Running the race

We milled in the crowd lined up on Tolt Avenue behind the big red arch that marked the start of the race. Dad, Mom, and I all wore numbers indicating that we were registered to run in Carnation's Independence Day 5k. Other runners jostled our elbows and toes; we jostled back as we tried to determine our pace and where we should line up. The pace markers backed up to make more room for the runners; Mom edged back to stay with the 10 minute mile runners while Dad and I stayed up with the 8-minute-milers, but none of us were sure what our pace would be.

As we chatted on the sidewalk before lining up, Mom mentioned Grandpa and said, wet-eyed with a choke in her voice, "I could cry, thinking about him!" He would have loved to be there, running a race with his family, cracking jokes with strangers, making us laugh with silly jigs. It was easy to imagine him with a number pinned to his t-shirt; he ran in many races, from family 5ks to marathons. He would train with his tomato-red knit hat on to keep his bald head warm, and stop at the gas station for coffee and to say hello. On race day, it wasn't about winning but about working hard and about the people around him, always about the people.

He often lined up at the start of a race with grandkids or his son-in-laws or friends, but I don't remember ever running a race with Grandpa (Mom says maybe I did as a very small child, at another Independence Day race in Fort Lewis). In fact, this Carnation Fourth of July event was my first race ever. But as the gun went off and the runners broke free, it didn't feel strange and new; old memories crowded in so close I could feel Grandpa's sweaty hug and hear his delighted cackle and see his the crooked fingers on his raised hands. I swept aside the sweet memories along with the tears pricking my eyes so I could see the pavement and breathe deep and easy.

My legs and lungs felt strong; I edged to the side to pass old men and plump young women and boys with crew cuts. I knew Dad had been right behind me when we started, but I didn't find out till the race was over that he stayed with me for most of the first mile. If a young boy slowed and began weaving in front of me, or a dad pushing a double stroller cut me off, I thought of Grandpa and smiled. He would have been delighted to share the course, interested in the stories of those around him.

When we passed a volunteer shouting out the time at the one-mile mark, I ran quietly by, but I thought of Grandpa and how he would have done something to connect with the man. When we passed a lady pointing out the route at a fork in the trail I thought of him again and imagined what I could have said to her as I instead ran by in silence. When we passed a row of volunteers holding paper cups of water out to us, I was ready; I pumped my arms in the air and said, "Woo-hoo!" just like Grandpa would have done. I waved at a little boy sitting on his grandma's lap and watching the race go by; I grinned at volunteers cheering us on at another corner. I ran the race marked out for me with perseverance, with delight, with intentionality, with eyes fixed outward.

Pounding down Tolt Avenue towards the red arch, I eased into a sprint. The empty spaces along the route filled in and the cheers became continuous as I neared the finish. A row of cheerleaders from the high school -- the announcer on the loudspeakers -- the double yellow line, arrow-straight to the end. It wasn't till after I burst over the line, breath ragged, face tomato-red like Grandpa's hat, and walked a cool-down block and came back to join the bystanders lining the home stretch that I found Heidi, Peter, Lucy, and Annie. They had been there for me, cheering me on, though I was too intent on the finish to pick them out from the crowd.

I joined them and we eagerly peered down the avenue to watch Dad and Mom's approach. Soon we saw Dad; Heidi and I hollered and cheered, but he didn't appear to see us. So when we picked out Mom's form, we turned it up a notch. I lifted Annie and thrust her out over the road, and together we cheered in our last runner for the day.

On the three-block walk back to Aaron and Heidi's house, Peter and I had our own set of races, Lucy on my back. ("Let's go faster, Aunt Julie!" she said, and then laughed when I picked up the pace. "I'm bumping, I'm bumping!") Later Annie wanted me to pin my number onto her shirt so she could be a runner too. As the new generations sprout up, we pass the baton and the race continues. Thanks for running well, Grandpa.

There was an altar call

There was an altar call. Not every Sunday, but most weeks. During the special services that were held once a year, there was an altar call every night.

Sometimes no one came, sometimes one or two, sometimes the pews emptied and the kneelers stacked up, rows deep, in front of the altar. The altar was always open -- Pastor Mark made a point of reminding us of that.

I grew up in churches with altars, and they didn't seem like a show for fellow worshippers or a manipulation tool in the hands of power hungry pastors. They seemed like an opportunity to physically engage with what was going on in your heart.

I don't remember the first time I went to the altar, but I know what it felt like in those early years when I received my own altar call: my heart would pound, heat would flood into my face, and I would cling to the safety of my seat until the urge to rise became unbearable. Then I would slip past the knees of my family, lining the pew between me and the aisle, walk to the front of the church between banks of other worshipers, and at last arrive at my destination. The discomfort and embarrassment dissolved as soon as I knelt on the rough carpet, leaned my forearms on the cool, smooth polish of the wood. The humble position magnified my rightful place before Almighty God. The act of obedience reinforced my submission to Him. Maybe I was responding to hearing the Word preached; maybe I was lifting up a burden of my heart to God; maybe I was repenting. There were usually tears, and always relief and joy at being fully and consciously in the presence, in the very arms, of God. Sometimes an arm would land across my shoulders -- someone from my family, or my larger church family coming alongside me.

From the time I was ten until the summer I turned twenty-five, I attended Pastor Mark's church, my growing spiritual consciousness shaped by the altars Jim Parker built. Each Sunday morning we hauled them out of the trailer into the school cafeteria where we met. I've been away almost six years now, and last Sunday I attended a farewell for Pastor Mark as he, too, moves on from that church. "The altar is like God's lap," Pastor Mark used to say. A paradoxical place where the reality of an incredibly intimate relationship with the absolute God of the universe came to light. I'm grateful for that altar that provided a framework for my newly developing relationship with God, and for the altar before the throne of grace, always open to a humble, obedient heart.

Why Three Year Olds Make the Best Language Teachers

My German comprehension is okay. Certainly not complete, but with context and body language and a bit of work, I can usually make out the topic of conversation and if it is simple and familiar, follow along pretty well. My speaking, however, lags behind my comprehension, waiting for some world where I won't mind loosing my personality and polish behind a cobbled together string of badly pronounced words in a time and gender crunching mix. So on my latest trip to Germany, as usual I smiled and nodded, getting by with a "Danke" or a softly spoken sentence here and there. When people realize I don't speak German, they smile an apology and avoid future attempts at conversation, or switch to English.

Until Joshua. He is the three-and-a-half-year-old son of my German friends Melanie and Bernhard, and he had been looking forward to the arrival of "Julie" without any thought of what language he would use to converse with me. He spoke in German, looking me in the eye and expecting a response. Even when my response was a confused look, or a grammatically garbled sentence blending German and English, he did not bat an eye or back off. He did not curtail our conversations or switch to English; he just plowed ahead, as three-year-olds do, his vocabulary simple and to the point.

Some mornings he came to my room to visit; alone together we would piece together communication out of body language and our growing understanding of the German language. I showed him pictures of my dad and brother's bees; he responded eagerly, "Bienen!" and followed with a whole slew of questions I was sure I wouldn't be able to answer even in English. He saw my journal and wanted to color, so he ran up stairs (after telling me, "Bleib da" -- stay there!) to get paper and colored pencils and then scribbled away, drawing ... Kuchen! (Cakes) He slid them into an imaginary oven and when they were done, we ate them.

One night he even wanted me to put him to bed. I read him a story in German (I'm sure it must have sounded awkward, but he listened attentively and made no comment), prayed for him in German, understood when he was asking for a last tuck-in from Mama. 

Since Joshua is not the first three-year-old I have spent time with, I recognized some of his habits as those common to little boys everywhere. His constant, "Warum?" after every instruction or explanation his mother gave was not hard to translate; he is in the "why?" phase. When we took a trip into the Black Forest that required an hour in the car, he peppered the way with familiar road trip questions: "Sind wir da? Sind wir da?" (Are we there?) "Wo ist die Schwarzwald? Wo? Da?" (Where is the Black Forest? Where? Here?)

Repetition was also in my favor. One afternoon when we were working in the garden, he went back and forth between the beds where Melanie and I were working. "Findest du eine Nacktschnecke?" he would ask first one, then the other, over and over again. It was easy to understand that he wanted any slugs we might find. (Why he wanted them was not so clear to me.)

I also gave him a few English lessons. Sometimes he would point to objects and I would give him the English name; when he was busy counting everything in German I would follow his lead in English. Occasionally he would try to repeat me. "Pig" was one word that stuck; "pinkg, pinkg, pinkg" he would say, pointing to pictures of pigs. But when I told him the word "peacock," he told me in no uncertain terms, "You may not say 'peacock.' You can say 'pig,' but you cannot say 'peacock.'" 

We laughed together, too, and made up imaginary games, and shared piggy back rides. And when I would make a foray into the unknown world of German, and he would respond with an action or a laugh or an appropriate answer or a knowing look, he gave me the gift of being understood.

He asked several times where my car was, wondering how a visitor could arrive at their home sans auto.  A Flugzeug was a cool way to have traveled, but he couldn't see the airplane in their driveway, either. Maybe sometime he can travel ganz ganz weit across the ocean in a big airplane and come to give me my next German lesson!

He Came with Daffodils

Blood crusted her hair on the left side of her head and bloomed bright on the pillowcase behind her. Tubes tangled around the hospital bed, winding to ports on her chest and wrist. It was the emergency room; no one plans to be there.

She had been driving to Applebee's on a run-of-the-mill Thursday; then there was a bang, a crash, a shattering, a jolt. She didn't know what had happened, and there were people asking if she was okay, and glass everywhere, and someone pressing something to her bleeding head, and lights, and medical workers. "Would you call my son?" she asked a woman, pressing her cell phone into the stranger's hand.

And now she was at Providence, scantily wrapped in a hospital gown, propped and prodded by hospital pillows in a tilted hospital bed. Her son, his wife, and her granddaughter had just arrived, and they were asking if she was okay, holding her scraped hands, looking at the newly stitched slice in her ear and the mango-sized colored lump on her leg. The nurse came in, and then the doctor, to fill them in on her condition. Nothing serious, but they wanted to keep her overnight to monitor for possible bleeding in the brain.

Into the crowded stall slipped another person, a vase of vibrant daffodils and lush hydrangeas in his hands. He held them out to her: "Here, I brought something for you," he said, a little shy.

"Well, are you the flower delivery service?" she asked, trying to place him.

A nervous laugh. "I guess today I am."

"Who are they from?" she asked, still not making all the connections. "I guess I have to look at the card."

He didn't know how to answer her questions; he was embarrassed to have to explain his own gift. "I was at the accident," he said.

"Oh, yes, I thought I had seen you somewhere before! I knew you looked familiar. And you brought me flowers --" Suddenly, the tears came as she realized this young stranger had not only stopped to help her at the collision but had followed her to the hospital to make sure she was okay and deliver his compassion in the form of sunny yellow daffodils. "Come here, I need to give you a hug," she said through her tears. His face crinkled with emotion, and he couldn't speak either as he stepped past her family to bend to her side, giving her an awkward hug in between pillows and her IV.

He said goodbye and slipped back through the curtain drawn over the doorway, her blood dried on the sleeve of his grey hoodie from when he knelt by her car and applied pressure to her bleeding head. Her son and daughter-in-law followed him into the hall, not willing to let this remarkable young man go without thanking him, getting his contact information, hearing his story of the accident that was still largely a mystery.

He wept again as he spoke with them, shaken by this close contact with death, with life. He was young, maybe eighteen; bright orange gauges decorated his ears. Where had he been going when he witnessed the collision? When was the last time he had truly connected with another human? When had he last felt that he was needed? What made him call all the area hospitals to find out where one old lady had been taken after a wreck on the highway? And how would it change his life to give a grandma a bouquet of daffodils?

The Frog Prince, continued

And so, they lived happily ever after.

Right? After the princess kissed the frog and he turned into a prince and they got married, they were always happy.

I picked up my cousin from school today since his mom is out of town, and in the car on the way home he told me about the story he is performing in his Speech & Debate tournament tomorrow. It's the sequel to The Frog Prince, and in it we discover that the prince wishes he were still a frog, a life where he had no responsibilities and could do as he pleased.

"He doesn't like being a prince," my cousin told me. "When he was a frog he could swim all day, but now he has princely duties, dragons to slay, and the princess to take care of. He has to do things to please her -- he has to listen to her! The fairy tales lie to us," he went on. "They tell us we will be happy forever, but no relationship is perfect."

I was struck by this young boy-man's perceptiveness about contentment, and I worked to steer the conversation from cynicism to hope. I heartily agreed with him on one thing: no relationship or situation is perfect, and if you are looking to circumstances to bring you happiness, you will never be happy. The question then becomes, is happiness impossible?

"That is why people commit suicide," he continued. They realize they have been deceived, and that nothing around them is capable of providing happiness.

But what if happiness were a choice, not a set of circumstances or a particular relationship? Not a choice to to manhandle my heart towards gladness through all the dark and disappointing days life may bring, but a choice to look to beyond the dark days we experience under the sun. A choice to be grateful for what is instead of gloomy about what isn't; a choice to set our hearts on God's glory instead of our comfort; a choice to embrace the desire for eternity that has been planted in our hearts instead of wrestling to imbue these fleeting days with lasting meaning.

Paul put it this way: "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. Therefore, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."