the serpent and the cross

4/15/10

First let me say that I am what you would call normal. Pretty plain vanilla life (not that there’s anything wrong with vanilla, mind you), but i don’t think that I am better than anyone else; nowhere near perfect; I have vices; I make mistakes; sometimes, well a lot; I am prideful, and think about getting away with things that I shouldn’t. That being said, I have a close relationship with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Now don’t stop reading just yet, I want to explain some things. First of all, I marvel at the Bible, written by man; inspired by God, is a miracle in and of itself. People argue about it all the time, and what I have personally learned, that through its wonderful construction, that just like your relationship with Christ, it becomes what you need when you need it. Motivational – check; Comforting – check; Guidance – check; Prophetic – double-check.  Just like (in my opinion) all things Holy, its fun to discuss, but in the end there is no way to understand, until you experience it. And at that point it becomes just that: your experience.

Second, I do not claim to be all-knowing, I believe what I believe for myself and family, and anyone who asks. Those who seem to have a need or are struggling, I offer only what I know to be true, that through Christ all things are possible. If you are troubled just ask Him. I think that a lot of the time that we are too wound up in ceremony. I used this analogy in Sunday school a couple of weeks ago; religion is like potato salad, similar ingredients, but everybody makes it different, and as long as the ingredients are in balance, its pretty good ( that’s a Texan pretty good, translation=excellent). But religion, like potato salad, is a side dish, vital to the meal, but not the focus. The main course is our Relationship. I believe that God is a being of substance, but that substance only exists on a spiritual plane, for the most part.

Any-who, this is not a treatise on my thoughts on spirituality and religion, although that maybe be a cathartic post for me. Yep, it’s on the list.

So on with the story

I often run at the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge, at the Doeskin Ranch area, for many different reasons

1. of the 9 times I’ve run there I’ve now seen 8 people; 6 were all on one day.

2. its beautiful

3. Theres a really good rocky climb, that makes me want to walk.

4. trail running is a different experience, It’s like meeting a strange dog, you better keep your eyes on it, it may jump out and bite cha.

So i’m out today and just beginning the first big climb about a mile in, I crest a hill and round a slight curve, I am two feet from this:

I had seen some other roadkill snakes lately and in the back of my mind was the thought that sooner or later I was gonna find one. I saw him as soon as he ( saw, smelled, heard) me. He was right in the middle of the trail, and I could a stepped right on him

.

And yes, I am referring to him as a him, I just cannot attribute that much nastiness to a female, and I know I haven’t met your wife, but that’s irrelevant because my mother was a female. So, he rattled and I shook. I was gonna finish my run, and he wasn’t gonna turn his back on me. I finally got some small rocks and started hitting him gently with the rocks and after a couple to the head, he either got the message or got tired, and slithered off into the brush. Since I was a little better than a mile into the run, for the next 4 miles I was, a little, nervous. Like I mentioned before trail running is a constant, glorious assault on the senses. The sounds, the smells, the views, and the constant speed read for good footing is a little overwhelming. Add in the sudden need to scan two feet on either side of the trail and it becomes sensory overload. I was having fun of course, the added sense of danger was even more exciting.  Alas the remainder of the run was fun, but uneventful. I was mentally exhausted.

Now for something a little revealing about me, I notice numbers. They tend to stick with me and I tend to see patterns fairly quickly. I also think that numbers are constant in the bible, and I like that, because there is no confusion in numbers, they are the only thing that resists interpretation, translation, and language. Now in the bible,  7 is the number of perfection, God’s number. I read somewhere that the number 7 is used 754 times,  1 is the only number is used more. So when I finish a run I always run a little extra and try to end in a multiple of 7, a way of saying thank you to God for the opportunity to do something so natural, yet so powerful. At the refuge, I usually run to the end of the parking lot for a total of 5.28 miles.

So on this day I finish the 5.28 miles and begin to walk back to my truck, and I am overcome by an overwhelming sense of gratitude. As I walk back to my truck about 30 yds away, I close my eyes, bow my head, and while continuing to walk, begin to pray. I thank God for delivering me without injury. I thank Him for putting the snake in my path, it was a memorable experience that I would live to tell about (like now). I thank Him for the adversity in my life, because every time I overcome, I know how much more I can do through the relationship that I have through Christ. And Finally I thank Him for running, that simple act that puts my spirit where it needs to be.

I opened my eyes head still bowed at my feet was this:

To say that I was speechless is an understatement, To come upon this cross was a miracle. The parking lot is probably 30 yards wide by about 50 yards long. I had just run 5.28 miles, literally thousands of steps, any number of things could have caused me to take an extra step,  go in a slightly different direction, even just pray a little longer. Now as miraculous as this is, there’s more.

When I was about 20, I found out about an opportunity to make thousands of dollars selling books door to door. Guys I knew had done this, it was legit ( it was almost hard as hell, 13 hour days, 6 days a week, walking door to door, but that’s another story). I had a girlfriend at the time, who was catholic, she was worried about me traveling out-of-state. So she bought me a cross, and had her priest bless it, and gave it to me to wear on my travels to keep me safe. I wore it night and day for years, only removing it to clean it ( it was silver). Fast forward to Summer 1994. I had spent that summer working with my brother at his sandpit. Up at 4 am,  home at at 11pm, outside, Houston, summer, hard work.  Working , living and relaxing with my brother and his wife for the entire summer, caused us to become great friends. When I left the sandpit the last time to go to school for my senior year in college, I cried. I had never been closer to him. He was diagnosed with cancer in October. I saw him at Thanksgiving, chemo had him so sick he couldn’t eat, and in my heart, I knew. In January, after New Years, I went skiing, and the day before I was scheduled to return home, I got the call.  In the days leading up to the funeral, I wanted to give him something, but what? Something that meant a lot, as if to say to my brother, you mean more than anything I have. The thought broke through the walls of the place where you keep thoughts you don’t like very much. I could give him the cross, it was the most valuable thing i owned, but what about me? I wouldn’t have it anymore. What would protect me?  The morning of the funeral, I did nothing but go back and forth, would I put it in the casket? The funeral ended and I passed the casket and did not place it there. I don’t know what made me go back, but I did, took it off, coiled up the chain and placed the cross in the middle of his chest. I bought another, and have worn it everyday since that time. Now that I think about it, I’ve worn it, except for those few days for 20 years now. what does this have to do with the story you ask. This is a picture of it:

Even as amazing as this story is there are still a couple more incidents that make this little cross that I was given even more amazing. I obviously carried it around with me whenever I left the house, kept it in my pocket. One Saturday I was getting ready to leave and was loading my pockets with the normal stuff, keys, wallet, cell phone, where’s the cross? No problem, I thought it must be in the shorts that I had on last, nope not there, maybe I laid it on the counter in the kitchen, No. Okay maybe its fell out in the truck, nope, not there either. Washing machine, no! Dryer, No! Pants I wore last, dang-it, already checked there! At this point I am getting panicked. I never lose anything, of all things how could I be so stupid? I wander around the house in desperation, looking everywhere that It might be. My panic has become a sense of grief. I’ve been looking for 20 minutes now, I walk through the bedroom, looking at every flat surface,  and into the bathroom, look on both counters, floor, even in the shower. I realize that I’m getting foolish. It’s nowhere. I’m not gonna find it. I close my eyes, lean against the wall between the shower and the toilet and pray, “I’m sorry, You entrusted me with something precious and I lose it, please forgive me.”  I open my eyes and there it is again, Just in front of the toilet. Now logically I know that I fell out of my pocket when I was in the bathroom, but God spoke to me in that moment. Not the loud booming Charlton Heston voice, in fact God has never spoken to me that way. When God speaks it softer than a whisper, but the clarity is deafening. Its like one of your own thoughts, but with wisdom and insight you don’t have. If you’re not sure, then it isn’t, and I can’t tell you how you know, but you do. Once again it can’t be explained, only experienced.  What He said to me was , Don’t search for Me in other places, look for Me inside yourself. Prayer finds Me.

Probably about two weeks after that, I went for a run, this time on the paved hike and bike trail in Georgetown, I remember stopping at a sporting goods store after the run and feeling this Cross in my front pocket. When I got home and emptied my pockets it was not there, no problem. This time before I looked, I prayed, opened my eyes it wasn’t there. I searched but less frantically this time, almost reducing it to a little game, “ok God, what lesson do I need to learn?” “Really now, I’m listening, I really would like the cross back?” I must have looked the house over for an hour. “I don’t want to play anymore”, I thought, “it’ll turn up”. I gave up looking. A week passed. I just kept telling myself, it’ll turn up. I was running again ( imagine that), and I began to retrace my steps that day in my head. I met my family to eat after the sporting goods store. I walk to the car. As I got to the car, I pulled the keys out of my front pocket, the receipts from the sporting goods store and the restaurant all came out with the keys. To separate the receipts from the keys (drink in the other hand) I shoved my hand , four or five times in my front pocket, the front pocket with the cross. I really had lost it. I felt the flush of embarrassment, even with no one around, I was ashamed. I felt pretty low. I began to think of the feelings that I had when I found it, it was like a dream, I even blinked twice when I saw it, as I reached to pick it up off that parking lot, I half expected it not to really be there. When it was really there, I giggled like a little girl, (I can believe I’m gonna say this) I felt special. That was gone. With the feeling of honor, stained with my carelessness, still bouncing around in my head, a vision of some other person finding the cross in the front of the burger joint popped in my head. Maybe they were questioning their faith, questioning life, considering becoming a pastor, or even thinking maybe they should go to church more. The whisper, “even in your mistakes, you can share Hope, Faith, and Love” I was comforted, and after considering the reality of it all, I was OK with it. I don’t need to keep God in my pocket so I can feel chosen, because I will miss the opportunity to give the joy of faith to other people. And so it goes.

Since that time, I have learned that I still need to use every ounce of skill, talent, and gumption that I have, to do the best that I can, but If it goes in a direction that I didn’t intend, I just assume that God is at work, and I should keep on keepin’ on, in whichever direction I’m led.

If that were the end of the story…….

Our house has an office, it is the catch-all. Things that don’t really have a home, go to the office. It is the door that stays closed when company is over. Fast forward a few months, I decide it is time. After church on  Sunday, I go into the office armed with a box of trash bags. I began finding things that haven’t been touched in a year and start bagging them up. I don’t remember what I picked up next, but I remember seeing carpet underneath it, and something else. Yep it was back. I have no idea how it got there. I can’t even conceive of a theory of how it got there. Right off, I knew I had to tell someone. (I didn’t have to tell my family, they heard me yell, “I can’t believe it”.)  The next Sunday, I went up to the pastor after church, the usual throng of people were around him. I asked if he had time for a story. I want to be clear, he was very nice about it, and politely asked me to make an appointment. I was a little hurt. In retrospect, he had to get ready to deliver two more sermons, and play the drums, and shake hands, and save folks from burning in hell. But nevertheless, I was hurt because I had something important to tell, to share, people needed to hear.

The whisper, “He’s not the one who needs to hear it.”

The Water Bottle

1/22/10

Today was my first run after the marathon, I promised a friend that I would wait a week, but 6 days was 6 days too long. As I went down our 1.125 mile road, I saw the bottle of water, that resided in the newspaper box just under our mailbox, at the end of our road. It has been there about 18 months or so, I had planed to remove it as a symbol, on the last run before the marathon, but alas rain makes our road, a treacherous, slicker than snot, 6 pounds of mud on your shoes, injury buffet. So the last run was completed on the safety of the Brushy Creek Regional Trail.

I ran, and thought I guess I should take it out, the bottle that I initially thought was my lifeline, When I started running, I would just run up and down the dirt road, never more than 1.125 miles from the house. I remember deciding one day that I should venture down the paved road, (after checking with sport tracks, it was July 25, 2008) and being in the heat of the summer, I was afraid that I would be too far from home, and collapse from dehydration, and be dead. Now 1341 miles later, it felt safe to remove it. So as I made the turn down our road, I removed the bottle from the newspaper box. I was really a pretty sad sight, faded label, a solid coat of dust, but nonetheless whole,  and seemingly as full of water as the day I left it there. As I continued running home, I considered the symbolism of the bottle. It was my safety net, my just in case I was crazy, that everybody was right, that I really didn’t have any business trying to run, especially in that weather.

I mean I had heard the concern of people, but was their concern, my concern? As I finished the run, bottle in hand, I looked down, and recognized that I needed to keep it. It even caused me a  chuckle, now able to run 26 miles at a time, was 18 months ago, afraid to go further that 1.125 miles from home.  I said a little prayer, well not really a prayer, I have more like a daily ongoing conversation with God, but any who, I was then that it hit.

Now I have been known to give  a response to those who claim that they could never run, run that far, or run a marathon. It usually goes something like this: You go through life with boundaries, not as a child, but as we grow we are told what is and is not possible. We accept. Sometimes, however, we have occasion to push against one of those boundaries, and ill be damned if it doesn’t move. You mean they are not solid, they move? And hence the realization that as a human being, if you keep pushing long enough and hard enough, there is not anything that one cannot accomplish. God has always known this, and somehow I think this is one of the things that makes him the saddest.  How much has he given us? Minds that conceive miraculous science and art, a natural world that truly stirs the soul, and an amazing physical body that responds and adapts, and even after all that, the Life and Suffering of his Son,  fully Him in earthly form, who did so to give us a path to everlasting life with Him.  After all that we still find a way to despair, worry, and generally be unhappy.

FEAR. That’s what that bottle was, fear of failure, of limitations, of being incapable of reaching farther. I felt that I needed something on this earth to protect me from my own stupid self. Because other people doubted the sanity of it all. If I listen, I mean really listen, to myself , to nature, to God, there really isn’t any thing that could stop me. Honestly, I was a little angry. I chuckled a little again, I was mad at a water bottle, i am a dork.

I began to think about the symbolism again, maybe I should drink it, you know, consume my fear. The opposite of my fear consuming me. I tentatively broke the seal, lifted the bottle to my lips and took a swig.  Just in case you find yourself in the Sahara, with a 18 month old bottle of water, and are about to die of dehydration, and are left with the choice of drinking that water, or your own urine. Go with the urine. It tasted like lake water, with a subtle undertones of dirt, algae, and a hint of fish. I was gonna spit it out, but I swallowed my fear, literally.

I went to put the lid back on, but the unusually hard winter and usual unbearable summer had made the plastic of the lid brittle. The cap split into 7 pieces. The reality of it all brought a tear to my eye. Once you swallow your fear, accept that boundaries are yours to set, and remove.  That fear can no longer be held onto, so I slowly pour the foulness of the bottle onto the ground. I walked to the trash can to throw away the bottle, I looked at it one last time, old, faded and brittle. Harmless. I decided to keep it, because I like to look at it sometimes, My fears, worries, despair, are old, faded, and brittle. Thanks Again God.

Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hello world!

Why a blog?

I run, and 99.95% of the time i run alone. So i think a lot,  some thoughts seem to make more sense than others. My work is in the shallow end of the human condition, with people who don’t know how to “swim”….yet. My thoughts revolve, quite selfishly, around my life, and the things that touch it. However, that is a pretty broad range, from the political (I am a self-proclaimed minimalist) to the mundane. I had never started a blog because of the time factor, but had always wanted to because my thoughts entertain me for hours on end, and like a good movie, I would like to have a copy. I finally started because i ran a marathon, which was the experience of a lifetime, it was the straw, and it will be my first official post.

What should I keep in mind as I read this?

As these posts are a stream of consciousness type thing, the typical grammatical conventions may or may not apply, i’m not going ee cummings or anything, but if i think of it, or it affects the meaning, i may or may not add it. Fragments and run ons often occur in my thoughts, so they may be in the posts. I will reread the posts once to ensure they convey my intended thought and or emotion, but that’s about it. Feel free ( if there are ever any comments,) to do the same.

Why the name, fever with them fits?

Its something my mother used to ask me when i was overly anything.  So i thought about the way i think, and my tendency to obsess about the things that I care about, ( I’m pretty ambivalent about the things that are not connected to me). It’s so reminded me, as a young boy\man,  ranting about something, and my mothers response was usually, ” You got fever with them fits.”  The Texas equivalent of calm down.