First off, the joy of sharing my meal with other human beings was good. Sarah's been working a lot and a good portion of my meals and time has been spent alone. As I learned from one of my professors along the way, fellowship over a meal is well spent. But the rest of the evening was spent doing the whole people watching thing.
It's hard not to wonder about the stories around you - about the guy that is so excited about getting to the bar that he's got a brown bag with him on the way in... and then has to go hide it somewhere cause he's not allowed to keep it inside - about the super fit 35-40 year old looking woman who comes in and sits down at the bar and then puts up with being semi harassed for her time there next to a... well, I couldn't really decide how to classify this clown - and then you had the waitresses... I am just one of those folks that likes to think the story behind these particular folk is interesting so I sort of make things up. And of course some of them like the job, some of them hate it, but they all put up with the flirting, the over-the-line comments that make them wish they could file suit, the long table that doesn't tip at all, and I'm sure a lot in between and some far out of bounds I've not even thought of at all.
I like to think that they've got some guy out there that's going to love them to death mostly - of course that's not a necessary thing for their life to be complete but it's a hard item to drop. Maybe they're saving their money to travel to Europe or something like that... The point though is that it also makes me think about the Church a lot. You see the Church is one of those things that has become so misunderstood that most folks just write it off completely - and with good reason. Humans have done almost everything in their selfish endeavors to ensure that the rest of humanity wants nothing to do with the Church at all. But the problem is that God is real and organized religion hold necessary pieces to the puzzle of finding a life that holds discipline, fellowship, worship, community, shared struggles, prayer, and more.
So most of my solo runs for now end up along these lines and these thoughts... and I'm focused on trying to find ways to connect the dots - the dots between college students and God - the dots between real honest hurting people and the God they need so much - the dots of the resurrection and humanity in a way that we won't turn around and trash it all over everyone's lives.
People always ask me why I run. "What, are you running away from something," people will ask with a laugh pretending in their minds that some crazed man is after me with a pistola or something. I guess I'm running towards something and always have been. For now I can feel that part of my journey as a runner will take me into the depths and bowls of the human psyche in the hopes that there I will hear God's voice speaking back to me.... mostly because I'm too damn stubborn to depend on God in my normal life. But when I'm running... when I'm hurting and breathing in the humid air... when I'm wondering why I went so far away from home... it's easy to seek God's face.
So pray for me. Pray for the runs to get longer and harder and farther and more desperate....
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