Category: Non-fiction

The Runner: A Study in Being

This is the first post in a series entitled “The Runner.” I will be releasing a new post in the series each week, reflecting on a different aspect of running or reflection to which running can lead us.

Why running? A couple months ago, I began running. Although I had run before, of course, I had never done so regularly. As the act of running grew to become part of my routine, despite inevitable ebb and flow, I was surprised and moved by all that this seemingly simple pursuit can do, not just for the body but for the mind and soul too. This series is written not only for people who run. It is not even only for people who exercise. It is just for people. Running reveals deep truths about the human person, truths that can be shared and experienced by runners and non-runners alike.

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Openness

 We often become so consumed with the things we do not have, that we do not recognize or appreciate the things that are ours. We become so consumed with the person we think we should or would like to be, that we fail to see or accept the person that we are. We become so consumed with the places we are not (and that we might have been), that we neglect to notice the places in which we are. These gifts we spurn because we do not see them as gifts, are gifts nonetheless, gifts regardless of where they fall on our scale of a “good life.”

A good life is not one in which the requisite boxes are all checked, but one that is good for you and you only. The absolute determination of this good is beyond our capacity. Thus there is no definition or model of a good life. To live a good life you must be open to the fluidity of the moment, an openness that encompasses and embraces deviations from your own plans, the plans of others and the plans you feel you should have followed but did not. It is the far-spreading sickness of regret and the fruitlessness of fear that prevent such openness. We are not open and so we are unable to receive the gifts that come to us moment by moment. We cannot receive them, because our lack of mindfulness blocks us from recognizing their beauty. We see them but do not see them as they really are, and this is all the difference.

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The Gaze

It is easier to make judgements and generalizations when you are distanced from the situation, when you see a mass of people, in which there are numbers and not names. However, when this distance is erased, everything changes. There is great power in the act of naming. In the giving of a name, one says, “You matter. Not just as an interwoven thread in an ocean-sized quilt, indiscernible from afar, but as a person, an individual, a distinct and unrepeated breath of beauty.” This calls to mind the divine voice of Matthew 3:17, which says of Christ, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

When we are given a name, we are loved alone, not loved from afar, not loved in theory, out of principle or from duty, but set apart and loved in startling singularity. This is the deepest desire of the human heart: to be loved alone. When we hear the name of another, be it that of a stranger (perhaps in the news) of whom we have no personal experience or claim to knowledge, the name calls forth and reminds us of that person’s individuality, of their singularity, of their personhood and all of the “inalienable rights” that go along with this.

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Creative Beings

We are all naturally creative beings.

I believe strongly that each person possesses this innate creativity; it is a part of the deepest realization of self. Whether or not we recognize this creativity has no bearing on its presence within us. As created beings, we necessarily have a share in this creative power that inspired us into existence.

I think the problem is that many of us don’t know how to access our creativity. I frequently hear people rejecting a “creative” label, saying things like, “I’m just not very creative” or “I’m not very good at creative things.” However, at this preliminary step of self-labelling, we block our natural capacity for creativity. Why do we reduce the value of a creative act to external judgements of “good” or “bad”? Is the purpose in expressing creativity merely to display said creativity, and to gain objective approval?

No. In fact, when we define creativity by these terms, we transform it into a kind of utilitarianism. Creative acts become valued for the end or for a purely practical purpose, and the joy and beauty of the creative process is lost as a result. Creating with such a goal in mind does not channel our true creativity but instead stifles what is good about the creative act. It does so through our attempts to control and manipulate the thing we are creating, rather than giving it the freedom it needs and deserves (similar to the freedom with which we were imbued at creation).

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Between Love and Fear

Can you sacrifice yourself, your own insecurities, comfort, worries, feelings of worthlessness… in order to add to the happiness of someone you love? Which has more power: love or fear? You want to believe that love is stronger, that choosing love can always shut out fear, and that this pursuit of love and sacrifice allows God to enter and work through you in ways beyond your small self and those ever-floating fears. Well, then, you must act “as if” the love is stronger; you must reach out in love as though there are the everlasting arms beneath to catch you should you fall in stepping out of the comfortable for the sake of love, in that perfect love which casts out fear.

This cannot be done by love focused only on the person in question, but by loving the divine presence in the person and the way in which it is uniquely manifested in this image of beauty. No person is perfect, or fully worthy of love and sacrifice, just as your love and sacrifice are imperfect and still motivated by self-desire, even in striving for selflessness. But if this love is channeled through the flow of divine love and sacrifice, the movement of the spirit and its reflection of perfection have transformative power. As such, love is able to move, change and grow, while fear is capable of nothing save stagnation. Fear limits your movements, places false boundaries on your freedom and potential for love, joy and peace, and the deepest fulfillment of your selfhood.

Presence

Give someone the gift of your full presence. So often we pour out words of well meaning. We wish there was some way to help, some advice we could give, something to do or offer up. We desire to please, to love, to give, and yet we hold back. We are only half there.

What better gift is there than being? I think there is nothing more superlative than this. Words are often empty, hollowed out; actions are swollen with appearance; promises build and then crumble. There is an easier way, but somehow we still think too much of ourselves when we are trying to think of others.

The Light in the Window

The light is beginning to slip from the sky. I wait at a pause in this winding road for the bus to approach. The bus is late and I am very aware of its absence. Five, ten, fifteen minutes. Impatience courses through me: there are people standing on either side of myself, chattering merrily. I hear only snatches of what they say.At last it comes barrelling along, headlights now streaming through darkness. I sit in the middle near the door so I hear it slide open and closed with a loud burst of air. There is something about riding the bus at night, in equal part comforting and disconcerting.The girl in front of me is talking with great eagerness to her companion. He reaches his arm around her shoulder. Her blonde ponytail wags as she speaks, words rising and falling to my consciousness in their high, earnest tone. Now their heads are close together. And I am behind them and alone.

There is laughter and lively conversation. Is it always this loud on the bus? The sound expands inside me and yet I am so far away. I hear everything from a distance. The voices have melded together to reach a pitch, a frequency that runs through my veins, meaning nothing but lingering there.

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How are you?

How are you?

It’s a question we are likely to hear multiple times each day. But its meaning can vary wildly. When a person asks me how I am, more often than not, I respond with a single word: good. After that, I usually reciprocate the question by asking how they are, and I receive a similar answer. In this case, the question is like a ritual: a scripted piece of dialogue with which we are all familiar. It doesn’t carry much weight with it. Neither I nor my companion have really gained any new information, but we have said the things we were supposed to say. Now we can talk further or continue on our way, with the knowledge that we checked off a box in the expectations of common courtesy. We asked about them and we cared.

The question can also mean another thing, requiring a little more detail. In some cases, How are you? is translated as How are you doing? or perhaps What are you doing? There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this. We haven’t seen a friend in a long time and want to know what they have been up to. They tell us the evident things: the activities and achievements that are easy to explain and offer us a little window into the external of their life. These things are important, and knowing these things are important to any friendship or relationship.

But I wonder if it is enough.

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Success

I want to be a person who doesn’t care about success.

Success is such an incentive for so many of our actions, but definitions of success hinge on fleeting concerns with which the world supplies us. We are told something matters, and so it does. It matters externally, and yet we strive to adhere to this external standard with the notion that it may make us happy if we meet it.

Most of these ideas of success revolve around the concept of control: of being able to control one’s own fate and steering it in the desired direction. Success conjures up images of responsibility and hard work, of unceasing effort and a refusal to accept one’s limitations as the farthest extent that one can go to achieve the pinnacle of all their hopes and dreams (or what they have been told should be their hopes and dreams).

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Feelings

How are you feeling today?

It’s a question we ask often. It’s a question we think about often. How do you feel? How am I feeling? Feelings of sadness or anger or worry. We are happy or joyful or filled with future fear. We feel so much. Too much. Too deeply.

Feelings are fickle. They swirl and brood and weigh upon our minds. But they do not last. They never last. The feelings flee before long; they fade in the face of new feelings… new emotions taking their place.

And yet feelings affect us profoundly. These temporary flights of fancy can shake us to our very core. Why? Why do feelings have such power? I have been thinking about this lately. Feelings aren’t always negative. Sometimes their power is harnessed for goodness and beauty. Feelings of happiness and warmth may overflow and lead us to be loving and kind. But do we have any control over when we feel happy? Do we control our feelings or do our feelings control us?

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