Juxtapositions-- Musings in the early morning hours

It’s 5:30 in the morning and I have long since given up trying to go back to sleep, having awakened at 2:15. I tried listening to meditative music, and counting backwards from 300, and keeping my mind blank, but nothing has worked. So, instead of fighting this insomnia, I am choosing to look at it as a bonus; I’ve got a few extra hours to be conscious and alert, a few extra hours found tucked away in this deep night which I can use to reflect on the mysteries of life and death and all the ways we dance with these two partners, all the juxtapositions of joie de vivre and the macabre we’re forced to navigate every day.

Like virtually every other person on the planet with access to global media, I’ve been thinking about the terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday. When it happened, I was in New York City, ultimately on business, but front-loading pleasure, seeing two Broadway musicals with a friend. I was without a computer, and only had my smartphone as a link to the larger world; it was all I needed, as it turns out. I read reports of bombs and attacks and hostages being held, but it wasn’t until I was going into the theatre for that night’s show that the gravity of the situation began to truly unfold.

I was seated in the Al Hirschfield theatre ready to watch “Kinky Boots,” a mainly light-hearted and

funny take on the true story of a failing shoe company that revitalized itself by making sturdy, fashionable, sexy boots for drag queens. The mood in the theatre was festive; there was lots of sparkly clothing to be seen. I bought a sassy shirt and posted a picture of it on Facebook. On Facebook I saw more of the horror that was going on in Paris. I posted that my thoughts and prayers were with Paris.

Juxtapositions. Terror and death, comedy and theatrics. 129 people were killed and the musical was hilarious

.

The next evening, after a full day in a leadership training conference put on by the Metro NYC UU chapter, I was seated in JFK airport waiting for my flight home. I was eating dinner in a sports bar where there were several flat screen televisions showing different sporting events; in a nod to current events, one was tuned to non-stop coverage of events in Paris. The whole thing felt so surreal. On three screens, side by side, I was watching a football game, a weight-lifting competition, and scenes from Paris of those wounded, the buildings destroyed, interviews with survivors. As I

unrolled my napkin, the cutlery tumbled to the table: a stainless steel fork and a plastic knife---reminders of another day of terror.

Juxtapositions. Sports and suicide bombers. Commentary on a weight-lifter’s goal and the names of those who were killed.

And of course now, everyone on social media is weighing in--as are leaders of nations, states and countries-- arbitrarily linking the Daesh attacks with the Syrian refugee crisis, calling on the US government to renege on our promise of welcoming 10,000 refugees in. Some of the more obvious bits of irony are memes that say, "If only there were a seasonally appropriate story about a poor Middle Eastern family seeking refuge and being turned away" and the one that asks, "Whatever happened to your demand that #alllivesmatter?" The most curious juxtaposition, though, is the strident cry of many politicians and presidential wannabees, the clamor of over half the governors—all Republicans-- in our country to block Syrian refugees from entering the United States or—worse, really—to only allow “Christian” refugees, while sending “Muslim” refugees away. What I don’t understand is that the vast majority of these governors govern states that get an “F” in gun safety laws and have resisted efforts to put smarter gun control laws into place in the wake of tragic shooting after tragic shooting by predominantly white United States citizens who claim Christianity as their religion; in the face of statistics that tell us we lose 36 people a day to gun violence in this country. If these governors, and presidential wannabees are really concerned about protecting the good people of the 

United States, should they not first look to putting safety guidelines in place that can protect us from the most viable, persistent threat, which is ourselves?

Juxtapositions. Radicals from an extremist group in another country attack venues in Paris, 129 people are killed. Politicians want to ban all Syrians fleeing from those same terrorists while in the United States that many people are killed by guns in just 3 ½ days and those same politicians actively resist smarter gun safety laws.

This is the bizarro world in which we live, in which we try to seek meaning and find our rhythm in this dance of life, which is difficult at best, since we never know when death is going to cut in.  

No wonder I can’t sleep. 

And that’s just covers the main juxtaposition du jour. There are others in my life, as I’m sure there are in yours.

So what’s to be done? We can’t control the racist undertones of much of the rhetoric surrounding the Syrian refugees but we can control our own response to the tragedy in Paris as it continues to unfold, the tragedy of violence in our own country that we continue to ignore, and the tragedy of the deadly war in Syria from which so many are fleeing for their lives.

We can recognize in these multiple tragedies, our own shared humanity. We can pick up trash when we take a walk around the block and buy coffee for the person in line behind us at Starbucks. We can not care about the color of Starbucks holiday cups. We can hold our loved ones tighter, we can reach out to those who look or speak differently than we do. We can make new friends. We can hide the posts of those on Facebook who want to rant about politics in a way that does violence to our spirits; we don’t have to engage them in debate, we don’t have to unfriend them (since many of these people may be much beloved family members and friends) but we don’t have to see those posts come up in our Facebook feed. We can turn off the non-stop coverage of these tragedies. We can see Kinky Boots or the new Peanuts movie. We can read poetry. We can even, as Barbara Brown Taylor tells us, read poetry to trees. We can love, fully and freely and without fear. We can.

We can never guarantee our safety, no matter where we are, or how heavily we arm ourselves or build blockades to keep others out, but we can guarantee our serenity, our peace of mind by choosing to let go of those fears and instead embrace this life, this dance, sometimes leading and sometimes following, but always sure of our own footing, no matter where the dance may take us.

Look at that: it’s 7:00 AM now; I guess I’ll put the coffee on.

The Poetry of Possibilities and the Gestational Life of Dreams

Recently I was talking with a friend about Mary Oliver’s latest book of poetry, Felicity. I think this might be my favorite volume of her poetry and, upon receiving it, instantly devoured it, hungrily taking in her rich and evocative images and words. My friend, who has only recently started reading it said, “I am slow reading it, so I don’t become an Oliver glutton.”

Her words got me to thinking about our culture of instant gratification; in an era where we can instantly download the latest book or movie we hear about onto our laptops, or tablets, or phones, taking things slow is almost unheard of. It takes patience and a certain amount of intestinal fortitude to let something unfold slowly—particularly if it’s something as wonderful as a new book of poetry.  There is a frisson of anticipation I get when something good seems to be crackling in the air, as electric as lightning that strikes close enough to thrillingly illuminate without danger of causing harm.

It’s akin to the “quickening” that happens about midway through pregnancy. This is the moment when the mother first feels the stirrings of life inside her. For me, it happened at about the five month mark. I was worried because I thought it should have happened sooner, and I wondered if I, in my lack of knowledge had experienced it and didn’t realize it. Then it happened one night, just as I was drifting off to sleep: a fluttering, as of butterflies--or butterfly kisses-- that elicited an immediate, visceral reaction of exultant joy! There was life in me! There was something new being created within me-though as yet unseen to the world, and felt only by me! And, as excited and impatient as I was for this new life to be revealed, I could only wait, unable to force the process to go faster. I had to “slow read.” I had felt life stirring but it would be months before Sam would be born in his own time. And those months, too, held rich experiences that I’m glad I didn’t miss.

As I reflect on that sense of “quickening” I realized I have experienced that exact same sensation at other seminal moments of my life. I’ve felt that same butterfly sensation in the moment when I realized I was falling in love with someone, I experienced it when I had the epiphany of my sexual orientation and my call to ministry. These, too, are moments of gestation when I suddenly felt the existence of new life and all the possibilities on the horizon—as yet unseen by others. And these, too, required slow reading. These, too, were rich experiences not to be rushed through, but to be savored; to be in the charged atmosphere of change, without hiding in fear of being struck or trying to control where and when the lightning would, indeed, land; to succumb to the delicious, sometimes agonizing unfolding of possibilities, trusting the outcome would be what it was supposed to be.

Or, as Mary Oliver instructs us in her first poem in Felicity:

Don’t Worry

Things take the time they take. Don’t

  Worry.

How many roads did St. Augustine follow

   Before he became St. Augustine.

So, I will try to remember to slow read important parts of my life, experience the quickening with all its excitement and let it be, all the while being open to those times when life and circumstances shout “take risks! Dive in! Be headstrong!” These, Mary also advocates in her new book:

I Did Think, Let’s Go About This Slowly

I did think, let’s go about this slowly.

This is important. This should take

Some really deep thought. We should

    Take

Small thoughtful steps.

But, bless us, we didn’t.

  

I guess the trick is in knowing when to slow read and when to dive in, and feeling that frisson of anticipation of the new life and possibilities, the new quickenings that await me, still—long past my child-rearing years--if I am open to them.

“Look, moon I turned silver for you.” ― Sanober Khan The Glorious Graying of Me

I was chatting with an old friend recently when, suddenly, she uttered a single sentence that changed my life: “Looks like you’re getting some gray hair,” she said as she pulled at my “sideburns.”

“Really?” I squealed with excitement! I was ecstatic! A milestone had been reached!

I clearly started life as a buttery blonde

Admittedly, I’m weird. I still recall how ebulliently I reacted when, at the age of 42, I was told by my optometrist that I would need progressive lenses for my glasses. In fact, I uttered the same word, with the same excitement: “Really?” I then added, “This makes me a real adult!” (Note: that was also the visit to the optometrist when, a little annoyed at having to fill out the contact information page once again, on the line where it asked, “preferred name” I wrote Bunny. I would like to point out that neither at that particular visit to the eye doc, nor on any subsequent visit, was I ever called Bunny; this clearly shows the futility of filling out that form.)

1976. Still blonde

Back to the gray hair sighting. Full disclosure: I get my hair highlighted twice a year. It’s never been to cover up gray but rather to add some vitality to the increasingly dish watery color of my blonde hair.
I was hoodwinked. There is no other explanation. As a child, I had that white tow-headed look, hinting at my Norwegian ancestry 

(though my Nordic dad was dark and swarthy) but the older I got, the darker my hair got. It's not that dark hair is bad, it's just that mine seemed to lose its luster as the buttery hues of blonde slipped away.

My son, Sam, is suffering a similar fate: his tow-headed look has gotten increasingly darker as the years have gone by. At least his hair is luxuriously thick and still has depth that my fine, thin hair can never attain.

By senior prom, 1980, it was all over.

So for the past several years I have gotten my hair high-lighted and each time my hair interpreter triumphantly proclaims, “still no gray hair!” I’ve always been a little crestfallen at this pronouncement meant as a compliment.

I have always loved hair in permutations of the gray scale: salt and pepper, gray, white, silver. In fact, when I look back on the women I’ve dated, or been attracted to, over the past 37 years, I find no “type” in terms of age, race, body type, femme or butch; I seem to have dated across the spectrum. There is, however, one commonality that appears throughout the years: I’m clearly attracted to women with gray, silver, white, mixed hair.

I think this is because I must have imprinted on the first woman I fell truly in love with.  At the age of 22 she had jet black hair with lightning bolts of silver thrumming through it. Although the love was unrequited, my fate, it seemed, was sealed.

Sam clearly blonde a age 6

I have never dreaded the graying of me; rather I have eagerly awaited its advent. Now, finally, at the ripe age of 53, I am able to proudly join the ranks of the Gray! What does this mean, I wondered as I drove home from my friend’s house. I prodded my mind like a loose tooth;was I any wiser? I gently palpated my heart from within;did I understand more about love and compassion?
Maybe those things take time. Or maybe graying hair is a function of age, while not necessarily being a harbinger of wisdom. 

Already much darker, and he's still young!

Still, I couldn’t help but feel a frisson of excitement as I looked at my hair in the bathroom mirror and asked another friend to take a picture of this august moment in time. The next week, when I went for my quarterly haircut, semi-annual high-lighting session, Jerome, my hair interpreter, said “Still no gray hair!” as he wrapped my hair in foil.

“Yes, there is!” I said happily as I showed him my sideburns. I felt inordinately proud, as if I had done something that had taken infinite skill or herculean strength, rather than simply growing older. Still, I did earn every one of those gray hairs—and all the ones to come. Now I really am an adult!

Run, Nori, Run! Lessons learned from my four half marathons this summer

This past Saturday, I ran 2.1 miles—it was my first attempt at running since my last half marathon on September 6. I had mysteriously injured my lower back the week before that race and, probably against my better judgment, I went ahead with the race, even though my back was spasming and getting out of bed was a chore.

It was at Disneyland, I had paid $200 to register—not to mention the cost of flying out and staying in a hotel; dammit, I would finish the race if it was the last thing I did!! So I awoke at 4 AM on Sunday, September 6, took 800 mg of ibuprofen and walked (hobbled) in the pre-dawn darkness from my hotel to Downtown Disney where my last half marathon of the summer was to commence.

I remember when I first decided to run four half marathons over the summer. It was last December and I was a part of a Facebook running group called CJ’sHoliday Challenge. I am not sure how I stumbled upon it, but I was glad I found it. It was focused on the two months between Thanksgiving and January 25^th, and led by Coach Jenny Hadfield, a well known running coach in the “real world.” The group was geared to folks of all ages and running abilities and was simply there to encourage people not to lose track of their fitness and running goals during the busy (and fattening) holiday seasons.

Before I joined this group I was an uninspired runner; I tried to get in three runs a week, but they weren’t very long (no more than three miles), nor were they consistent. I did try to sign up for a 5K “race” each month, to keep me motivated. I put “race” in quote marks because I surely wasn’t trying to win, but I did get a racing bib,as well as a t-shirt (generally) and it was timed. But being a part of this group opened my eyes to bigger possibilities. Suddenly, I was seeing posts from people who ran at my pace (a 13 minute mile) who were doing 10Ks and half marathons and even FULL marathons! If they could do it, why couldn’t I? I was going on sabbatical from June 1-September 10. Why not do a half marathon a month during that time, among other sabbatical plans?

I shared my idea with the group and asked, “Am I crazy?” The answer was an unreserved, “Yes!!” But, the other members added, in a good way. Why not go for it? A few even pointed out that I could become of a member of the Half Fanatics if I accomplished this feat.

So I cemented my plan by putting it boldly in my Winter holiday letter and even proclaiming it from the pulpit in a New Year’s sermon. By mid-February I had picked out and paid for all four of my races. I was firmly committed.

When friends would ask me why I chose to undertake such a daunting mission during my sabbatical, I found it hard to explain. I truly felt called to do this. I wasn’t doing it for fame or glory; it certainly wasn't to get more attention (as an introvert, I spend my time finding ways to NOT be the center of attention!) All I could say was that I was going to learn things I needed to learn during the training leading up to the races, and in the races themselves. Honestly, I was feeling a little tredipatious, myself, about the undertaking but as March came around, I begin training in earnest.

Now, on the other side of this endeavor, I can see clearly the lessons learned in the training, the races, and the conversations in between.

Lesson #1

It doesn’t matter if anyone else believes in you; it only matters if you believe in yourself.

I first began to realize during my training that there were some people—caring people involved in my life—that didn’t really expect me to make it to my first half marathon, let alone getting through all four. People who met my stated training goals with disbelief,

and my accomplishment of them with sheer amazement. I remember saying to one friend, after I had completed my first double digit mile training run, “You didn’t really expect me to do that, did you?” She admitted she had been surprised that I had done so.

Now, to be fair, I was a little surprised by my own tenacity. It would have been much easier to keep putting off those long runs; they took up so much time! I’m slow on a good day and my average pace, as the miles increased, got slower and slower. Do you know how long it takes for me to run 10 miles? 2:15 hours!! That takes a lot of planning in order to make sure I had time in the day to run it! It was daunting to me but I kept faith in myself and steadily increased my miles until, four weeks before my first race, I ran 12.4 miles on a long Saturday morning. I came home from that run and, as I was gulping down an electrolyte enhanced drink, suddenly burst into tears. The reality hit home then, I was doing it! I was actually training consistently for a half marathon! All those years of being non-athletic, all the friends who didn’t think I would actually follow through, all the times I doubted myself, were washed away in those tears. At the moment, my own belief in myself took a secure hold. It would carry me through a summer of injuries, illness, and travel that interfered with my on-going training and it would ultimately carry me through that last, rough half marathon in Disneyland.

Lesson #2

The race isn’t about the starting line or the finish line; it’s about those lonely miles in between.

There’s a certain sense of excitement when the gun goes off and the race commences. For a while, I’m in the thick of a pack of runners, with many runners passing me and me passing some as well as we all jockey for position and find our paces. Knowing that I’m a slow runner, I always start somewhere near the back of the pack. If there was a pacer holding a three hour sign, I’d position myself behind that person, since my goal was to break three hours.

And then the race would begin! And we would run through a crowd of cheering friends and family members onto the course! Soon—within a mile or two—we would all be in our respective places that we would hold for virtually the rest of the race. I would find myself playing “leap-frog” with one or two of the other runners at my pace. I might steadily overtake them (think of that annoying moment on the freeway when an 18 wheeler pulls slowly into the left lane to pass another 18 wheeler, going about .5 miles faster an hour than the truck being passed; it takes a long time for that pass to actually get completed) and then when my watch beeps to tell me to take my one minute walk break, they would slowly overtake me.

It’s not crowded where I am, in the middle miles. Far ahead of me are the faster runners; if it’s an “out and back” course the fastest racers will be passing me at about the half way mark. Behind me are runners even slower than me, including those who walk the races. This leaves me in a solitary place with only my leap frog buddies to keep me company.

And it is in those miles, where I’m alone, where there is no one to cheer me on, where the only sound is that of my somewhat labored breathing, that the true race is run. Ultimately I will reach that glorious 13 mile marker and put what little I have left of any reserves into play and run across the finish line where still a crowd waits to cheer me in! And then I will dazedly lower my head to accept my finisher’s medal and head for the cups of water waiting, but I know the only reason I got there is because I slogged along in those lonely middle miles, persistently putting one foot in front of the other, even when there was no one to witness my efforts.

Lesson 3

Sometimes you can’t quite reach your goal. You can choose to focus on how much you missed it by or how close you came.

My first half marathon was June 6 in Moab, UT. It was the Thelma and Louise half—so named because the course ran along the Colorado River in the location where the final scene was shot in that iconic movie. I was nervous b

"Flat Nori" ready for Thelma and Louise

ecause shortly after I had done my 12.4 training run, I had seriously injured my right knee.  I had taken it easy for a few weeks but when I ran six miles the week before the race, the pain was so great that I had to call a friend to pick up, a couple of miles from home.

I had gone to a physical therapist twice in the week before that first race, and my knee was taped up using the kinesio tape, which is all the rage now, to help prevent injuries. Right before the race I downed 400 mg of ibuprofen; I was as prepared as I could be. The course was beautiful and the taping and the drugs evidently helped because I didn’t really feel any pain until about mile 9. Then it came on with a vengeance. I stayed with my pace of run 3 minutes, walk one minute, the entire time and was pretty impressed with my final time of 3:05:41.

Unfortunately, my knee was incredibly injured and I spent the next four weeks before my second race focusing on doing physical therapy for strength and recuperation and did very little actual running prior to the Fourth of July race in the Colorado Springs. Subsequently, my time was worse—I finish

July 4th "Flat Nori"

ed at 3:11:46. I was discouraged but it couldn’t be helped. At mile 11, my legs simply quit working on me. At that point, I switched the tempo to running 1 minute and walking 3. That was the most miserable race ever! 

Then came my third half—the Georgetown to Idaho Springs race. Billed as a fast race because it ultimately is a downhill race, there were several steep uphill portions, too. On a positive note, although I was much slower in my second race than my first, my knee didn’t hurt at all! The on-going PT was really working! On a negative note,  I had gotten a miserable, intractable cold that had kept me in bed for the better part of two weeks in between race two and three. Once again, my training runs suffered. One well-meaning friend (and a “real” runner) tried to convince me to forgo this race and just focus on getting faster for the grand finale in September. I thanked her for the advice but told her I was planning on running that third race, even if I had to crawl over the finish line.

Proudly displaying medal for Georgetown

Instead, I had the best run of the summer! I felt like I was flying down the mountain. I abandoned the run/walk ration of 3:1 and just ran until I felt the need to walk. Once again, however, mile 11 proved to be my nemesis. This time, I started to experience cramps in my left calf that caused the toes on my left foot to spasm. When that would happen, I would slow to a walk until it stopped, then start running again.

I crossed the finish line triumphantly with a final time of 3:00:47. Yes, that means I was just 48 seconds shy of my goal of a sub-3 hour half! At first I was disappointed. I kept replaying those final 2.1 miles, knowing if my calf hadn’t started to cramp, I would have taken less walk breaks. Then I realized that 3:00:47 is a GREAT time for me! And, if I didn’t make my goal, at least I finished with my knee intact and with the best effort I could give. I posted the results on the CJ Challengers page and was met with enthusiastic congratulations. More importantly, I had a good race; a race that was actually fun to run!'

Lesson #4

Run fast, but don’t miss the magic.

This brings me back to where I started this post: a pre-dawn start in Downtown Disney with an 
injured back. I had hoped, following my triumphant third race, that the Disneyland Half marathon would be my crowning glory: a half marathon at sea level, with much better pre-race training runs. Instead, I entered this last race more nervous than I had been before any of the other three.

There were over 15,000 runners and we were set loose in corrals of hundreds of people eight minutes apart. The race began at 530 AM but it was just past 6 when my corral was finally released. At first, I tried my best to get ahead of the crowd, even though veterans of the race had told me the night before that this was not a race to try for a PR due to so many runners on the course. Still, I dodged around slower people, jumped up onto the sidewalk when it got too congested and was generally not having a very good time, although I was very determined. I did my best running, initially, not even taking any walk breaks until after I had run steadily for more than 30 minutes; still I was getting nowhere fast.
That’s when I noticed what many of the other runners were doing. The first few miles of the race took us through the streets of Disney California Adventure and then onto the streets of the Magic Kingdom itself. Even at that early hour, hundreds of workers lined the course to cheer us on and many characters were also there—Mickey, Minnie, and their gang;  Beauty and The Beast, and their gang;  Buzz Lightyear! Woody! All of the big names were out to cheer us on! And runners were pausing from their race to line up 20 deep in order to have their picture taken with these luminaries.

In this first video, you can see me as I run out of the castle at about the :10 mark, on the far right of the crowd. It's clear by my gait that there is something wrong with me!  

That’s when I got it. I realized how for the past three races, essentially all summer, I had been focused on the stress, the injuries, the doubts. I had worried about, rather than rejoiced in, the races. I had spent a lot of time trying to justify to some people why I was running this series, rather than just soaking in the congratulations of others.

For me, doing these four half marathons had never been about getting progressively faster; it’s always been about just doing them, not letting any excuse stop me. That’s why I registered early and why I broadcast my intent. After all, it would have been easy for me to opt out of any or all of these races at the last minute; that I didn’t do that was the victory.

In this second video, you can see me at about the :20 mark, on the side closest to the announcer. I have given up trying to run and am just soaking in the magic.

It was at that moment of realization in that final race, that I stopped jockeying for a better position and just took in the magic that is Disney. I snapped a couple of photos of my own as I “raced” along. I took in the cheering Disney workers and characters and the beauty of running through the streets of the Happiest Place on Earth. As we left the park and headed down the streets of Anaheim, I applauded the bands and dance teams and car clubs that lined the streets to cheer us on. When we made it to Angel Stadium and headed down onto the field, it felt as if we were taking a victory lap; hundreds of people in the stands were cheering us on as the official game announcer welcomed us in. Unfortunately, that was at the 15K mark; we still had 3.7 miles to go.

Towards the end there were several places where cheerleaders were doing chants for us, and I felt as if they were directed specifically to me. “We are proud of you! We are proud of you!” and “We are the champions, my friend!” 

It occurred to me that I really had done it: I had completed four half marathons in four months. I had trained consistently until injuries and illnesses sidelined me, but even then, I never gave up. The victory was mine.  I wasn't the fastest in my age group, I never broke the three hour time, and I was beset by complications that slowed me down, but never held me back. And at the end of that final race, as I hobbled back to my hotel room, I could be proud. Proud that I had, ultimately, crossed the finish line I had set before me, all those months ago.

This commercial captures exactly how I felt at the end!

EPILOGUE

On Monday, September 7, I was back at home. Although my back was worse than before, I had gotten out of bed early to cheer on my friend, Cate, who was running the American Discovery Trail half marathon here in Colorado Springs. This race was an out and back, beginning in America the Beautiful park and going north for 6.55 before the turn around back to the where it began. Cate is a seasoned runner and had been training hard all summer for this race. She suggested that, if I wanted to cheer her on (and I did; she had been my faithful cheerleader at all but my final race the day before) to be waiting at the 4 mile mark (which was also about mile 9 on the way back.) So I made my way to that mile marker, at Goose Gossage park.

Once the first  and fastest runners came through, I tried to guess about when she’d be by, based on the pace estimates she’d given me. Sooner than I expected she came zipping along, going fast and looking great. After she left, I cheered on the other runners, while I waited for her to return. I looked at my watch, at one point and figured out that the next batch of runners would be about where I would be, if I had been running that race, and sure enough here they came. Some were doing the sort of disciplined run/walk ratio that I did, others were running and then walking intermittently. All of them looked exhausted but determined. I cheered especially loud for them, knowing what it felt to be at mile four, with the bulk of the race ahead. Soon after “my” group passed along, Cate came winging back. I stayed long enough to encourage her then got in my car and sped to the finish line so that I could greet her there.

It was hard to walk, my back was spasming and I was giving out little Tourette shrieks of pain every time it did. But as I waited for Cate, I reflected on my own journey that summer, the lessons I learned, the experiences I had. If you had told me just four years earlier when I first laced up a pair of running shoes and started a couch to 5K program, that I’d be running four half marathons in a single summer, I would have laughed out loud. Yet, here I was. I thought of those in my pace group still struggling on the course that morning and mentally cheered them on some more.

 Soon Cate crossed the finish line. At age 56, she had not only placed first in her age group, she had set a new PR for herself, with a time of 1:52:14- a 8:34 mile.  She writes about that experience eloquently in her own blog, Meditatio Ephemera So that’s another lesson I learned vicariously: you’re never too old to set a new PR.

Over this past month, as I’ve gone multiple times to the chiropractor, and have focused on recuperating, I have to say, I was so glad to not have a race in October. I doubt I’ll ever do so many distance races in such a short time again! But I might do the Georgetown to Idaho Springs race next year; there’s still those 48 seconds I need to lose. And I would definitely do another Disney half-- only next time I will make sure to focus on the magic from the start.

A slide show representation of my summer running!

Unintended Blessings of the Long Journey to Justice

A few weeks ago I traveled to Kansas to celebrate my 35^th (!) high school reunion. The festivities were held on Friday and Saturday night in Topeka, where I grew up, but Sunday I was to go to my sister Lori’s in Lawrence, KS. We had a full day planned: a first birthday party for my grand-niece, Averie, and a birthday dinner for my 26 year old niece, Rachael.

But Lori wanted the day to start with church. Her daughter, Rachael, had discovered a new church and had told her mom about it. I first heard of this church a few months ago when Lori and I were on the phone. “It’s contemporary and really simple,” Lori had said, “There’s just a few songs, the sermon, a prayer and a closing song. Then you’re done.”

She went on to rave about the rock band and the casual appearance of the ministers, their fun use of videos and their small group ministries. I was pleased she and Rachael had found a church where they could  feel comfortable, though I was not sure I wanted to attend; I worried about the theology. In my experience, “contemporary” non-denominational churches with praise bands and coffee bars have a conservative, evangelical bent that focus on “loving the sinner and hating the sin.”

Still I was curious about this church and so I headed to Lawrence after getting in an early morning run. Lori was especially excited to tell me about what the topic of the sermon just happened to be for my visit: Gay marriage.

Great.

Still, I gamely smiled and marched like a good little soldier into the Lawrence theatre where Eastlake Church rents space each Sunday morning. My niece, Rachael met us there.

“Did Mom tell you what the service is on today,” she asked with a big smile. When I said yes, she responded, “I’m 90% sure we won’t have to worry about what they’ll say.”

This made me feel a little better, but as the lights dimmed and the young members of the band walked on stage, I felt my gut tighten. Listening closely to the lyrics of the praise songs (like any good Unitarian Universalist would do) I felt my sense of unease growing. One song mentioned over and over again, how the singer would call to Jesus from a miry pit, “rescue me! Deliver me!” This sounded a lot like something ex-gay ministries would tout—Jesus can save us from the pit of homosexuality.

Finally the lead minister, Matt, came out and began his 40 minute talk. This was the last of a four part sermon series called “Survey Says” and each week, one of the ministers would address questions people wanted answered. This talk actually addressed four questions: would there be an increase in persecution of Christians in America, Is there a heaven and hell, If I’m afraid to die does that threaten my salvation and the Big One: What Do You Believe About Gay Marriage?

As Matt spoke, even though I really appreciated his perspective (for the first question he said people voting differently than you is not persecution, it’s democracy, and atheists are not anti-Christian, they’re anti-asshole, they’re anti-douche bag) I still kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Finally he got to the marriage issue and when he said he believed in marriage equality and all three ministers would be available to officiate at any legally sanctioned marriage, I thought I was going to burst into tears. I mean seriously.

You have to understand that for most of my ministry I was with MCC-- a predominantly queer Christian denomination-- and I can't recall how many times someone walked through the doors of that church, broken and beaten down by their former church's interpretation of homosexuality. I couldn't tell you how many times they had to recover from being told they had to be ex-gay, in ordered to be loved by their god. So maybe my trepidation that Sunday morning at Eastlake Church was understandable.  Even though by then what Matt would say shouldn’t have been a surprise, I still didn’t trust where the message was going. I thought he’d say, gays and lesbians are welcome but marriage is between one man and one woman. 

Instead he fully affirmed the human dignity and worth of queer folk, and unequivocally welcomed all into their church. Instead of delving deep into scriptures and the translations, he offered two links for those who wondered how he had reached this decision –this one from 2005, written by John Thomas, then General President of the UCC, and this one by Justin Lee, author of the book Torn: Rescuing the Gospels from the Gays vs. Christian Debate. In summary, Matt simply stated that homosexual relationships mean something different than what was depicted in biblical times and that of all the things Christians were called to, loving one another was chief among them. Then, just as promised, a prayer, a closing song, and we were out the door.

As the lights came up, I looked at the other folks gathering up their belongings and exiting; I thought about how many of them might be struggling with their sexuality or know someone who was. I thought about how this simple validation in a contemporary Christian church- complete with a rock band with a thumping bass line might have saved lives that day.

In June I wrote about the historic decision on marriage equality given by the US Supreme Court and I focused on its relevance, on the struggle to win that fight but I failed to mention the unintended blessings it would also give: a reason to live. As many of you know, I belong to a facebook page called Sibling Survivors of Suicide. In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, I was amazed to see how many of my fellow siblings posted their joy at the decision and said that they only wished their brother or sister could have been alive to witness this day, adding their siblings killed themselves because they had been gay or lesbian, because they didn’t think their god could love them, because someone told them they were going to hell, because they had been bullied in high school- or middle school- because of their sexual orientation, because they were raised in a culture that said they were second class citizens, at best.

I thought about how long the journey, how arduous the struggle, how Sisyphean a task justice-seeking is; and yet, with each small victory attained, with each nudge that topples the dominoe

s of injustice, somewhere in some small town, a life is saved, a love is lifted up, and liberty and justice for all seems, at least in this moment, ours.

That’s what I experienced at Eastlake Church that morning, as I blinked back tears of joy. And that was at the center of the bittersweet celebration of the Supreme Court’s decision on my sibling survivor page.

In 2004, long before I could see the unexpected turn this journey would take, I wrote a paper on Marriage and the Patriarchy, in which I questioned if that issue should be the building we put our ladder on, but in the end I believe that this struggle for equality will have ramifications beyond two people’s decision to say “I do.” Perhaps, by legitimizing love we can finally begin the process of detaching qualifiers such as gay or straight marriage and just say marriage. Perhaps, we can begin to dismantle the hierarchies of love that have held sway for so long. Perhaps then we can join together, all of us members of the human race, to care for our planet, in all its diversity, and one another, in all of ours. 

Cry Me a River

Recently, I’ve been very emotional. I suspect hormones might be in play here, but I can’t talk about Cecil the lion, recount a moving passage from a book I read nearly a year ago, or watch certain commercials without getting verklempt. Well, more than verklempt, really; almost on the verge of ugly crying. I’m serious here.

I’ve always been a touch sentimental but it is getting worse (better? You be the judge.) There are two things, however, that I have never been able to talk about for long before the tears well up in my eyes and my throat constricts with a mass of grief struggling to get out or go deeper in; I’m never quite sure which: my brother’s suicide and the US AIDS years. Both of these have created deep canyons in my soul, brimming over with grief. For these two things, no matter how many tears I cry, I will never be able to empty out these canyons; there are vast untapped reservoirs waiting, still.

I tapped into one of these canyons last night, while my son, Sam, and I were watching the movie “RENT.” It’s one of our favorites; we know all of the songs and sing along, assigning ourselves different parts (you be Mark on this duet, and I’ll be Roger, and so on.)

Midway through, a song entitled Without You comes on. It focuses primarily on a broken relationship between two of the main characters—Mimi and Roger—but interspersed with their montage of heartache is a montage that brings me to tears just writing about it (see what I mean???) in which an AIDS support group is shown; nothing much-- just a small circle of people in folding chairs, only as the song goes on, the people disappear and you understand that they have died.

When the song came on last night, Sam said, very solemnly, “This is such a sad song.” I, of course, was making that strangled sound you make when you’re trying not to cry, while tears poured down my face. Sam looked at me with compassionate concern. I struggled to say, “It’s really sad to me, because I lived through those years. I lost 33 friends to AIDS and knew many more who died. And did memorial services for untold numbers.”

“Think of it,” I said. “It would be like you losing 33 Brandons or Sams (friends of his.)”

Suddenly I was struck by the realization that there are many of us survivors—mainly queer folks, but straight allies, too— for whom those first 15 years, 1980—1995, (the year Sam was born) when the protease inhibitors came on the scene and stopped the floodgates of death-- cut deep canyons of grief, with untapped reservoirs of tears, and now we have children who know nothing at all about how those years impacted us, impact us still. It’s like escaping from the pogroms or ethnic cleansing and then going on to have a family that knows nothing about it.

In some ways, though, it is like the entire country wants us to keep silent, to move on, and to let it go. Not just now, but then, too, during those dark days. As one ACT UP activist said, it was like fighting a war that only the combatants knew about. No one wanted us to talk about it then and no one wants us to remember—at least not so viscerally—now. Unfortunately, that is impossible. It is always with us. It moves through the rivers of blood in our veins, always very close to the surface. I realized that anew last night.

And it got me wondering: how has this history impacted my parenting? How has the grief shown through the cracks? How can I explain this to my son in a way that will make sense to him and not just be a dry history lesson? (Note: intentional pun; no way my eyes will be dry through that conversation.)

I don’t have any answers here, just a clear understanding that our children, our collective children, need to know about this era in a deeper way, they need to understand how it changed us, how we are marked, how we wrestled with the angel of death through that long, long night and now forever walk with a limp. They need to know, Sam needs to know, the source of these tears. These tears aren’t related to hormones at all.

And Grace Will Lead Me Home

We are living in historic times, my friends. Times of great victories—such as the June 26^th SCOTUS ruling for marriage equality, and times of great pain and terror- such as the murders of nine people of faith in Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC.

And on the razor’s edge of sorrow and joy, President Barack Obama’s eulogy of Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the minister shot down along with eight congregants at a prayer meeting at Emanuel AME, will also go down in history as one of the most eloquent and powerful speeches of our day.

I’ve been thinking a lot about grace this week, he states early on.  I, too, had been thinking about grace, wanting to put some words around the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the beloved church.  I thought about how the family members of the victims walked in grace that empowered them to tell Dylann Roof, the shooter, that they forgave him. 

Forgiveness is a tricky thing.  I’ve been thinking about forgiveness, too,  this week. It’s a much better focus, than the sense of helplessness or despair that can so easily find its way to the forefront of my being. 

It’s good to turn away from such bleak feelings to feelings of power. And forgiveness is just that. Forgiveness is refusing to allow injustices done to us have complete power over our lives, Forgiveness is acknowledging that we will never have a different past. Forgiveness is grace is action. 

I watched the footage of the families of the victims “facing” Dylann Roof via video feed and expressing their pain and anguish at the lives he took from them but also, curiously, telling him they forgave him, and I was filled with so many questions.

What does it mean to forgive in this type of circumstance? Can it even be real, so close to the rawness of their loss, the blood stains still not yet faded, despite the crime scene clean up?

What was the scene like at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC , that following Sunday morning? In black churches across the nation?  

And what does it mean for members of the African American community to forgive their white destroyer of lives and dreams? Should that be something to wait before giving, as black scholar and author, LaToya Baldwin Clark, suggests?

How is forgiveness borne in the heart? When is it real and when is it just words? And is it a linear path that once traveled, cannot be revisited? Or is forgiveness like the tide, ebbing and flowing on any given day, depending on our own strength and grace in the moment?

It seems to me forgiveness and grace are intertwined; they are woven into the same fabric of humanity; each one requires the other to fully thrive. Grace calls us to forgiveness, forgiveness calls us to grace. 

In his speech, President Obama alluded to the well-known hymn “Amazing Grace” in saying that grace calls us to open our eyes to see what we have refused to see; I would add that grace calls us to see the road that leads to wholeness, which is what the word salvation means, to stop insisting we can't find our way. 

The President spoke movingly about how we, as a nation, have in the past refused to open our eyes to the reality of the racism embedded in the flying of the Confederate flag, how we have refused to look upon the carnage of gun violence as something we can prevent with better gun control regulation, how we have turned away from the racist attacks on the African American community. But grace calls us to see.  Grace calls us to see the path that leads to justice and start walking. Ironically, "Amazing Grace" was written by John Newton, who experienced that turning point of having his eyes opened to the evils of the slave trade, in which he was an active participant. And Dylann Roof, himself, would talk about how close he came to having his eyes opened, due to the love and grace extended him by those nine people of faith, who welcomed him into their prayer meeting. Grace is not something thrust upon us; it is an invitation to have our eyes opened to a different, more inclusive way. Dylann heard that invitation, but in the end Dylann chose to continue with his blinders on, leaving a swath of destruction in his wake. 

Grace may also call us to forgive those who have wronged us. I would like to think I could have as much grace as the family members did in forgiving Roof, but I don’t know that I am that evolved. Frankly, though, I would probably find it much easier to forgive Dylann Roof than I would to forgive our politicians who keep pandering to the powerful gun lobbyists out of fear that they might not get re-elected.  Our laws—particularly those that would provide a safer world—should be based on what is right and just, not what is politically expedient.  In  my opinion, that is where the real evil lies: in the hands of politicians too afraid to fall out of step with the NRA and other groups who insist their right to bear semi-automatic weapons is ironclad, and to put the craven desires of those groups above the safety of our nation. That is evil. That is reprehensible.

People talk about being in a state of grace as if it were something to shield them from pain, but that’s not the way the President spoke of it. He spoke of it as a catalyst for change, for having our eyes opened to the injustices and pain that is all around us and making a different choice.

In his eulogy for Rev. Pinckney, our President gave voice to the grace that we need as a nation, as families impacted by violence, as a grieving community. He stood fully in his power as the President and in his identity as a Black man and spoke prophetically about grace in such a way that we can no longer say we don’t see it. We can no longer say we don’t see the damage done by racism, subtle and overt, by gun violence. The President called upon us to open our eyes, and to walk in the state of grace that leads us to a place of justice, compassion, and forgiveness. If we can take at least one step, it will be a start.

The families of the fallen were able to do that, even if I don’t understand how they could. Now it’s our turn.  Let’s get moving.