Ash Wednesday

The service opened with the lyrics, “You alone are my heart’s desire, and I long to worship you,” and I knew I was in trouble. Certain songs are permanently linked to soft times in my life, and singing those songs opens me up, like a chink in my dragon scales, leaving a clear path to my heart. And so, that’s how my first ever Ash Wednesday service began.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the 40-day period of prayer and abstinence known as Lent. The name comes from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of worshipers as a reminder and celebration of human mortality, and as a sign of mourning and repentance to God.

Through the years, I’ve seen people walking around with an ashen cross on their forehead, and I knew what it meant, but I’d never participated. We always had something else to do at our own church.

But this year, First Presbyterian Church in Midland invited my church, First Baptist Church, to join them for Ash Wednesday. It was another one of those serendipitous relationships that have grown out of an unfortunate fire in our building. A surprising bit of grace.

The Presbyterians made us feel very welcome. In fact, sitting side-by-side in our church clothes, we all looked alike. Both churches are too large to know everyone, so there was a bit of uncertainty whether the new person sitting next to you was one of us, or one of them. As it should be.

After the service, I went to our friends’ house for a five-family potluck. Twice, someone came and sat next to me and looked at the smudge of ash on my forehead and asked, “Don’t you go to First Baptist?” The Baptists they knew didn’t usually go for Ash Wednesday, or Lent, or Maundy Thursday, or anything like that.

And my mark, originally a cross, was now more of a smudge. Of course, it could have been that way all along. I have no idea since I was the only person who couldn’t see it. And besides, it was painted on my forehead by the least experienced of the available ministers. Who knows if he used the best technique.

Well, I’ve spent my entire life in Baptist churches, and Baptists don’t do liturgy. In fact, we run away from it as fast as we can. We don’t even like someone reading a printed prayer; if it isn’t straight from your heart, if it isn’t improvised on the spot, we aren’t sure God actually pays attention.

So because it is so different from my upbringing, a liturgical service always catches me off balance. Liturgy is not magic. It can become stale and repetitious just like any form of worship. But being surprised by God is magic, however it happens.

I suppose I was more susceptible to surprise than I normally would’ve been because I’d already spent a large portion of the day thinking about surrender. It was the topic of discussion for a lesson I was to teach early Thursday morning; surrender was firmly on my mind.

As I read along with everyone else: “Open our eyes that we may see ourselves with clarity and truthfulness, that we may have eyes to see all that is within us that is not pleasing to you,” I understood something. There is an element of surrender in reading a liturgy aloud. You end up saying things you aren’t brave enough to say on your own initiative.

The thing is, I tend to be good at surrendering easy stuff, the stuff I don’t mind giving up, the parts of my life I have no control over anyway.

But I don’t like surrendering my favorites, like freedom, for example. I don’t like giving my schedule and time-management to someone else. I don’t like giving away my weekends, or weeknights, or days, or hours, or even minutes. I don’t like surrendering my attention span or projects or goals.

I left the Ash Wednesday service quickly and quietly, working my way silently through the crowd and out the back door. I was too soft to talk to anyone, and I wanted to linger in the moment a bit longer.

As I was crossing the street to the parking lot, I heard another song in my head. This one by Rich Mullins: “Surrender don't come natural to me; I'd rather fight You for something I don't really want than to take what You give that I need.”

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

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

How Much Can You See?

Does God intentionally hide himself from us? Sometimes it feels that way, doesn’t it?

I was reading a cool story in my Daily Bible, from Exodus 33:17-23, when Moses said to God, “Show me your glory.”

God said, “I will cause my goodness to pass in front of you … but you cannot see my face … I will remove my hand and you will see my back.”

So Moses asked to see God’s glory, but he got God’s goodness instead. He couldn’t see God’s face, but he was allowed to see God’s back.

I doubt there is a big theological difference between glory and goodness, or face and back. I think God wanted to reveal himself to a much-loved and trusted friend, and showed as much of himself as he could.

Maybe Moses would have melted down if he saw all of God. Or maybe he would have seen nothing since God is so huge. Maybe he needed small details to focus on since the full nature of God was too much to take in.

I don’t know; I am guessing. But I don’t believe God was being coy, or contrary, or even hard-to-get. He doesn’t tell Moses - “If you handle this wilderness adventure like a big boy, I will show you some more.” No, I believe God was being generous with himself. He showed as much as Moses could take. Too much too soon wouldn’t help him see more clearly.

Here is an example: My ten-year-old nephew, Kevin, asked me, “So what are the Lord of the Ring movies about?” He has trouble seeing past the image of Gollum, having been creeped out by seeing one of the movies when he was too young. And in fact, I hardly know how to answer him. To describe the story behind the LOTR movies is complex even for people who’ve spent their life reading the books and watching the movies. I told him, “Frodo has to destroy a magic ring so the rightful king could be restored to his thrown.”

That hardly does justice to ten-hours’ worth of movies, but to explain further wouldn’t have helped Kevin understand. More details would only have confused him further.

I think there was an element of that between God and Moses. Showing more wouldn’t have helped Moses understand. It would have confused him further.

Another example: If you meet someone on an airplane - one of the few places where we sit close to strangers and have plenty of time to talk - and they ask, “Tell me about yourself,” what do you say?

Do you dive into childhood stories, life victories, and emotional wounds, telling about your goals and dreams, listing off New Year’s resolutions, spilling the content of your heart? I don’t. I doubt even my most extroverted friends tell their whole story to strangers.

Why is that? Without the context of a deeper relationship and shared history, most of what you tell won’t make sense anyway. Too much too soon does not become deeper understanding.

But then there is another question from Exodus 33: Why did God show himself at all? Why not tell Moses it couldn’t be done? And even more, why did Moses think he had the right to ask it of God?

I think part of the answer lies with the traumatic moment they shared. They had just discovered the entire nation worshipping a golden calf in full Egyptian fashion, and it broke both their hearts - God’s and Moses’s. God was so angry he was ready to destroy the people and start over with Moses, and Moses threw himself in front of that anger to plead for mercy and grace.

When we go through something traumatic together, it pulls us closer. We become combat buddies, of sorts. And mutual survival of a struggle earns us the right to share more of ourselves. We learn to trust each other through shared hardship.

I have hiked Guadalupe Peak at least a dozen times with the Iron Men group, in addition to multiple trips up Tejas Trail and Permian Reef Trail. And something happens to conversations as the miles on the trail pile up. Guys start sharing more about themselves and opening their hearts in a way that could never happen back home in a classroom. Not every guy; not every trip; but guys have told deep secrets they’ve held close for years. Why? Because we earn trust through the shared struggle of the hike.

And so, the more of life we experience alongside God, the more we’ll learn to trust him, and the more of himself he can reveal to us. We have to grow further up and further in to before we can see God more clearly.

Maybe God allows us to travel extremely difficult trails because that is the only way we’ll know him better. Maybe living through those moments when God seems to be hiding are the very times we learn to trust him so we can see him more clearly.

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

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

I Wasn't Brave

OK, I will admit this in print. I was a wuss  boy on Tuesday. Twice.

I left the office about 11:00 AM, where admittedly I work in a cubicle buried deep within the bowels of an office building so I have no idea of the weather outside, with full intentions of cycling over the noon hour, but by the time I got home I had chickened out.

I realize the wind was blowing 38 mph (according to The Weather Channel) with gusts of, what, about 50 mph, and there were tumbleweeds blowing down the roads to my neighborhood and West Texas dust filled the air, and so it would be acceptable for a reasonable person to decide not to ride. But I hate having to bow down to the weather. I had a goal to ride, and it was on my schedule to ride today, so why should I let the silly weather tell me what to do?

I don’t know why, but I did.

I salvaged my attitude by joining Cyndi, Daryl, and Amber for a bowl of Southwest Chicken Chili at Jason’s, but still. I was a wuss.

So in order to recover my esteem I decided to go for a run after work, before Taco Tuesday. The storm had not diminished, so I knew it would be a tough run, but I also knew the hot shower afterward would make it worth the abuse.

I dressed in my cold-wind gear. I keyed up my new iPod to chapter one of part three of The Honourable Schoolboy, by John le Carre. I checked the batteries in my headlamp since I knew it would get dark before I got back home. I left through the back, lowered the garage door, and moved west down the alley toward my favorite dirt roads. But I got no further. Once again, I turned into a wuss boy. The second time in one day.

I tried to run, but the wind was so bad I could hardly stand up, the tumbleweeds were still blowing down my route, and the flapping from my hood made it impossible to hear about George Smiley. I was miserable, and I realized that if I fought my way through four miles it would just make me mad. So I turned around and went back inside.

Bummer. Defeated by the weather, twice in one day.

I suppose if I had a stronger reason for fighting the wind, I would have finished my run. For example, if I had been carrying medicine to orphans trapped deep in the mesquite pasture, or if I had a message for the British Secret Intelligence Service that had to be delivered immediately, or if I thought Cyndi would be so proud she would throw herself at me as a reward for being brave, then I might have continued.

But I didn’t. I went back inside, put on warm clothes, and poked around on my computer while watching a video for Sunday morning.

I should take solace in the knowledge that maybe I’ve become wiser as I’ve gotten older. That’s usually a risky assumption, but could be true. I don’t have to fight every battle set before me, the wind won’t continue to blow every day, and it’s OK to rake a day off.

Sometimes the wiser thing to do is stand down and stop bucking the wind.

Just this week I read the story of Jacob wrestling with God (Genesis 32), which resulted in a permanent hip injury and corresponding limp, and I realized how Jacob would have been wiser to stop wrestling, surrender to God, and listen to the lesson God had for him. But he didn’t surrender, he fought on.

I don’t always have to fight on, whether against the wind (like on Tuesday), or against God (like Jacob).

I haven’t decided whether standing down as an act of will removes the wuss boy label, but that’s the story I am telling Cyndi. I still want her to be proud enough of me to throw herself in my direction.

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

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

Performance Enhancing Drug

The first thing I want to say is that chemical intervention in the human body can work like magic. The second thing I should say, or rather, finally, spit it out - Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhcckk-PTOOO, there, much better - is this: I have a performance enhancing substance in my body.

I know, I know, you’ve probably seen me running or cycling and your first thought is, “Performance Enhancing Drugs? No harm no foul,” considering how below optimum my enhanced performance can be. I would have to use every PED known to the UCI in order to be even slightly competitive.

However, since about 2004 I haven’t taken a step, or run a stride, without thinking about my knees and how to extend them a few more miles. People ask me often, “Are you limping today?” and I always answer, “Yes,” knowing that limping has become my regular walk.

The diagnosis is osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease that leads to loss of cartilage, resulting in decreased movement. The main symptom is pain, causing loss of ability and often stiffness.

You might suspect the cause for my condition to be all the miles I’ve run since 1978, but according to current scientific research, you would be wrong. Running has not been found to increase one's risk of developing osteoarthritis. In fact, regular exercise delays onset of symptoms and extends the life of the joint. As in, use it or lose it.

So back to my opening confession: last Friday I got a Synvisc injection in each knee. It’s an artificial substance (made from rooster combs) which acts like a lubricant and a shock absorber in the joint. In the short term, it relieves pain and restores movement. In the long term, it delays knee replacement.

My only complaint about Synvisc is that the FDA only allows injections once every six months. I would install a portal in my knee for continuous feed if I could get by with it. Like a grease zerk.

There is no use whining about my running career cut short by disability. I was never competitive. For me, it has always been about meditating on my feet. Still, I had dreams to go further more often.

Just this week I read from Donald Miller’s Storyline blog:

It’s an aching truth we are not guaranteed our dreams will become a reality.

Dreaming is one of the things that make us human. We imagine a better future and then design a plan to make it happen. For me, I wish I had worked this particular dream a little harder back before 2004.

Donald Miller continued:

I believe a human being has more than an ability to dream. We have a responsibility to dream. And when our dreams don’t become a reality, we must realize our dreams have power all the same. They can motivate those around us. Our dreams can inspire generations who will keep the work going. We must understand the realization of the dream is not so much the gift as the dream itself.

And so, with the help of a performance enhancing drug, or maybe I should call it a dream enhancing drug, I am back to running longer and cycling further. It isn’t a huge change, more of an incremental improvement, but it still counts.

How about you? Do you have dreams still waiting for action? What enhances your performance?

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

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

Give it Away

Question: What truth do you feel obligated to pass along to others? Last Sunday morning our adult Bible study class took a tour of the new construction at our church - a remodeled worship center, chapel, and visitor center - which will be open for use in a couple of months. It was great to see the progress, but the time spent touring meant I had only a short time to teach the morning’s lesson.

I didn’t want to dive into an Old Testament prophet with so little time, so I talked instead about some verses I read recently in my Daily Bible.

Do you have Bible verses that reach out to grab you, calling you by name? These are some of mine.

“What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you - guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” (2 Timothy 1:13-14)

The Apostle Paul was telling his young student, Timothy, how to live. He was saying, “Do what I do.”

To be honest, for most of my teaching career, that notion that I should expect people to live as I do has made me uncomfortable. Who am I to say something like that?

However, in the margin of my Daily Bible I have a series of notes, each from a different year, and they describe my personal journey through these verses.

“2001 - The longer I teach, the more comfortable I am to say this.”

“2006 - In fact, this is the heart of my ministry as a teacher and writer.”

“2011 - I shouldn’t teach anything unless I believe this.”

The cool thing for me was that once I got over worrying about how I could say, “Do what I do,” a worry that was too self-focused anyway, I was able to notice something deeper in those verses.

The verbs - hear, keep, guard, and entrust - describe a progressive deepening, an embrace, or ownership, of the message.

First, we HEAR something from someone we respect.

Then, because what we heard is important, and because we trust the person who shared it, we decide to KEEP it. We remember it. This requires a decision on our part since we don’t keep everything we hear.

At some point, merely remembering isn’t enough, and we realize the need to GUARD it. We make sure to follow it. We decide to own it. This requires another level of commitment, since we don’t own everything we remember. We remember many useless facts that have no effect on how we live. But when we own this “good deposit”, when we guard it, we have committed to living it out through our daily lives.

And finally, once we realize that what we’ve heard, kept, and guarded, has changed our life and drawn us closer to God, we have to share it. Because it’s more than data, it’s the truth, a good deposit, and it was ENTRUSTED to us.

This verse is talking about more than a transfer of useful information. Something of value has been deposited in our lives with the expectation of a return on investment. The only way to guard the truth is to give it away. A truth kept secret will eventually cease to exist, so we are obligated to give away what we’ve received. And that is that heart of being a Christ follower - giving yourself away.

As you make plans for 2013, ask yourself: What have you HEARD that you finally need to OWN? What has been ENTRUSTED to you that you need to GIVE AWAY? What truth do you feel obligated to pass along?

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

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

Life-Changing Moments

“Before I could convince myself otherwise, I paid the entry fee and changed my life.” - Martin Dugard Martin Dugard, author of To Be A Runner, wrote that about entering his first race, the opening move in a life of running.

My guess is that Dugard had no idea how important that first entry fee was when he paid it. Most life-changing moments are subtle when they happen. In fact, if we knew they would change how we were going to live we would probably get scared and back slowly away. It is usually better NOT to know the future.

One of my life-changing moments happened when I first started running, in the summer of 1978, between my first and second senior year of college. At the time, I could never have imagined how many years I would keep doing it, or how it would change my life. I had no idea of the greater running community or the existence of races or training or anything like that. All I knew was that I needed to do something physical to lose some weight and win back the affection of a girl who’d left me for a track-and-field jock. It was the first time in my life to do anything physical on my own initiative.

Those first few miles in Stan Smith Adidas tennis shoes and Levi cut-offs were the beginning of a practice that has lasted 34 years and covered over 36,000 miles. Who could have anticipated that?

Somewhere along the way, I picked up a Runner’s World magazine and caught a glimpse of the bigger running community. I saw photos of people in races who looked like me, and that planted a seed that I could do it what they were doing.

I entered my first race in the summer of 1980. A Lubbock radio station was pitching the Cap’n D’s five-mile and ten-mile race as a (joking) alternative to the Moscow Summer Olympics, which President Jimmie Carter boycotted due to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.

The racecourse consisted of two five-mile loops. I entered the ten-mile race, having run nine miles a couple of times in Brownfield, thinking I was ready for the big time. However, it was a mistake to try to run so far. I knew nothing about racing and I lined up at the front of the pack, oblivious to the differences between my body shape and the bodies of the other guys who belonged on the front. Caught up in the adrenaline of the moment, and being stupid, I ran too fast the first lap. I had to pull up and finish after only five miles. I felt miserable, I almost threw up, but I was so happy I couldn’t stop telling my story to Cyndi. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was a changed man.

Not long after that first race, I discovered running writer, George Sheehan. I bought his first book, Dr. Sheehan on Running, at a grocery store in Duncan, Oklahoma, while at a two-week oilfield school, in the fall of 1980. Every evening I read a few pages from the book and then went outside to go out running. I noticed that it was possible to write about life and spirituality around the framework of running. It was a seed planted.

Running races led to new friends, and those friends led to my twenty-year involvement in the running club in Midland, Texas. I eventually served a couple of terms as club president, but more importantly, I served for several years as newsletter editor. And it was with that newsletter I started writing stories about running and life. Many of those stories ended up in my first book, Running With God, published twenty-five years later.

The thing is, I wonder what would have taken over my life if I hadn’t started running back in 1978. Would I be a writer if not for that newsletter? Who knows. It’s impossible to know such things.

But those first few miles down Sanger Street in Hobbs, New Mexico changed my life. And those miles are still changing me - I’ve run three times this week, and here I am writing about it, again.

So many things happen to us in the course of our life and we can never know in the moment how important they will become. Usually, we are just happy to have lived through it and survived. It is only when looking back that we see how our life was changed.

I have been reading the story of Abraham these past few days, and few of the events of  his life pointed toward the great man he would become. What seems to be random and unfocused action on his part was used by God over the course of Abraham’s life to turn him into the father of a nation.

I believe God works that same way in our own lives. It’s hard to see the importance as we live through the moment, but later we see how his grace turned us into different people. Life-changing moments are a gift.

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

Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

Come Back

When they heard God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid from God.  God called to the Man: “Where are you?”

The Man said, “I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid.” (from Genesis 3:8-10, MSG)

Every January 1, the beginning of my annual journey through the Daily Chronological Bible, I read the grandest and boldest Fresh Start Story of all, the opening narrative of Genesis. And my favorite story comes from Genesis 3.

The most famous part of this story is the tragic account of Adam and Eve choosing to sin by eating the forbidden fruit. Why did they do it? The serpent told them, in effect, “God is holding out on you; there is a life you can have that’s bigger than the life God has for you.” So they ate, expecting to find a bigger, smarter, wiser, and more fulfilled life.

We’ve all heard that lie, haven’t we? The voice in our head says, “Pursue this even though God says it is wrong; your life will be so much more exciting if you do.”

But Adam and Eve discovered that the wisdom they expected actually showed them their own sin and nakedness, and for the first time in their life, they hid from God. They were afraid of God.

That fear, the first they’d ever felt, must have rocked their world as much as the pain from their sin.

Well, my favorite part of the story is what happened next. The text says that God went walking in the garden, looking for them. God called out, “Where are you?”

Of course, he knew exactly where they were. This wasn’t a game of hide and seek, or a geography quiz.

What God was asking was this: “Where is your heart?”

He didn’t go searching to capture them and punish them. He came to bring them back. God wanted his people to come back. He didn’t want them to be afraid of him.

The best part of the story happened when Adam answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

It was a remarkable confession - that he was afraid of God, and afraid of his own exposure.

But what is even more significant is that Adam answered at all. He could have slunk deeper into the trees and tried to hide further.

He didn’t do that, though. He came back. Adam’s best move in the entire book of Genesis was that he came back. Even in his nakedness and exposure and fear and shame and embarrassment and sin, he came back. His desire to experience God was greater than his fear and shame. He couldn’t stay away. He came back.

It’s a sad truth that Adam sinned against God. He made a huge mistake that changed the entire course of mankind, and he deserves to take the hit for that. But what made him human, his best move ever, was this, he came back.

Just like Simon Peter, who came back to Jesus instead of running away, after committing the most embarrassing sin imaginable. Peter’s need for grace and acceptance and healing from Jesus was greater than his shame and embarrassment.

Just like David, “A man after God’s own heart.” The Bible doesn’t give David that label because of his perfect life, which wasn’t perfect, but because he always came back. After every failure, David ran back to God.

They came back because their need for healing and restoration was greater than their shame and embarrassment. And because they came back, we can come back. We don’t have to slink deeper into the wilderness to hide. We can come back.

The story of Adam took another bad turn when Adam blamed his sin on Eve, who blamed her sin on the serpent. That’s often the way with fresh starts. We begin doing the right thing but stumble almost immediately.

Fresh starts are real, but so is failure. Yet, even when we fail, we can turn around and come back again.

Maybe we set great New Year’s goals on January 1, but by January 3, we wonder what happened. We’ve already stumbled. How could we fail so quickly?

How many times each day will we have to decide whether to go deeper into the trees or step into the light, whether to run away and hide or come back to God?

But here’s the good news. Setbacks don’t have to define our lives. Like Adam, Peter, and David, we have a choice. We can come back to God. He is searching for us, even now.

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

To learn about Berry’s books, “Running With God,” go to www.runningwithgodonline.com , or “Retreating With God,” go to www.retreatingwithgod.com ,… Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson or on Facebook … Contact Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org … To post a comment or subscribe to this free journal: www.journalentries.org

What Is Your Quest?

His personal trainer rendered him speechless by asking, “Are you sure you don’t want to do more?” I was reading To Be a Runner, by Martin Dugard, one of the best running books I’ve ever read. A longtime runner and coach, Dugard had reluctantly recruited a personal trainer to help him break out of a long, sedentary spell of sloth and weight gain. In the opening interview at the gym, The House of Pain, his trainer, Terry, asked, "What are your goals?”

Surprisingly, for a trained athlete, he didn’t have a goal. He wasn’t sure what he wanted from the workouts other than to be better.

But Dugard also had a philosophical problem with the word “goal.” He preferred “quests.” To him, goals sounded pedestrian, but quests were quixotic.

The distinction between goal and quest was not so obvious to me; however, I could see the difference between setting a goal to lose twenty pounds and being on a quest to hike the Appalachian Trail. Or the difference between setting a goal to read twenty books versus a quest to write twenty books.

Goals seem to be about what you do (or what you want to do), while quests seem to be about who you are (or hope to be).

Therefore, a quest should be bigger than life, something we cannot accomplish on our own. A quest should be an epic adventure.

(Of course, to be honest, I cannot use the word “quest” without hearing Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail in my head. That’s probably why I seldom use that specific word, even though I talk about the concept of epic adventures often.)

Martin Dugard told a story about running up a long set of steps to the top of an Italian mountain, near the shores of Lake Garda, to see the ruins of a fifth-century castle. The route got progressively steeper the further he ran, but he was not tempted to turn back. He didn’t know what he would find at the top, or whether it would be worth the struggle, but he had wasted too many weeks without running so he kept moving up.

Dugard’s life aphorism is, “Keep Pushing - Always.” He described  it as a reminder “not to settle but to dream, to live, to sing, to let go of the past and fulfill your destiny. Sometimes a single run can make your whole life come full circle - or maybe just make sense of the things you never understood. That run up an Italian mountain banished my fear of settling.”

His last phrase, “banished my fear of settling,” caught my attention because of my own tendency to settle. I’ve taught myself to seek adventure, movement, and journey, but my natural, organic, inclination is to seek equilibrium, to find a place to settle whenever possible. I’ve learned to schedule runs, hikes, and rides - hard ones and long ones - to keep this tendency at bay.

I’ve also fought my tendency to settle by becoming a goal setter. I don’t claim to be a great goal achiever, but I try to set a sufficient number of goals so if I only achieve a few of them I still make real changes and feel good about myself. And some of those goals have now become habits so deeply engrained I no longer have to think about accomplishing them - they’ve become part of my daily life.

And so, as a goal-setter, I hate to waste a January. If you’ve been in any of my classes, you’ve heard me preaching the value of New Year’s Resolutions (except that I would rather say “goals” than “resolutions” since resolutions are usually about stopping, while goals are about doing. I think most people would rather do than stop. (Maybe I should consider New Year’s Quests!))

Back to the book - my favorite part of Martin Dugard’s story comes at the end. After several rounds of give-and-take between Terry-the-personal-trainer asking about goals, Martin giving wimpy noncommittal answers, and Terry making fun of him, Dugard finally said, “I want to look better in my author picture.” He hoped this would end the questioning.

Terry asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to do more?”

What a great question for January 2013. Are you sure you don’t want to do more?

Not necessarily more things, or more goals, but taking a few goals deeper into the quest?

Do you have a goal to lose ten pounds? Why not do more, and commit to running your first 5K? Or half-marathon?

Maybe you have a goal to start cycling? Why not turn it into a quest to complete a long-distance group ride?

One goal I want to start is learning to draw. My quest is to be a better writer, and I think drawing will help me to see better.

How about you? What are your goals, or even better, what are your quests, to begin 2013?

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

Transitions

“One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me” (Philippians 3:13-14, NIV) Tuesday morning last week, I read this note in the margin of my Daily Bible: “December 11, 2007 - my last City Council meeting.”

I wrote that in my Bible so I wouldn’t forget; it was a big day in my life. I had served on the Midland City Council for twelve years.

I don’t remember much about that last meeting except that it felt right - like it was time to move on. I had no real regrets about leaving, yet I would’ve stayed and enjoyed it had I won the election.

The peace of that particular day surprised me, since I’d spent years wondering what I would do with myself after leaving government. I enjoyed serving on the Council, even the difficult and painful times. I loved making decisions that made Midland better, stronger, and safer for families. I was proud of the work I did to encourage park development, improve quality of life, and turn vacant run-down empty lots into living neighborhoods. I poured a great deal of intellectual and emotional energy into city government, and it occupied a huge portion of my mental capacity for the entire twelve years.

So my biggest questions on December 11, 2007 were, what will I do next, and who will care? Maybe the unspoken question was this: Who will I be after today?

For twelve years I’d wondered how it would end. I expected to be anxious and restless after leaving, until all those government wheels spinning in my head coasted to a stop.

But what really happened was this: nothing. The daily wear-and-tear and problem solving flew away quickly and completely. Instead of being haunted by my own absence, I was free. I forgot about government almost immediately. It faded quickly into something I used to do, long ago and far away, like going to college or being single.

The freedom was a gift from God. He was telling me be cool, it was time to go, press on to the future, and forget what lies behind.

Here’s what happened next.

I found time to write and publish two books. (My third will be out in January 2013.)

I dived deeper into the lives of the men God entrusted to me.

Cyndi and I built a new house - actually, we stood around and watched while Kahler Homes built it - and we love it. We filled it up with people almost immediately and have kept it full ever since.

I don’t know how I could have done any of those if still in government.

What I am trying to say is, while I enjoyed serving all those years, and I am certain I would enjoy it today if I were still there, I am happier in my new life. Happier than I was before, and happier than I expected to be. And the fact the transition was so easy makes it even better. As if God took my hand, led me across the street, and said, “Let’s try some different stuff over here for a while.”

Well - back to my Daily Bible - the next morning, December 12^th, I read a story from Acts 24 that reminded me how transitions seldom work out as quickly or cleanly as we want. Most are harder, and most drag on longer that we hope.

The story in Acts was about a time when the Apostle Paul spent two years in prison because the governor was afraid to make a decision. Two years, gone, just like that.

Paul’s situation reminded me of another transition story. In 1994, like many other engineers, I was laid off by my employer of fifteen years. It took two years before I was working again. Two years, in the middle of my career, gone, just like that. Unemployment was frustrating and embarrassing; hard to comprehend God’s purpose.

However, during that time I developed the practice of writing one page every day. The topic wasn’t important as long as I filled the page. I also broke out of my corporate cocoon and dipped into the relational side of the independent oil and gas industry. I made a lot of new friends.

At the time, both of those activities seemed like busy work, stalling until something better came along. But looking back I realize they made my current life and work possible. Who knew?

And to be honest, the period of transition that began in 1994 has never really ended. Instability and uncertainty just became my way of life. I can’t say I am happy about that, but I’ve grown comfortable with it.

So sometimes, the transition doesn’t end right away. Maybe we need more training or conditioning; maybe the circumstances aren’t ready for us; maybe we just need to be grow up a little bit. It’s often hard to know the “why” of God’s timing.

The end of the calendar year means transitions for most of us. This is a great opportunity to move from the past, whether behaviors or beliefs or roadblocks, and into the next phase. It won’t be easy, but transitional moments should never be wasted. Ask God to show you what to leave behind and what to press toward.

And another thing about transitions. We seldom get a peek at what will come next. God doesn’t show the next thing to us until we are ready, and like ten-year-old boys, we are never ready as soon as we think we are.

So press on toward those transitions. They may happen quickly, or may take two years, but you can trust God to have your future in his plan.

Questions: Which big transition of your life happened quickly? Which took a long time? What do you see for 2013?

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

Honoring a simple tradition

Our traditions are like our stories; they illustrate who we are, the kind of people we’ve become, our values and priorities. And behaviors become traditions only one way, through repetition. And that takes intentional action. So Wednesday, in honor of tradition, I ran twelve laps on the track at Memorial Stadium, starting at 12:12 PM. A tiny handful of runners - two others, to be exact, and one run official to certify the activity and hand out water - joined me to celebrate the numerically symmetrical date December 12, 2012, or 12-12-12. Why? I had to do it. I could not let it pass by.

This tradition began more than 24 years ago when I was running early one morning and realized that August 8, 1988 was coming up and we should do something with it. The running club came up with the Crazy Eights 8K, to be run at 8:00 PM, the evening of 8-8-88. One club member welded some crooked figure-eight trophies and another, Frank, made wooden mounts. We gave the trophies to the 8^th place finisher, and 18^th, 28^th, etc.

Being proud of ourselves, we started planning for the 9-9-99 9K. Eleven years later, we ran at 9:00 PM on the cart path of the new nine holes at Hogan Park Municipal Golf Course, and Chuck, the Parks Director, gave old nine irons to the 9^th, 19^th, etc., finishers.

The opening decade of the 21^st-Century provided more frequent opportunities for similar races. My favorite was the four-mile race on 4-4-4 near Stonegate Fellowship church. Much to everyone’s surprise it was cold and rainy that afternoon, and we Texans had already packed away our winter gear. We all froze in the cold rain.

But the reason that race is my favorite was what happened at the finish line. We saw an experienced marathoner, Andy, racing with a young high-schooler, Derek. Andy pushed Derek the entire four miles, and he made the boy hurt in a fast finishing sprint. As soon as Derek crossed the line he threw up in the street. He then collapsed into the gutter, still retching, cold water rushing past him, carrying the mess away. All the guys working the finish line and those who’d already finished were amazed, impressed, and proud that a young man would give that much of himself in a race. We stood around for several minutes bragging about him until some women ran over to give him love and comfort and help him inside. We men were so moved by his example of courage it never occurred to us to help him. That young man is now a U.S. Marine. Go figure.

After that, we ran every year, 5-5-5, 6-6-6, etc. We even duplicated the original Hogan Park 9K at the golf course by running at 9:00 PM on 9-9-9.

So with 12-12-12 approaching I wanted to finish the series in style. Some traditions are more fluid so that you have days or weeks to observe them. We take leeway with birthdays, holding parties on days when it’s most convenient rather than insisting on the exact day. But the 12-12-12 thing wouldn’t work on any other day. The very reason for the tradition is the symmetry of the date, and running on the 13^th or 11^th instead of the 12^th just doesn’t swing. Unfortunately, the 12^th was a Wednesday, and since we had to run at noon or midnight, that was a problem. Neither twelve miles nor twelve kilometers made sense in the middle of the day in the middle of the week.

And not only that, the hustle of the holidays stole our attention, and there was a fire in our church, the race sponsor, and soon, the initiative to put on a race was gone.

Without an official race, I knew I would do something twelvish on my own, but didn’t think anyone would be interested in joining me. Then another of my road-warrior friends, a past president of the running club, Carla, now a letter-carrier in Colorado Springs, Colorado, stirred me into action. I sent out emails and posted on Facebook about running twelve laps at the track at noon on Wednesday, 12-12-12.

I understand that to many people the whole symmetrical date thing sounds more like an obsession than a tradition. I can’t explain why it is important to me, except that it’s fun.

I also understand, or am beginning to understand, or maybe learning, that it was more important for many of my friends to know I observed 12-12-12 than it was for them to actually participate? Why do I know that? I got a lot more feedback from the announcements than participation at the actual event.

That’s OK. I didn’t mind. In a weird sort of way I’ve learned to appreciate the expectations people have of me. It feels tribal.

We often laugh at traditions; especially baby boomers who think we carry the rebellious sixties in our hearts, wondering why we have to do what we’ve always done merely because we’ve always done it. As I’ve gotten older I realize that the fact we’ve always done it is often reason enough to do it again. In a fast-changing world it is even more important to hold on to simple traditions … especially the simplest traditions.

And so, let me be the first to invite you to join me for a two-mile race on Wednesday, February 2, 2022. You have ten years to train, so get started. You’ll have fun. It is a tradition you don’t want to miss.

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