that pull me to you.”

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

To learn about Berry’s 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 120910: Too slow?

OK, I’ll admit it. I’m embarrassed to be running so slow nowadays.

Not that I was ever very fast. In my “prime,” my best 10K was 47:00 and best marathon was 3:52, and both of those happened way back in the 1980s. Since then I’ve been getting slower every year.

But lately it’s even worse. I’m running so slow I’m afraid I’ll topple over. I’m even too slow to meditate and contemplate without losing my balance.

It traces back to 2004 when my left knee first started hurting. I eventually stopped running altogether to give it time to rest, reverting to walking every day instead. When I eventually started running again I didn’t notice how much I’d slowed down since even a slow run is faster than walking. It wasn’t until I started running races again that I realized how much my pace had disintegrated.

So about six months ago I decided I should go to the track for some speed workouts. I’m not sure if track workouts really make you faster, or if the suffering just allows you to move to the next level. Like Mario Brothers, maybe it buys you the right to move up.

You might point out that my video game references are as old as my running P.R.s, and that instead of track workouts I just need a bushier mustache and a funnier hat. Well, maybe.

After putting it off for months I finally went to the track on Monday of this week. I would’ve continued to put it off another week but before leaving for my regular Monday run I discovered my iPod had lost all of its charge. Instead of doing my six miles in silence I decided to go to the track.

My legs and knees have been so stiff I was afraid of running quarters. I decided to sprint (defined loosely) 100 meters and walk 300 meters, and just see how many laps I could go before I hurt myself.

The first 100-meter sprint was a disaster. I was peg-legged and flat-footed, my knee hurt and I couldn’t breathe. This workout won’t last long is what I told myself.

But to my surprise the 2^nd 100-meters was easier than the first. And the third was easier and smoother than the second. And the fourth was even better. Instead of getting harder each time, they got easier. Who would’ve guessed that?

Unfortunately they didn’t continue to get easier or I would still be there running at the track. After the fourth one they stayed the same; but they didn’t get harder. I ran eight and then went back to the gym before I hurt something that would take a long time to heal. Now I realize I was only sprinting 100 meters, which is hardly a long distance, but it was hard work for my stiff legs just the same as if I’d done longer intervals. It felt like victory.

I remembered a quote from Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin; he wrote: “When you feel the resistance, the stall, the fear, and the pull, you know you’re on to something.”

So in the context of running I shouldn’t be too quick to back off when I feel those early pains … my legs and shins usually feel worse in the first mile than the entire rest of the run. And today, it was my first interval that was the most painful. If I’d stopped then I never would’ve felt the joy of the next seven.

However, simply doing something because it is hard or scary or painful is not enough of a reason. Again, Seth Godin wrote, “You have to determine if the route is worth the effort; if it’s not, dream bigger.”

It’s the dreaming bigger that makes the effort worth it. I would have a much easier life if I’d just gone to lunch when my iPod quit last Monday instead of going to the track, and I’ll admit I’ve made that choice more than once, but there is no hope in sitting down. In fact, very few easy choices bring hope; who wants to live a life without hope.

Well, there are probably more lessons to tell from Monday but running on the track always reduces my memory and I forget all my best ideas. Maybe I need to slow down so I’ll have more time to think.

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

To learn about Berry’s 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 120210: Identity

I suffered an identity crises. Or worse, I lost my identity. My laptop, where I spend more time in front of than anywhere else except for in front of Cyndi, decided to throw our three-year friendship over the side and refused to acknowledge my presence. It looked me in the face and asked, “Who are you?” Like a lifelong best friend who suddenly and without explanation stopped talking to you and never gave a reason, my laptop simply stopped recognizing me as its owner and assigned a temporary identity to me. It was discouraging, to say the least.

The sad tale actually started about two weeks ago when the internet connection at our house started misbehaving. It would work for a while, then shut off for an hour, then work for several hours, and then shut down for two days. It was a big deal because we have three adult internet users in our house. Tanya uses it to schedule her flights with Southwest Airlines and Cyndi uses it as a fifth-grade teacher and to run her yoga studio. I use it work on websites and publish books and goof around on Facebook. We were lost without our internet connection. We thought about asking our next-door neighbors if we could temporarily jump on their home network but we were afraid that was too much to ask for, nice people though they are.

But Saturday afternoon the AT&T man came to our house with his tool kit, and after some poking and tuning and typing, he discovered the power supply to our 2-Wire router was bad. He replaced it and we were back online. Our global access to information came back and we were happy.

That is, one of us was happy. Cyndi immediately got online and, as you might imagine, she jumped up-and-down with glee. She would’ve hugged the AT&T man except she went right to work on the projects she’d been waiting to finish. Alas, I couldn’t join her. It was at that very moment of victory that my laptop crossed its arms, pouted its silver metallic lips, and refused to acknowledge my existence.

For an introspective like me, personal identity is always a moving target, more of a guideline than a specific definition, but I never expected to be rejected by my computer. It reminded me of a recent long run when the charge in my GPS watch ran out before I was finished running and the watch display went blank. When I looked at it to check my pace and mileage and saw nothing but a white screen, I got wobbly – uncertain - vertigo, which was silly since I knew where I was and knew I was only 1-1/2 miles from home. But for an instant it felt like my entire morning had been pointless, and the 9 miles I’d already run had been for naught. Eventually, after walking through my haze of existential angst, I realized it was silly to think the miles existed in my watch instead of in my legs. The real value of the run hadn’t changed at all, and after I talked myself into feeling better, I limped on home.

So the good news about my pouty computer was that I was pretty sure I hadn’t lost anything creative. I still had files of practice writing, and still had all my essays and journals, and still had my books and all my clever witty insights. I wasn’t sure whether I could recover my emails and contacts, however.

It took me a day, but eventually I caught my breath and realized my life would be all right. Maybe this was even something of a sideways blessing, an opportunity to start anew. I’ve always touted the value of fresh starts, maybe this was my opportunity to bury past emails from the Nigerian National Bank and stale contact information from 1998, and limp on in to the future. Maybe it would turn out to be my time of Jubilee.

But it worked out better than that. My friend-on-a-white-horse, Frank, helped me reestablish my identity and find my data (or, should I say, rebuilt my life). In fact, my computer now works just fine. We aren’t best friends again, yet, but we’re at least good acquaintances. However, Frank warned me that the problems I had experienced were warning shots. My hard disk was doomed to failure, and it probably wouldn’t be long. I restored my profile just enough to do work, but I’ll only go so far with a computer that won’t last. I’ll only show just so much of myself to a short-timer. A computer has to promise to stick with me before learning my full identity.

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

To learn about Berry’s 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 112510: A Thanksgiving tradition

Hunting for Christmas trees at the Tramperos Ranch in northeast New Mexico is a Thanksgiving tradition we’ve left behind, and I miss it – even though there were some years when Christmas tree hunting was a wild adventure.

I remember the time it was 36 degrees with a 40-mph wind and we made record time. From the moment we first started talking about leaving the warm basement to actually driving down the road took only twenty minutes. Our previous record was one-and-a-half hours. The secret that year may have been the cold wind, or it may have been that we were only taking eleven people instead of the usual of twenty or more.

It was a tradition within the Atchley clan (my in-laws, their children, and spouses) to gather Christmas trees on Friday after Thanksgiving. We usually spent most of the day deciding whether to go before or after naptime, and how many pick-up trucks we’d need. This was not trivial since the family proved to be prolific breeders through the years and it took several pick-ups to haul all the cousins and aunts and uncles. It also took a long time to round up coats, gloves, hats, axes, and saws.

During most of our tree-hunting years, the ranch was owned and operated by Cyndi’s grandfather, Forrest Atchley. My small, four-member family went there for Thanksgiving every odd-numbered year, and whenever we went we brought home a Christmas tree or two. One year we brought home four: one for our home, two for Greathouse Elementary School, and one for the Lee Freshman High School Band hall.

Christmas tree hunting was not easy. The best trees were located far from the road and were surrounded by rocks and cactus and were hard to get to. The very best trees were always on the next hill over from the one where we were standing. In fact, there was no sense in even looking at trees until we’d hiked over the hill and the pickups were out of sight.

Hunting the perfect tree was also not haphazard. In a family steeped in tradition, as this one is, there is a correct sequence, a specific protocol, required to get the most from every experience.

First, we climbed all over the rocky mesa and steep canyons to find the absolutely perfect tree. We usually had to identify two or three perfect trees before deciding which one was good enough, and everyone in the family must agree on which tree was the most perfect. Up on the mesa, it took a lot of negotiating among husbands and wives and brothers and sisters to broker an agreement.

Sometimes the best trees had one flat side to put against the wall. Occasionally they had two flat sides, to fit in the corner. The best trees had only one main trunk, but a double-trunk tree would work as long as the sawyer could cut low enough to get both. The best trees often had pine cones on the branches. Also, the best trees were small enough to strap on top of an Astro Minivan, later a Ford Explorer, for the long ride home to Midland.

Every family had their own idea of perfection – some liked squatty fat trees, some liked flat-sided open-branched trees, some liked short Charlie Brown trees, and some, like Cyndi and I, cut only the very best symmetrical trees, perfect in every way. We never settled for those bushes the other cousins and aunts and uncles thought were adequate. Of course, they all thought their standards were higher than ours. However, regardless of specifications and selection, once a tree was cut, it became perfect. It was bad form to criticize each other’s selections; we were all expected to praise the choice of each family. We didn’t cut a tree and then throw it down to find another, oh no; once a tree was cut it was guaranteed a home.

One year Cyndi and I saw a particularly well-shaped small table-top sized tree up the hill among a pile of rocks. I climbed up only to discover it was actually a series of small trunks surrounding a 2-inch sawed-off stump. What looked like a perfect tree from a distance was the last desperate attempt of a root system whose main trunk had been cut years before. Not only was that particular tree showing tenacity and determination, it did so with style and humor. It was a survivor and it was beautiful. We saluted it, and moved on

The second step in the tree hunting protocol was that all the other families had to relinquish any claims to that particular tree even if they thought they saw it first. Sometimes that took a while, and may have included a promise to cook someone’s favorite dessert.

Step three: the oldest male in the family, or the closest male holding a saw in his hand, got to lie down on the cold rocky ground to cut the tree trunk with a bow saw, while one of the strong females pulled the tree over to one side to make the cutting easier.

Norman Rockwell paintings always show Christmas tree hunters carrying an ax, but don’t believe them. We used bow saws, which weren’t as fulfilling or as manly as using an ax, but much more practical. The trees on the mesas grew nestled among rocks and cactus and it was too hard to get a clean blow with an ax. I’ve heard of people who use a chainsaw to cut their Christmas tree, but they are probably the same people who spell Christmas, X-mas. We weren’t those people.

The last step in the process was to load all the trees and all the cousins and kids onto the pickup trucks and drive back to the houses. In the case of our family, we added another step, the ritual of tying our trees onto the top of our Ford Explorer. It wasn’t easy in the cold wind, and we usually had several trees to tie down. Cyndi often got so fretful about the gigantic pile of evergreen on top of her car that we sent her inside to make hot chocolate for everyone. After all, what could go wrong with an engineer and an Eagle Scout and two fifty-foot ropes?

As our own family grew up and changed, and as the larger family expanded and separated, we haven’t kept up this tree hunting ritual. Cyndi and I haven’t participated in the last six or seven years. However, we will always have great memories of hand-picking the most perfect Christmas tree from those New Mexico mesas, cutting them ourselves, tying them onto our Explorer, and singing carols all the way home to Midland. It’s one of our best family memories ever.

 

The Simpson family showing off our perfect tree for 1993

A load of cousins and trees, a successful huntung trip

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

To learn about Berry’s 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 111810: Not yet

There was a moment when I could’ve said “No.” Maybe last February when Chad first suggested we should run the Rockledge Rumble 50K in Grapevine, Texas, on November 13th.

I was a bit nervous about running 31 miles, since I’d never run past the 26-mile marathon distance, but I was also convinced I could go any distance given enough time. I’d also never run a trail race before. Chad proved to be a good friend who not only talked me into attempting this challenging race, he reminded me I had always wanted to run an ultramarathon, but even more, he agreed to wait for me at the finish line. That was not a small commitment on his part since he runs much faster than I do and he knew he might have to wait hours for me to finish.

What Chad did was tap into a long-standing dream I’ve had since I started reading Runner’s World Magazine and books by George Sheehan, back about 1980. I’ve always wanted to run long on dirt trails; there is something about having my feet on dirt that makes my heart happy. It seems ironic that God would put that love in my heart yet plant my life in West Texas where there are few opportunities for trail running.

The start of the Rockledge Rumble was very casual. The race director told us all to raise our right hands to take the Rumble oath: We swore to have fun; pick up our feet; do no littering: if the runner in front falls down, jump over him (no stepping on his back); if we fall down, know it’s our own fault and don’t whine. We stood in a group in the parking lot talking and joking, and then we took off. There was no toeing the line or sprinting away at the gun.

The aid stations were casual, too. There were no expectations that someone would grab water and keep going like in a road race. They were set up with expectations we would linger a while. They were stocked with a variety of snacks and drinks and smiling, serving faces.

However, there was nothing casual about the trail. It was narrow and confined the entire way. There was never room to run beside someone and it took deliberate squeezing to one side or the other to pass. And we could seldom see more than 100 feet ahead down the trail. It was great – just what I’d hoped it would be like.

However, I had absolutely no feel for my pace. I thought I was running my regular marathon pace but I was surprised to learn I was much slower. I’d left my GPS watch at home because I knew the charge would run out before I could finish, but I should have brought it to keep track of my distance and pace. Especially since there were no mile markers in the woods.

The course was basically a 30K out-and-back, then a 20K out-and-back. Curiously, I could tell when I was approaching the 30K turnaround because I smelled peanut butter in the air as returning runners passed by. Apparently they were serving PB&J sandwiches at the turnaround aid station, and they must’ve been good, since all the runners had peanut butter on their breath.

After the turnaround I was surprised to notice how many runners were behind me. I thought I was in last place. And then I ran for almost 1-1/2 hours without seeing one single person, runner or volunteer or tourist. It was just me and the woods. I was happy they’d gone to great lengths to mark the trail so I wouldn’t get lost.

There was an element of sensory deprivation (from watching nothing but the ground in front of me) but also sensory overload (from concentrating on every step and rock and root). It was surprisingly soothing to be so focused. In a road race I am usually disengaged from the actual surface I am running on.

I finished the first 30K out-and-back and was moving through the aid station and in the process of leaving for the next 20K when the race director quietly told me he didn’t think I would finish under the time limit. He gave me the choice to keep going but kindly reminded me that the race officials would have to pull me off the course at the next aid station, 6 miles away, if I didn’t get there in less than 30 minutes. I wanted to keep running, but he was correct. If I had been capable of running 6 miles in 30 minutes I would’ve finished the entire race long before. It was time to call it a day. I told myself I didn’t run out of running, I just ran out of time.

Later, after I was back home, it occurred to me that it took me as long to finish the 30K (18.6 miles) as it took me to finish a marathon (26.2 miles) a month ago. I guess it was the effect of running on the winding trail. If the race director had let me go out for another 20K, it would’ve taken me another 4 hours to finish, in the dark. He did the right thing, and I did the right thing. If I’d forced the day and pushed on to the full 50K I might’ve had a bad experience or injury that set me back for years. Instead, I am ready to try again as soon as possible.

Saturday afternoon as we drove away from the finish area in Chad’s pickup we were already tossing around ideas for our next attempt on the trails. And later at dinner when my daughter Katie asked, “What do you think about Cowtown?” I didn’t flinch. I had already started mentally counting the weeks.

My post-race damage assessment: no blisters (thanks to toe socks); no black toenails; no bloody knees since I never fell all the way down to the ground (in spite of multiple stumbles over the rocks and roots - and some spectacular saves); the only scratches I brought home were on the outside of my right leg, which I suppose I got when I moved over to let other runners pass. Sunday morning my quads and hips were tight and sore and quite cranky. And strangely, my ribs were sore (where did that come from). On Monday, it was my hamstrings that wouldn’t move; Tuesday it was my shins and hips. That was all fine with me. As long as the pains kept moving around I knew I didn’t have any permanent injuries.

Since February, when Chad’s suggestion to run the Rockledge Rumble found a home in my brain, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I would never be younger, and odds were I would never be much fitter, so what was I waiting for? Why was I waiting year after year to fulfill this dream? I suppose I was waiting for a good friend who’d drag me into it and wait for me to finish.

I find myself using the phrase “not yet” with my 8-year-old nephew Kevin a lot these days. Not in the way I would’ve thought I would use it, as in: “Uncle Berry, can I go outside?” (Not yet). Rather, I used it when he says, “I can’t whistle” (Not yet), or “I can’t ride my bike as fast as you do” (Not yet), or “Uncle Berry can you run as fast as Aunt Cyndi?” (Not yet). I use the phrase to hint there are better days ahead.

I’ll admit I was slow to adopt this philosophy of “not yet.” It’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned so far in my 50s: don’t wait for perfect conditions. I can’t always wait until I am ready before starting something new. I can’t wait until I am good enough or trained enough or equipped enough to get started. I have to start now and get ready along the way. It’s like something Bill Bryson wrote in A Walk in the Woods, when a friend asked him how he was training to through-hike the Appalachian Trail, said: You can’t train for something like that; you just have to let the trail itself do the training.

I don’t mean to be naïve or stupid. I would not encourage anyone to do something like run a 50K without preparation and training. But I will suggest they stop waiting for perfect alignment and start today. I remember my friend Norm who wanted to run a marathon but vowed to wait until he was fit enough to run a sub-4:00, then died of bone cancer before trying. Don’t let that happen. Start today, and train on-the-fly.

As I wrote in the beginning of this piece, there were many times in this process when I could’ve said “No.” When Chad first mentioned it last February, or when I registered for the race in October, or even when I worked up my 2010 goals last December (that included running an ultra). However, I’m happy I never said “No.”

I’ve learned a few things in 32 years of running, and one of them is this: just because I didn’t doesn’t mean I won’t. I have a lot of “not yets” still to come.

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

To learn about Berry’s 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 111110: Valiant men

The Permian Reef Trail in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park is one of the easier trials that we take, yet still it’s rated “strenuous.” It climbs about 2,200’ to an elevation of 7,000’, an 8-1/2-mile round trip. This year our group consisted of ten guys from Midland, mostly members of the Iron Men group, and we spent about six hours on the trail including an hour on top for lunch.

It was a beautiful day, maybe the best weather we’ve ever had in a dozen Iron Men hiking trips. The sky was bright blue and cloudless and the air surprisingly free of haze. We were all amazed how far we could see from up on top of the ridge. Someone suggested we should cancel all future trips since we would never see weather this good again.

But in spite of perfect weather it was still hard work. We came down off the trail and collapsed into our seats on the bus, opened the windows to bleed off our locker-room stench, changed into comfortable shoes, gulped water and scarfed down Advil, and immediately started telling our stories from the day and congratulating each other. It all made me happy. Once again I was reminded how blessed I am to be surrounded by so many good men. The world is full of men who live their entire lives with no real friends who will hike to the top of the mountains with them, yet I have a bus full of guys like that.

The scene reminded me of a Bible story about a young man named Saul who lived a small life tending the family flocks until God called him out to be the first king of Israel. I Samuel 10:26 says, “Saul went to his house in Gibeah, accompanied by valiant men whose hearts God had touched.” Before he became the king Saul was all alone; afterward, he was surrounded by valiant men. He had guys. Coming off the mountain, I realized I was surrounded by valiant men whose hearts God had touched.

I remembered six-years-back how reluctant I was to be part of a men’s ministry because I never considered myself a man’s man. I was not an athlete, didn’t play golf, only followed sports sporadically, would rather be by myself reading or writing than hanging with the men spitting and whittling, didn’t hunt or even own a gun, rarely went fishing, had never been to drag races, and I was totally indifferent about NASCAR. Yet, here we are, all of us together, bragging about our day. I had been alone, but now God had given me guys, and today we were all men’s men.

And then, the very next morning, Sunday morning, I helped with the Lord’s Supper at my church, First Baptist in Midland. That means I had to wear grown-up clothes (a coat and tie), which means I had to dig them out from the back corner of my closet. Since I left city government three years ago I don’t have to dress up as often as I used to.

In addition to being on the roster for Lord’s Supper team I was playing trombone in the church orchestra, and since I was already sitting very near the front of the worship center (Sanctuary? Auditorium? Big Church?) I was assigned the duty to help serve the choir. It was a rich experience as always, but even more because I could turn back and watch all the other men serving up and down the aisles. I enjoyed watching their measured actions and the reverence they showed for the service. But even more, I was blessed to realize I knew all of them by name, I had served with most of them on committees, and they had all influenced me through the strength of their lives.

Once again, I was blessed to know so many fine men; men who have impacted who I am and how I live; men I want to be like when I grow up; valiant men whose hearts have been touched by God.

The name of our group, Iron Men, comes from Proverbs 27:17 that says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” But sharpening each other isn’t all we do. We also smooth each other. We’re like old wooden-handled tools that show the wear of constant use, the smoothed portions worn smooth by the hands that used them. Our constant man-to-man contact wearing away the rough spots has left us with the pattern of our fellow valiant men. The older I get the more I look forward to being worn smooth by these men. I have a blessed life.

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

To learn about Berry’s 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 110410: Imitating

I asked, “Who did you imitate when you were young?” Some of the responses I received: Evil Knievel and Buddy Rich; Incredible Hulk; Batman, the Beach Boys, and Indiana Jones; my dad and grandfather, and Indiana Jones. You can probably guess that all the replies came from guys.

Who did I imitate? Well, I remember reading a grade-school version of the novel, Ivanhoe, and for weeks I ran around with a wooden sword and shield looking for a battle to fight. I also tried to talk my friends into jousting on bicycles but none of them read the same books as I did.

Also, I had a friend who built the coolest model airplanes, well-constructed, detailed, perfectly painted with an air brush. I wanted to build model airplanes just like him.

Cyndi and I were both first-born children, and we were the oldest of all our cousins, so we didn’t have any siblings to imitate. However, Cyndi remembers trying to get her hair to flip up like Patty Duke. If you know Cyndi, you know her hair wasn’t like that. When I was young I had my hair cut in a burr (as we called it in the 1960s) and I don’t know if it flipped.

I did try to imitate my Dad’s sense of humor when I was young. Well, he and I actually have quite different taste in humor, and we tell different types of jokes and laugh at different things, but what I learned from him was how it can be funnier to be the target of a joke, how it was often better to get caught in the middle of a prank than get clean away with it, and that sometimes it is best to sit down and keep your mouth shut.

Now, as a grown-up, one person I try to imitate is writer Natalie Goldberg. I like the way she weaves her spirituality (in her case, Zen Buddhism) among her stories so it all flows together and is very contagious. I want to write like her. I want to weave my spirituality (Jesus Christ) through my stories so that it feels natural and contagious.

What got me started on this question was reading Ephesians 5:1, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children” (NIV). I liked the deliberate nature of imitating. It seemed more purposeful than, say, absorbing or inheriting the ways of God. The Message translation says it like this: “Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents”

One of our family markers is hooting. Cyndi and I hoot to get each other’s attention, and we used to do it to call the kids back from the playground. It started on the ski slopes when we needed to call to each other across a noisy place and none of us could whistle very well. And we still use it without even thinking about it to get each other’s attention. Those of you who’ve been with us at Taco Tuesday have seen how my head or Cyndi’s head snaps around searching the room whenever one of us hoots, even among that noisy crush of people.

Our niece Mier used to spend weekends with us when she was a pre-schooler, and she would walk down the hallway of our house searching for Cyndi, saying, “Hoot, hoot, Aunt Cyndi; hoot, hoot, Aunt Cyndi.” And now Kevin, our eight-year-old nephew who lives with us, has picked it up as well.

 When our own kids were young they hooted to get our attention, but as they turned into teenagers it became an embarrassment and they decided they didn’t like it so much and tried to leave it behind. We’ll see what happens when they call their own kids. They may not hoot intentionally, but I’ll bet it will come out when they’re not thinking. It’ll come out of their subconscious.

Sometimes we deliberately imitate God as a conscious choice. Other times, imitation comes more from our subconscious. If we spend time with God reading His words, studying His ways, and learning His stories, we may absorb His character and behavior and end up imitating Him in our speech and actions. We live in grace and love instead of judgment and condemnation.

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

To learn 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 102810: What to keep

I was cocooned in my tent at the Pine Top campground in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, reading a story from the Bible book of Ezra (1:7-11) about a time when the Jewish people began to leave Babylon after some 40 years of exile. 42,000 of them left to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and reestablish the nation of Israel. The Bible story listed some of what the people took back with them. It says: “King Cyrus brought out the articles belonging to the temple of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and had placed in the temple of his god.”

Then it gives an inventory – surprisingly not the altar or ark or candlesticks or pieces we would associate with Hebrew worship, but lots of gold and silver bowls and dishes: 3,400 pieces in total.

I guess they had been kept in the Babylonian temple as trophies? Maybe they had a special museum wing in their temple with collections from all the nations they had conquered. Or maybe they kept them as items of respect, one temple to another. It doesn’t appear they were being used in the Babylonian temple, and obviously they weren’t melted down to make Babylonian stuff. Apparently they sat on the shelf all those years. But even Cyrus knew they should go back home. It’s not a small thing to know what to take and what to leave.

I read the story while on a backpacking trip with David Nobles; maybe one reason the story caught my attention was because backpacking is all about knowing what to carry and what to leave behind. Backpacking in the Guadalupes means everything has to be hauled up a trail that climbs 3,000’ in elevation, and no one wants to haul something unnecessary. Everything has to earn its way into the pack.

In fact, after every backpacking trip, I go back over my gear list in detail, noting what I used and what I didn’t use, what I should take next time and what I should leave behind. There are some things I seldom use but take with me anyway, like my first aid kit.

In the context of backpacking, I am becoming more and more aggressive about what I leave behind. I know I’ll only have to suffer a couple of days if I end up needing something I left at home. But thinking about the people mentioned in Ezra, traveling from Babylon to Jerusalem, they didn’t have the luxury of “only a couple of days.” They weren’t going back to Babylon. They had to pack the most important stuff knowing they were leaving on a one-way trip.

Yet they found room for 3,400 pieces of gold and silver. And none of those were necessary for daily life; they were only for worshiping in a temple that didn’t yet exist. 3,400 gold and silver bowls and dishes must’ve required several camel loads. I wonder if there was a debate whether to carry all those dishes and bowls. Did those items have to earn their way into the baggage list, or was their inclusion a given, accepted immediately by everyone.

I remember having to make a similar decision about what to take and what to leave when I went to Europe with the Continental Singers (1974 and 1975). Our tour consisted of 2-1/2 months traveling around the USA, performing in a different town every night. In the middle of the summer we left for Europe for about three weeks. Packing for the European portion of the tour was a big ordeal. We would consider the luggage allotment per passenger (I think it was 40 lbs.) and multiply that by the total number of people. From that total we’d subtract the weight of sound equipment and musical instruments, then divide the remaining pounds by the number of people in the group, and learn how much we actually got to carry. My memory says we got about 15 lbs. each, including our 1970s-era suitcases.

Of course we had to take our clothes for performing, which left room for only 2 or 3 changes of clothes for a 3-week European tour. I think I ended up sharing a suitcase with another guy so we could include a few more pounds of underwear and socks. It was no small decision – what do I keep and what do I leave behind.

There are a couple of things with spiritual significance that I’ve kept my entire adult life. Maybe they’re my gold and silver bowls?

I still have my Thompson Chain-Reference KJV Bible on my shelf, but I haven’t opened it in years. Nowadays I prefer a translation more recent than the 17^th-Century. I remember asking for this Bible one year at Christmas because my girlfriend, Carol, used one. A Thompson felt very grownup and serious, and having one seemed a step toward deeper spirituality. I don’t read it now, or even open in, but I still have it on my shelf.

I also have a tattered copy of the New American Standard translation with a black padded cover that I bought in the bookstore at Azusa Pacific College in June 1975. It was the first Bible I bought with my own money. I was at APC for Continental Singers rehearsal camp, and for me, buying that Bible was a big commitment toward a personal faith of my own (not my parents) and a personal promise to read it daily in a modern translation. Like my Thompson, I seldom open it nowadays, but it sits in a place of honor on my shelf.

Sometimes it’s hard to know what to keep and what to throw away, what to cherish and what to discard, what has emotional value and what is clutter. I know my Bibles don’t have the same significance as those dishes and bowls had for the Jewish people, but I’ve kept them with me anyway. I come from a long family line of Baptists who shy away from placing value on tangible artifacts of worship, so my collection is small. Yet, I have faithfully carried them with me, house to house, office to office, shelf to shelf, because of their provenance.

“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