Rector's Blog: Becoming a Runner

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I was a runner once about 12 years ago. I don’t just mean that I ran once. I mean I became a runner. I had jogged now and again growing up, but was never a runner. Then one day I thought to myself, I’m gonna run a half-marathon. I cannot tell you exactly why, other than I was 31 and at the beginning of my marriage and the beginning of my career, and was about to have a child and was still very much of the mindset that I had something to prove. Is there such a thing as a 1/3^rd life crisis?

I’m not so sure I don’t still have something to prove.

Anyway, I decided to run a half-marathon because I wanted to prove I could. That was it. Can a short stubby out-of-shape guy in his 30’s run a long way very slowly? It turns out I could. I had a friend who was a runner, and I asked her to train me. And she did. I trained. I followed her schedule. I got running shorts, and running shoes, and BodyGlide – which is what they call an anti-chafing balm, and a little water bottle I could attach to my hand. I ran long distances and listened to podcasts and took ice baths. I ran two half-marathons before a combination of shin splints and a new baby sidelined my burgeoning career and I hung up my Brooks sneakers.

But here’s my question: When did I become a runner? What I mean is, when did I go from a guy trying to learn how to run to a runner? Was it when I decided to try running? Or when I got that running schedule? Was it after the first half-marathon? When I signed up for that second half just to beat my time? Or when I was training? Was it the first time I realized why people use something called anti-chafing balm? Was there a specific moment?

I had an English professor in college who asked us when does someone become a writer? Is it when they decide to be one? Or when they are published? Do they have to self-identify as such for it to be true? How much do they need to drink? How many bad decisions do they need to make? How much writing do they need to do before it’s true about them that they’re a writer?

I think the moment I became a runner – much like the moment I ceased to be one – wasn’t actually a moment so much as a series of them. It wasn’t just an action, and it wasn’t just an intention. It was some strange mixture of both spread out over days and weeks and months.

I write a blog every week, am I a writer? Well, whether I am or not, I recently wrote several weeks in a row about when I became an Episcopalian. It was in recalling that time in my life that I realized there was no single moment when I became one. One could plausibly argue that it was when a bishop laid hands upon my head and confirmed me as an Episcopalian. That’s as good a time as any. But sometimes I think it wasn’t really true for several years after that. Other times I think it had always been true and I just didn’t know it yet. Sometimes I think I’m still becoming one.

Like adulthood, couplehood, parenthood, career, these things are at once always true and still becoming true even as we think of them. I wrote last week of a dear friend and parishioner who died a holy death. In some ways I saw his death as just one more moment of him becoming.

One of my favorite stories of Jesus is one you’ve likely heard. It’s often called the feeding of the 5,000, but that is demonstrably false. The story itself says Jesus fed 5,000 men not counting women and children. So if you take the story seriously, Jesus took five loaves of bread and two fish and provided food for 10-12,000 people. Much cooler miracle. It’s said that Jesus blessed the food, the disciples handed it out, and then at the end there was enough for everyone and there was somehow 12 baskets of leftovers.

This story has always fascinated me, because when does the miracle occur? The narrator never discloses. It doesn’t say that Jesus blesses the food and it immediately multiplies. It’s not clear when the miracle happens - but somewhere in the muddled mess of handing it out, the miracle does occur. The people are nourished by God’s love in a very real and practical way. And nobody seems too hung up on the precise moment of blessing. They’re too busy enjoying it.

“When were you saved?” the occasional Christian asks me. Pinpoint the moment of your salvation. One of my mentors used to respond that he was saved 2,000 years ago on Good Friday. And that is a pretty good response. The question behind the question is when did I become a Christian? And there are actually a lot of answers for this: My baptism is the official answer. Or was it my first communion? My confirmation? My second confirmation!

Maybe I became Christian the first time I forgave someone; the first time I turned the other cheek; the first time I realized I was loved unconditionally.

It’s important that you know that Jesus never talked about you finding him, or inviting him into your heart. Jesus never insisted you pray the right words to him. He never suggested you should be sure of what you believe, that you should be utterly convinced of anything really. Jesus didn’t even tell everyone to follow him. Some people he told just to stay put and experience forgiveness. Learn how to enjoy it.

Enjoying God’s love is a lifelong practice. Believing you are loved and that this world is loved and that God has us no matter what happens in a moment, and in several moments, and in days and weeks and months and years. “Lord, I believe, aid thou my disbelief.” Your belovedness is being played out over a lifetime. It’s not a sprint. It’s long-distance. It’s many long distances. It’s a mentality and it’s a training. It’s a belief and an action.

I became a Christian so many years ago and also I am becoming a Christian right now. I hope to become a Christian tomorrow too.