The Grace of Showing Up

After helping getting the boys ready and off to school, I begrudgingly trudged (betrudged?) outside for a run. It’s been a tough 13 months in that department; as it has been in most departments of our lives. Covid and work and being a parent have made it a sporadic discipline and it shows. I have put on more weight than I would like. I’m a little slower. I used to be able to go 5-7 miles with no problems, but now I muster 3-4 and will walk if there is an especially grueling hill. I am a runner, but I am not a good or especially consistent runner right now.

Yet I go outside. Not so much for the pudginess around my midsection but because my spirit needs it. It keeps me sane. It keeps me grounded. I started running because my dad did it. I still remember writing in my 8th grade English journal about how we ran 4 miles several times over Christmas break and my English teacher wrote in red ink: “Is this a good idea?” I started because of my dad but it became something of my own. I loved it because I could go far. Because I found a community of oddballs in track and cross country. Because it could quiet my often worried mind. It became a physical, mental, and spiritual exercise for me.

Not even a half mile in, drops begin to fall from the sky. Big, fat drops. The kind that you can zigzag and dodge as they plop around you. I briefly consider turning around and going home, but push on. The weather forecast said the greater chance of rain was this afternoon. It was likely a passing cloud.

Thinking about it, I became a Christian because of my parents too. I entered into it of my own volition at seven years old; as much as a seven year old can do so. But it was still definitely borne of a context and relationships that I held dearly. And it too eventually became something of my own. I love it. I do not always know why. There are times it quiets my often worried mind, but just as often it will set fire to a forest of concerns. There are times that I wish that I could just follow God in solitude. Where I didn’t have to answer for an American Christendom that often doesn’t look like Jesus. Where I didn’t feel the weight of trying hand this beautiful but fragile thing to young people. Not all the time, but there are times.

Yet I also know that, like running, my faith is often a sporadic discipline as well. I do not always love God with my entire heart. I do not always love my neighbor as I love myself. Or I do love my neighbor as I love myself and the lack of love I have for myself is a problem. I am a Christian, but I am not always a good or especially consistent Christian.

I walk the steep incline of the pedestrian bridge, before letting its descent accelerate me into downtown. At the intersection of 3rd and Broad, I say good morning to a quartet of elderly tourists. One of them, a white haired woman, smiles at me and says, “You healthy young man!” I smile as I take off again. “That’s what I’m trying to be at least!”

That’s what I’m trying to do and trying is something.

It was not just a passing cloud and as I run up 3rd Avenue, the rain is now coming down in sheets. For every step, there is a splash and a squish. It is all water. And I feel something that has been rare of late. When I was really consistent at running, there would be times late in a run when I felt like I could go on forever. When my legs would churn and my arms would pump as if electricity was running through my veins. I should have been tired, but somehow I wasn’t.

I ran that last mile faster than the other two, which barely happens anymore. And it wasn’t because I wanted to get out of the rain. I loved it. It felt like being made new. It is the echo of baptism. There wasn’t sweat, only water, only grace and it seemed like I was being carried by the currents that rushed down those city streets.

You have to show up if you want to experience something like that. It can’t happen if you stay at home. And that experience is not always going to happen. Odds are decent that my next run might be a slog. But it is the memory of being carried that will probably nudge me out the door just a little bit more. It makes me want to show up again. You have to show up.