Today, I saw two big numbers:
The first, you can see as well. All you have to do is look at the ticker on the right- 1,001 miles run! That's all the miles that I have recorded on my Nike+ since I started using it in February 2007 (for my thoughts on Nike+, see my 9/16/10 post). Most of those miles, though, are from 2010. Here's the breakdown:
2007- 52 miles (I really thought I did better that year!)
2008- 65 miles (No surprise there- this includes half of the "dark days" of '08-'09.)
2009- 116 miles (Starting to come out of the dark days...)
2010- 634 miles (The dark days are over!)
2011- 110 miles (So far.)
At this point, I do not expect to beat 2010 this year, but that's because I'm adding in biking and swimming in preparation for the tri in August. Still, I'm very excited to see the 1,000.
The other big number I saw this morning came on the scale- down 2.5 pounds from last week! That is very, very unusual for me. Even when I first did WW and lost very quickly, I tended to go down .5 to 1 pound per week. This time out, the average has been 1-2 pounds per month. For me, 2.5 is a very big number. I can think of a few reasons why this happened, positive and negative:
On the positive side, I have been sticking to my Lenten resolution of no extraneous spending, which has meant no take-out or impulse Starbucks trips. This is saving me both money and calories. Also, the "Biggest Mover" contest at my gym is still on, meaning that I am still getting to at least 5 group exercise classes each week.
On the less positive side, I am headed into major crunch-time regarding school. Between now and Mother's Day, I will complete all of my work for the semester and take my licensing exam. Also, just to keep things interesting, I will run 3 races and travel to 2 weddings (one of which involves a relay triathlon, aka: race #4). Thus, life is a little crazy right now, and I have replaced some of my usual food and sleep with panic. The situation is vaguely reminiscent of my senior year in college, when I was overwhelmed by writing my thesis and inadvertently lost a good 10-15 pounds. Not my preferred weight loss strategy.
So, in the interest of preserving some of my sanity, I will now try to subdue my panic enough to get some sleep. Goodnight, everyone!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Living Water.
This is a sermon I preached at St. Andrew's UMC in Edgewater, MD on 3/27/11. I drew heavily on my previous life as an English major for this one. Back in college, I learned that a good way to write a paper is to take two or more texts and "put them in conversation." That's pretty much what I did here. The texts are John's story of the woman at the well (see below), the amazing book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, and this piece on the Huffington Post by David Lose of Luther Seminary. I let these three great pieces of writing have a little conversation, and my sermon pretty much wrote itself. I also owe credit to the organization charity:water, whose website is the source of the water facts I cite.
John 4:5-42
So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”
Living Water: John 4: 5-42
Just before Christmas, I read a truly extraordinary book: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, the author of Seabiscuit. Clearly, I’m not the only person who finds this book amazing, because its been at or near the top of the New York Times bestseller list for months. I hope you will all run out and pick it up after church today. I promise that what I’m going to tell you is only a tiny piece of this amazing story.
Unbroken is the true story of Louie Zamperini, who grew up in Torrance, California in the 1920’s. As a kid, Louie was a notorious delinquent, on the fast-track to jail or worse. Then, when Louie was 15, his older brother Pete got him to start running. With Pete as his coach, Louie discovered an extraordinary talent. Starting in tenth grade, Louie broke records at his high school, then at regional track meets, then at national meets. He won his first 2-mile race by a quarter of a mile. In 1934, he set a national high school record for the mile-run that stood for 19 years. Newspapers called Louie the “Torrance Tornado.”
In 1936, Louie qualified to run the 5,000 meters at the Berlin Olympics. He only came in 8th, but he still ran the distance faster than any other American that year. He returned to his hometown a hero, and immediately set his sights on the 1940 Olympics in Tokyo. Louie, his supporters, and his fellow athletes all believed that he would win gold in 1940. Unfortunately, World War II ended Louie’s Olympic dreams forever.
In April 1940, war erupted in the Pacific and the planned Tokyo Olympics were cancelled. In 1941, Louie was drafted and began training as a bombardier. By 1942, he was in Hawaii, serving as part of a tight-knit crew on a B-24 fighter plane. In his off hours, he ran laps around the base. On the morning of May 27, 1943, Louie got up at 5am and ran a mile in 4 minutes, 12 seconds. On his way home, he was stopped by a commanding officer and ordered to his plane for a rescue mission. Counting Louie, 11 men left on that mission. Just a few hours in, the B-24’s engines failed, and the plane went down. Only Louie and two other men survived the crash.
Louie and his fellow soldiers soon found themselves drifting on a small life raft, far out on the Pacific, with only a tiny supply of food and water. During their first night on the raft, one of the other men panicked and ate all of their food. Within only a few days, their situation was desperate. They were starving, baking in the hot sun during the day, and freezing at night. They were surrounded by sharks, which they had to physically beat off the raft. Worst of all, they were dying of thirst. A human being can survive for several weeks without food, but will die after only 3 to 5 days without water. Louie had never been a religious man, but once the men’s water ran out, he started praying. In one desperate moment, he led his fellow castaways in a prayer for water: “If God would quench their thirst, he vowed, he’d dedicate his life to him.” Shortly after Louie said his prayer, it started to rain.
Thirst is a powerful thing. Louie knew that, the people in this morning’s Gospel text knew it, and millions of people in our world today still know it. As part of my preparation for this sermon, I looked up some facts about water around the world, and they are shocking. Today, in 2011, about 1 in 8 people around the world don’t have access to clean and safe water. Around 42,000 people die every single week from drinking dirty water, and 90% of them are children. In Africa, people spend an estimated 40 billion hours a year walking back and forth to wells to get water. Most of the people who do this walking are women and children, who can be robbed and attacked on the road. In some countries, the water supply is controlled by private distributors, and people have to spend more than 10% of their income just to get water. In this country, where water is free and plentiful, we sometimes forget how vital it is. For those who don’t have it, water is literally the key to life and freedom.
We need to understand the power of water and the experience of thirst to understand today’s Gospel text. Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at a well outside her city. She probably goes to this well every single day to get water for her family. In fact, she has probably walked between home and this well nearly every day of her life, from the moment she was strong enough to carry a bucket. By the time she meets Jesus, she is probably bent over with back and neck pain from carrying heavy buckets every day. Perhaps she has been taunted, robbed, or attacked on her daily walks. The Samaritan woman is clearly intelligent and interested in the big questions of life. Still, when it comes down to it, her life is bound and defined by water. No matter what she might think, say, do, or want out of life, her first priority every day is going to that well.
Its only when we think about water, and what it means to the Samaritan woman, that we truly understand the power in what Jesus says to her: “those who drink of the water that I will give to them will never be thirsty.” To never be thirsty- imagine what that would mean to this woman. Have you ever wished for a few more hours in your day? She would get those hours if she didn’t have to go to the well. She would be freed from fear about what might happen to her on her walks, or what might happen if she can’t get to the well, or what might happen if the water from the well is dirty. She would be safer and freer than she has ever been before. That’s what Jesus is promising when he talks about living water.
Of course, we know that Jesus is speaking metaphorically. He’s not offering this woman actual water, but he must be offering something equally valuable. Something that will make her safe and free. So what is it? Jesus offers the Samaritan woman something as simple and as powerful, as beautiful and as terrible as water. He offers her the truth: the truth about who she is and the truth about who he is.
First, Jesus confronts the Samaritan woman with a truth about herself. When she asks him for living water, he asks her to go get her husband. She admits that she has no husband, and Jesus fills in the details: she has had five husbands and lives with a man who is not her husband. Traditionally, Christians have interpreted this to mean the woman is guilty of some sexual sin: lust, adultery, or even prostitution. In this interpretation, Jesus’ statement is seen as condemnation- he won’t allow her to hide her sinfulness from him. Maybe this is true, but some people see other possibilities in this story.
Women in Jesus’s time were treated as little more than property, and could only achieve security and safety through marriage. The Samaritan woman might have been widowed several times and had to re-marry again and again for her own protection. Or, she may have been forced into repeated marriages. In Jesus’ time, a woman who lost her husband might be married to her brother-in-law or another relative, whether she wanted the marriage or not. Or maybe the truth is a little of both. Maybe this woman went through so many bad things that she started to think of herself as a bad person, and started to do bad things.
Louie Zamperini would understand that. Miraculously, he and one his fellow castaways survived on their raft for 47 days. During those 47 days, they wrestled sharks, pulled birds out of the sky for food, got shot at by Japanese planes, and watched their fellow castaway die. Each man lost more than half his body weight. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of Louie’s ordeal, because he and his companion weren’t actually rescued. They were captured by the Japanese.
After being pulled out of the ocean, Louie spent two horrific years as a prisoner of war. He and his fellow survivor were moved from camp to camp, where they were starved, beaten, interrogated, and forced to do hard labor. Over and over again, their captors promised to kill them, and they watched enough other POWs die to believe it. Louie’s captors did everything they could to take away his hope. Even worse, they took away his dignity. One of Louie’s guards took a particular, sadistic interest in him. For two years, he subjected Louie to unrelenting humiliation and cruelty. To cite just one example, Louie’s guard once lined up all of his fellow POWs and made each of them hit Louie as hard as they could. Louie was punched 220 times and nearly died.
Amazingly, Louie survived to the end of the war. His POW camp was liberated, and he returned to the US a national hero. His family welcomed him home, he received countless honors and awards, and he even fell in love and got married. Yet, underneath this celebration, Louie was suffering. Louie had physically survived, but his mind was tormented by fear and shame. He had flashbacks of the war by day and terrible nightmares whenever he tried to sleep. Within a few months, he was drinking heavily. He became consumed with the idea of returning to Japan and killing his captors. He grew hostile to his wife and family, picked fights with strangers, and became convinced that God hated him.
Louie was not alone in his struggles. Hillenbrand writes that over 80% of the Pacific POW’s who survived World War II suffered some kind of psychological illness. Their suicide rate was 30% higher than average, and more than 25% developed alcoholism. As Hillenbrand writes, Louie and his fellow POW’s were “torn-down men… Many felt lonely and isolated, having endured abuses that ordinary people couldn’t understand. Their dignity had been obliterated, replaced with a pervasive sense of shame and worthlessness… Coming home was an experience of profound, perilous aloneness.”
I think Jesus sees this same sense of shame, worthlessness, and aloneness in the Samaritan woman. That’s what makes his conversation with her so powerful. When Jesus says “you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband,” he might be naming her sin, or he might be recognizing her suffering. Either way, its what comes next that really matters: he keeps talking to her. In fact, he tells her the most important truth about himself: that he is the Messiah. Jesus’ words to the woman are important, but there is something even more important going on in their conversation. Jesus is saying to this woman “I see the truth about you. I see everything you have ever gone through, and everything you have ever done… and I still want you. I value you, and I need you to help me spread my message.”
I don’t think this is a story about condemnation. I think it’s a story about grace. Jesus sees the Samaritan woman for who she truly is. He sees all of her hurts and all of her faults, all of the things that she is most ashamed of. Yet, he also sees her worth: her intelligence, her purity of heart, her thirst for knowledge. In fact, he chooses her for a very important job. The woman at the well is the first person in John’s Gospel to go and tell others about Jesus.
And what does she tell them? “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!” To me, that doesn’t sound like the words of a woman who has been put to shame. If Jesus had been condemning her morals, I don’t think she would have run to tell her neighbors about him, or urged them to go and experience the same thing. The Samaritan woman has experienced grace and she wants her neighbors to experience it too.
For Louie, grace came in the form of a young, unknown, traveling preacher named Billy Graham. By 1949, Louie had hit rock-bottom. He had squandered his money through bad investments, his alcoholism was out of control, and his wife had filed for divorce after finding him shaking their newborn daughter. That fall, a 31 year-old Billy Graham came to California for one of his very first tent revivals. In the beginning, he had no press and almost no audience. Within a few weeks, Graham’s preaching was drawing huge crowds. Louie’s wife begged him to go to the revival with her, but he refused. She went alone and came home saying she no longer wanted a divorce. Louie was happy, but his heart was still hardened toward God, and he still refused to go hear Billy Graham for himself. Louie’s wife badgered him relentlessly until he gave in.
The night that Louie first heard Billy Graham, Graham preached about God’s love and God’s judgment. He told the audience that God knew everything they had ever done, that God could read their very thoughts, and would hold them accountable. Louie got angry. He thought “I am a good man.” But he also got uncomfortable, because he knew the kind of man he had become. Even more, he felt what Hillenbrand describes as “a lurking uneasiness,” an awareness of “a memory he must not see.” When it became too overwhelming, Louie grabbed his wife and ran from the tent.
The next night, Louie’s wife convinced him to go back to the revival. That night, Graham preached about God’s miracles, and God’s promise of grace in the midst of suffering. Louie thought about all of the terrible things he had survived. He got upset and tried to run away again, but suddenly a memory exploded into his mind. He remembered his prayer on the raft: “If you will quench our thirst, I will serve you forever.” Suddenly, it started raining. When Louie felt that rain, he turned around and walked to the alter to surrender his life to God.
Like the Samaritan woman, Louie’s experience of grace led to a feeling of safety and freedom. As soon as he got home from the revival, he poured all of his alcohol down the drain. That night, Louie had his first sleep free from nightmares about the war. The next day, he sat at a park and read a Bible that had been issued to him during the war. Hillenbrand writes that Louie realized “He was not the worthless, broken, forsaken man that [his captors] had striven to make of him… That morning, he believed, he was a new creation.”
In addition to safety and freedom, the Samaritan woman and Louie also found purpose in their experiences of grace. This is very important. Grace isn’t just about Jesus knowing our pain and our faults and loving us anyway. Grace is about Jesus knowing our pain and our faults, and still calling us to do his work. Its through that work- through sharing our experiences of grace and becoming instruments of grace for others- that we let go our shame and pain and discover our worth. Just as he explained grace to the Samaritan woman by talking about water, Jesus explains purpose to his disciples by talking about food. When they urge him to eat, he tells them “I have food to eat that you do not know about… My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.” Like water for the thirsty or food for the hungry, Jesus tells us that the experiences of receiving grace and doing God’s work can satisfy our deepest needs.
After his conversion, Louie began a new career as a Christian speaker. He also bought a campground and turned it into a nonprofit camp for delinquent boys. Through his experiences of grace and meaningful work, Louie overcame his feelings of shame and anger about the war. In 1950, he returned to Japan, where he met with many of his former captors and offered them forgiveness. In 1998, at 80 years old, he ran the Olympic torch through the site of one his former POW camps, on its way to Nagano, Japan. Today, Louie Zamperini is 94 years old, still running, still living independently, and still sharing the grace he received. When he learned that Laura Hillenbrand wrote Seabiscuit and Unbroken while suffering from a debilitating illness, Louie gave her his Purple Heart.
After her encounter with Jesus, the Samaritan woman brings her neighbors to meet him. After two days with Jesus, they tell her “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” John doesn’t tell us what Jesus said to these people, but I imagine that he treated them just like he treated the woman at the well. He saw them, listened to them, acknowledged their deepest and darkest truths, and told them he had work for them. If Jesus were here today, I imagine he might say the same things to us:
“You, who are in pain and ashamed- I see your truth, I still love you, and I have work for you.”
“You, who grew up with an alcoholic or abusive parent- I see what you went through, I love you, and I have work for you.”
“You, who are struggling with addiction and ashamed of your own behavior- I know everything about you, I still love you, and I have work for you.”
“You, who lost yourself in a bad relationship- I see your pain, I value you, and I want you to build up my kingdom.”
“You, who are sick and in pain- You, who are grieving and feel all alone- I’m here for you, and I have very important jobs for you.”
“You, who have suffered prejudice and discrimination because of who you are- I see your true worth, and I have work for you.”
“You, who are young and feel like nobody listens to you- You, who are old and feel like your good days are behind you- I honor you and I need you to do my work.”
“You, whoever you are, whatever you have been through, and whatever you have done- I know everything about you, and nothing can take away my love for you. Come, and do my work.”
Amen.
John 4:5-42
So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”
Living Water: John 4: 5-42
Just before Christmas, I read a truly extraordinary book: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, the author of Seabiscuit. Clearly, I’m not the only person who finds this book amazing, because its been at or near the top of the New York Times bestseller list for months. I hope you will all run out and pick it up after church today. I promise that what I’m going to tell you is only a tiny piece of this amazing story.
Unbroken is the true story of Louie Zamperini, who grew up in Torrance, California in the 1920’s. As a kid, Louie was a notorious delinquent, on the fast-track to jail or worse. Then, when Louie was 15, his older brother Pete got him to start running. With Pete as his coach, Louie discovered an extraordinary talent. Starting in tenth grade, Louie broke records at his high school, then at regional track meets, then at national meets. He won his first 2-mile race by a quarter of a mile. In 1934, he set a national high school record for the mile-run that stood for 19 years. Newspapers called Louie the “Torrance Tornado.”
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| Louie in training, pictured in Unbroken. |
In 1936, Louie qualified to run the 5,000 meters at the Berlin Olympics. He only came in 8th, but he still ran the distance faster than any other American that year. He returned to his hometown a hero, and immediately set his sights on the 1940 Olympics in Tokyo. Louie, his supporters, and his fellow athletes all believed that he would win gold in 1940. Unfortunately, World War II ended Louie’s Olympic dreams forever.
In April 1940, war erupted in the Pacific and the planned Tokyo Olympics were cancelled. In 1941, Louie was drafted and began training as a bombardier. By 1942, he was in Hawaii, serving as part of a tight-knit crew on a B-24 fighter plane. In his off hours, he ran laps around the base. On the morning of May 27, 1943, Louie got up at 5am and ran a mile in 4 minutes, 12 seconds. On his way home, he was stopped by a commanding officer and ordered to his plane for a rescue mission. Counting Louie, 11 men left on that mission. Just a few hours in, the B-24’s engines failed, and the plane went down. Only Louie and two other men survived the crash.
Louie and his fellow soldiers soon found themselves drifting on a small life raft, far out on the Pacific, with only a tiny supply of food and water. During their first night on the raft, one of the other men panicked and ate all of their food. Within only a few days, their situation was desperate. They were starving, baking in the hot sun during the day, and freezing at night. They were surrounded by sharks, which they had to physically beat off the raft. Worst of all, they were dying of thirst. A human being can survive for several weeks without food, but will die after only 3 to 5 days without water. Louie had never been a religious man, but once the men’s water ran out, he started praying. In one desperate moment, he led his fellow castaways in a prayer for water: “If God would quench their thirst, he vowed, he’d dedicate his life to him.” Shortly after Louie said his prayer, it started to rain.
Thirst is a powerful thing. Louie knew that, the people in this morning’s Gospel text knew it, and millions of people in our world today still know it. As part of my preparation for this sermon, I looked up some facts about water around the world, and they are shocking. Today, in 2011, about 1 in 8 people around the world don’t have access to clean and safe water. Around 42,000 people die every single week from drinking dirty water, and 90% of them are children. In Africa, people spend an estimated 40 billion hours a year walking back and forth to wells to get water. Most of the people who do this walking are women and children, who can be robbed and attacked on the road. In some countries, the water supply is controlled by private distributors, and people have to spend more than 10% of their income just to get water. In this country, where water is free and plentiful, we sometimes forget how vital it is. For those who don’t have it, water is literally the key to life and freedom.
We need to understand the power of water and the experience of thirst to understand today’s Gospel text. Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at a well outside her city. She probably goes to this well every single day to get water for her family. In fact, she has probably walked between home and this well nearly every day of her life, from the moment she was strong enough to carry a bucket. By the time she meets Jesus, she is probably bent over with back and neck pain from carrying heavy buckets every day. Perhaps she has been taunted, robbed, or attacked on her daily walks. The Samaritan woman is clearly intelligent and interested in the big questions of life. Still, when it comes down to it, her life is bound and defined by water. No matter what she might think, say, do, or want out of life, her first priority every day is going to that well.
Its only when we think about water, and what it means to the Samaritan woman, that we truly understand the power in what Jesus says to her: “those who drink of the water that I will give to them will never be thirsty.” To never be thirsty- imagine what that would mean to this woman. Have you ever wished for a few more hours in your day? She would get those hours if she didn’t have to go to the well. She would be freed from fear about what might happen to her on her walks, or what might happen if she can’t get to the well, or what might happen if the water from the well is dirty. She would be safer and freer than she has ever been before. That’s what Jesus is promising when he talks about living water.
Of course, we know that Jesus is speaking metaphorically. He’s not offering this woman actual water, but he must be offering something equally valuable. Something that will make her safe and free. So what is it? Jesus offers the Samaritan woman something as simple and as powerful, as beautiful and as terrible as water. He offers her the truth: the truth about who she is and the truth about who he is.
First, Jesus confronts the Samaritan woman with a truth about herself. When she asks him for living water, he asks her to go get her husband. She admits that she has no husband, and Jesus fills in the details: she has had five husbands and lives with a man who is not her husband. Traditionally, Christians have interpreted this to mean the woman is guilty of some sexual sin: lust, adultery, or even prostitution. In this interpretation, Jesus’ statement is seen as condemnation- he won’t allow her to hide her sinfulness from him. Maybe this is true, but some people see other possibilities in this story.
Women in Jesus’s time were treated as little more than property, and could only achieve security and safety through marriage. The Samaritan woman might have been widowed several times and had to re-marry again and again for her own protection. Or, she may have been forced into repeated marriages. In Jesus’ time, a woman who lost her husband might be married to her brother-in-law or another relative, whether she wanted the marriage or not. Or maybe the truth is a little of both. Maybe this woman went through so many bad things that she started to think of herself as a bad person, and started to do bad things.
Louie Zamperini would understand that. Miraculously, he and one his fellow castaways survived on their raft for 47 days. During those 47 days, they wrestled sharks, pulled birds out of the sky for food, got shot at by Japanese planes, and watched their fellow castaway die. Each man lost more than half his body weight. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of Louie’s ordeal, because he and his companion weren’t actually rescued. They were captured by the Japanese.
After being pulled out of the ocean, Louie spent two horrific years as a prisoner of war. He and his fellow survivor were moved from camp to camp, where they were starved, beaten, interrogated, and forced to do hard labor. Over and over again, their captors promised to kill them, and they watched enough other POWs die to believe it. Louie’s captors did everything they could to take away his hope. Even worse, they took away his dignity. One of Louie’s guards took a particular, sadistic interest in him. For two years, he subjected Louie to unrelenting humiliation and cruelty. To cite just one example, Louie’s guard once lined up all of his fellow POWs and made each of them hit Louie as hard as they could. Louie was punched 220 times and nearly died.
Amazingly, Louie survived to the end of the war. His POW camp was liberated, and he returned to the US a national hero. His family welcomed him home, he received countless honors and awards, and he even fell in love and got married. Yet, underneath this celebration, Louie was suffering. Louie had physically survived, but his mind was tormented by fear and shame. He had flashbacks of the war by day and terrible nightmares whenever he tried to sleep. Within a few months, he was drinking heavily. He became consumed with the idea of returning to Japan and killing his captors. He grew hostile to his wife and family, picked fights with strangers, and became convinced that God hated him.
Louie was not alone in his struggles. Hillenbrand writes that over 80% of the Pacific POW’s who survived World War II suffered some kind of psychological illness. Their suicide rate was 30% higher than average, and more than 25% developed alcoholism. As Hillenbrand writes, Louie and his fellow POW’s were “torn-down men… Many felt lonely and isolated, having endured abuses that ordinary people couldn’t understand. Their dignity had been obliterated, replaced with a pervasive sense of shame and worthlessness… Coming home was an experience of profound, perilous aloneness.”
I think Jesus sees this same sense of shame, worthlessness, and aloneness in the Samaritan woman. That’s what makes his conversation with her so powerful. When Jesus says “you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband,” he might be naming her sin, or he might be recognizing her suffering. Either way, its what comes next that really matters: he keeps talking to her. In fact, he tells her the most important truth about himself: that he is the Messiah. Jesus’ words to the woman are important, but there is something even more important going on in their conversation. Jesus is saying to this woman “I see the truth about you. I see everything you have ever gone through, and everything you have ever done… and I still want you. I value you, and I need you to help me spread my message.”
I don’t think this is a story about condemnation. I think it’s a story about grace. Jesus sees the Samaritan woman for who she truly is. He sees all of her hurts and all of her faults, all of the things that she is most ashamed of. Yet, he also sees her worth: her intelligence, her purity of heart, her thirst for knowledge. In fact, he chooses her for a very important job. The woman at the well is the first person in John’s Gospel to go and tell others about Jesus.
And what does she tell them? “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!” To me, that doesn’t sound like the words of a woman who has been put to shame. If Jesus had been condemning her morals, I don’t think she would have run to tell her neighbors about him, or urged them to go and experience the same thing. The Samaritan woman has experienced grace and she wants her neighbors to experience it too.
For Louie, grace came in the form of a young, unknown, traveling preacher named Billy Graham. By 1949, Louie had hit rock-bottom. He had squandered his money through bad investments, his alcoholism was out of control, and his wife had filed for divorce after finding him shaking their newborn daughter. That fall, a 31 year-old Billy Graham came to California for one of his very first tent revivals. In the beginning, he had no press and almost no audience. Within a few weeks, Graham’s preaching was drawing huge crowds. Louie’s wife begged him to go to the revival with her, but he refused. She went alone and came home saying she no longer wanted a divorce. Louie was happy, but his heart was still hardened toward God, and he still refused to go hear Billy Graham for himself. Louie’s wife badgered him relentlessly until he gave in.
The night that Louie first heard Billy Graham, Graham preached about God’s love and God’s judgment. He told the audience that God knew everything they had ever done, that God could read their very thoughts, and would hold them accountable. Louie got angry. He thought “I am a good man.” But he also got uncomfortable, because he knew the kind of man he had become. Even more, he felt what Hillenbrand describes as “a lurking uneasiness,” an awareness of “a memory he must not see.” When it became too overwhelming, Louie grabbed his wife and ran from the tent.
The next night, Louie’s wife convinced him to go back to the revival. That night, Graham preached about God’s miracles, and God’s promise of grace in the midst of suffering. Louie thought about all of the terrible things he had survived. He got upset and tried to run away again, but suddenly a memory exploded into his mind. He remembered his prayer on the raft: “If you will quench our thirst, I will serve you forever.” Suddenly, it started raining. When Louie felt that rain, he turned around and walked to the alter to surrender his life to God.
Like the Samaritan woman, Louie’s experience of grace led to a feeling of safety and freedom. As soon as he got home from the revival, he poured all of his alcohol down the drain. That night, Louie had his first sleep free from nightmares about the war. The next day, he sat at a park and read a Bible that had been issued to him during the war. Hillenbrand writes that Louie realized “He was not the worthless, broken, forsaken man that [his captors] had striven to make of him… That morning, he believed, he was a new creation.”
In addition to safety and freedom, the Samaritan woman and Louie also found purpose in their experiences of grace. This is very important. Grace isn’t just about Jesus knowing our pain and our faults and loving us anyway. Grace is about Jesus knowing our pain and our faults, and still calling us to do his work. Its through that work- through sharing our experiences of grace and becoming instruments of grace for others- that we let go our shame and pain and discover our worth. Just as he explained grace to the Samaritan woman by talking about water, Jesus explains purpose to his disciples by talking about food. When they urge him to eat, he tells them “I have food to eat that you do not know about… My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.” Like water for the thirsty or food for the hungry, Jesus tells us that the experiences of receiving grace and doing God’s work can satisfy our deepest needs.
After his conversion, Louie began a new career as a Christian speaker. He also bought a campground and turned it into a nonprofit camp for delinquent boys. Through his experiences of grace and meaningful work, Louie overcame his feelings of shame and anger about the war. In 1950, he returned to Japan, where he met with many of his former captors and offered them forgiveness. In 1998, at 80 years old, he ran the Olympic torch through the site of one his former POW camps, on its way to Nagano, Japan. Today, Louie Zamperini is 94 years old, still running, still living independently, and still sharing the grace he received. When he learned that Laura Hillenbrand wrote Seabiscuit and Unbroken while suffering from a debilitating illness, Louie gave her his Purple Heart.
 |
| Louie at 93, with the torches he carried for 5 Olympics, pictured in the January 2011 Runners World. |
After her encounter with Jesus, the Samaritan woman brings her neighbors to meet him. After two days with Jesus, they tell her “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” John doesn’t tell us what Jesus said to these people, but I imagine that he treated them just like he treated the woman at the well. He saw them, listened to them, acknowledged their deepest and darkest truths, and told them he had work for them. If Jesus were here today, I imagine he might say the same things to us:
“You, who are in pain and ashamed- I see your truth, I still love you, and I have work for you.”
“You, who grew up with an alcoholic or abusive parent- I see what you went through, I love you, and I have work for you.”
“You, who are struggling with addiction and ashamed of your own behavior- I know everything about you, I still love you, and I have work for you.”
“You, who lost yourself in a bad relationship- I see your pain, I value you, and I want you to build up my kingdom.”
“You, who are sick and in pain- You, who are grieving and feel all alone- I’m here for you, and I have very important jobs for you.”
“You, who have suffered prejudice and discrimination because of who you are- I see your true worth, and I have work for you.”
“You, who are young and feel like nobody listens to you- You, who are old and feel like your good days are behind you- I honor you and I need you to do my work.”
“You, whoever you are, whatever you have been through, and whatever you have done- I know everything about you, and nothing can take away my love for you. Come, and do my work.”
Amen.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
If I can do this...
As you may or may not know, I am in my final semester of study for my master's in Pastoral Counseling. I am also in a mentorship/discernement process regarding ordination in the United Methodist Church. What does this mean? Basically, that I've spent the past several months taking psychological tests and thinking/writing/talking about my personal and professional strengths and weaknesses. I think about me all the time, and let others think about me, and take tests so that we can all learn more about me. Its a little exhausting. Right now I would give anything to think, talk, or write about someone else!
As much as I complain, though, I can't say I haven't learned anything in this process. Between the tests, the self-analysis, and the observations of others, I am starting to grasp various elements of my personality that felt mysterious before. For example, one of the tests identified my dominant personality trait as "openness to experience." Seeing that on paper was one of those "lightbulb moments." The term "openness to experience" captures so many things about me. For example, my willingness to dive into intense work situations (like working at the morgue). Or, the way I get bored easily and have trouble making decisions because I like everything. Or, all the crazy dates I've been on because, as my friends always say, I'll give just about anyone a chance.
Since becoming aware of this trait, I see it everywhere. At the gym this morning, I was waiting for spin class to start when a woman approached me and said "This is my first class- what should I expect?" She looked a little out-of-shape and a lot nervous, so I told her the truth about my first spin class: I went into it at a fitness level barely above 0. During the class, I felt like I was going to pass out and never got the gear over 7 (it goes to 25). Shortly after class, I fell off a bottom step because my legs were like jello. I also told her that I kept coming back and improved really quickly. She laughed and said I made her feel much better.
As I got on my bike, I realized that I've had similar exchanges in other exercise situations too. Newcomers to our boot camp class frequently hear about how I threw up on my first day. Before my friend ran her first 5K last week (for which she was well prepared), I told her about how I arrived at my first 5K thinking that 5K equals 2.3 miles. When I learned that its actually 3.1, I panicked a little because I had never run more than 2. All of these stories have the same basic messages: The first step is the hardest. Trying something new can be scary, but the payoff is worth it. If I can do this, pretty much anyone can.
So, if you are looking for motivation to try something new- in or out of the gym- try embracing a little openness to experience. If I can do it, you sure as heck can!
As much as I complain, though, I can't say I haven't learned anything in this process. Between the tests, the self-analysis, and the observations of others, I am starting to grasp various elements of my personality that felt mysterious before. For example, one of the tests identified my dominant personality trait as "openness to experience." Seeing that on paper was one of those "lightbulb moments." The term "openness to experience" captures so many things about me. For example, my willingness to dive into intense work situations (like working at the morgue). Or, the way I get bored easily and have trouble making decisions because I like everything. Or, all the crazy dates I've been on because, as my friends always say, I'll give just about anyone a chance.
Since becoming aware of this trait, I see it everywhere. At the gym this morning, I was waiting for spin class to start when a woman approached me and said "This is my first class- what should I expect?" She looked a little out-of-shape and a lot nervous, so I told her the truth about my first spin class: I went into it at a fitness level barely above 0. During the class, I felt like I was going to pass out and never got the gear over 7 (it goes to 25). Shortly after class, I fell off a bottom step because my legs were like jello. I also told her that I kept coming back and improved really quickly. She laughed and said I made her feel much better.
As I got on my bike, I realized that I've had similar exchanges in other exercise situations too. Newcomers to our boot camp class frequently hear about how I threw up on my first day. Before my friend ran her first 5K last week (for which she was well prepared), I told her about how I arrived at my first 5K thinking that 5K equals 2.3 miles. When I learned that its actually 3.1, I panicked a little because I had never run more than 2. All of these stories have the same basic messages: The first step is the hardest. Trying something new can be scary, but the payoff is worth it. If I can do this, pretty much anyone can.
So, if you are looking for motivation to try something new- in or out of the gym- try embracing a little openness to experience. If I can do it, you sure as heck can!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Thought of the day...
"Those whom summer's heat tortures
yearn for the full moon of autumn
Without even fearing the idea
That a hundred days of their life will then have passed forever."
-Buddha Shakyamuni
Ever since daylight savings time started, I have been impatient for Spring. I'm tired of sweaters and very eager to put on my spring clothes (especially now that they fit better!). I'm ready to walk to the gym in the daylight, and have enough daylight left after work to go for runs in the evening.
Yet, this past weekend, it was nice and warm, and I got a reminder of the things I dislike about Spring and Summer. I find running in heat much, much harder than running in cold. During Sunday's 5K, I was breathing so hard and so loud that I almost apologized to Katie (who was running next to me).
So, while I'm not thrilled with the threat of "wintry mix" on the 3rd day of Spring, I'm going to take the Buddha's advice and try to appreciate whatever nature gives me. Enjoy the rain, everyone!
Sunday, March 20, 2011
A little friendly competition.
Ever since I started on the new and improved Weight Watchers, I've been following this blog by WWs' CEO, David Kirchoff. I really enjoy it. Like everyone else who works for WW, Kirchoff has lost weight on the program, so he understands what his clients are going through. He also happens to be a good writer, and a man after my own heart in many food and exercise-related issues.
Case in point: Earlier this week, Kirchoff posted this entry, writing about how he does better at exercise when he takes group classes because the presence of other people kicks into his competitve drive. I totally get that. I wish I could say that I push myself just as hard when there's nobody watching, but it wouldn't be true. Even though I'm not enough of an athlete to compete with most of the people in my races and exercise classes, I still go much harder when there is some element of competition involved. A few examples from this week:
Thursday: Having finished one multi-week torturous cycle of activities in Boot Camp, our instructor Kate started us on something new. She divided the whole class into teams and had us compete in a series of timed drills and relays. Losers had to do extra pushups. It was SO MUCH FUN. Everyone got way into it- by the end, there was definitely strategy happening. It was so much fun that, for perhaps the first time in that class, I actually forgot how hard I was working. Good times.
Saturday: I joined a shockingly large number of people at my gym for a special 90-minute "endurance day" spin class. Our instructor Bill (who also teaches my Group Power class) put together a St. Patrick's Day-themed ride, including a video tour of Ireland, Irish music, and a leprechaun hat that he actually forced himself to wear for the whole 90+ minutes. In case you were wondering, 90 minutes is a lot of spinning. There were definitely a couple of points where I felt like packing it in. In this case, it was less competition and more just group spirit that kept me going. The room was packed and people were having a genuinely good time, which made the time go by much faster.
Sunday: My friend Jaquisha has been doing a "hibernation to 5K" training program for the past 6 weeks, and today she "graduated" by running her first 5K race. She invited friends and I decided to go (a) to cheer on my friend, and (b) to try again for a sub-30 minute 5K. (My previous best was 30:16, set last month.) My PC classmate and former fundraising partner Katie C. came too, along with her running buddies Erin and Amir. Having Katie, Erin, and Amir there was a real blessing for me. They set a challenging pace and having them around kept me motivated to hang on to it (which was not easy). When we got to the finish line, I had to do a double-take: 27:19! Better than I ever imagined! Then, as the icing on the cake, we got to cheer as Jaquisha crossed her first (but certainly not last) finish line.
Before I sign off, I also need to send a HUGE congratulations to my friend Scott, who completed his first Half-Ironman yesterday (1.2 mi swim, 56 mi bike, 13.1 mi run) in a staggering 5 hours, 38 minutes. That put him in the top 25% of all finishers, which is pretty unbelivable for a debut at that distance. What's even more remarkable is that I saw Scott, just a little over a year ago, when I was running the B&A Half-Marathon for the first time. Scott was running the full marathon that day, and we ran together for awhile, chatting about both having turned 30. We both complained about gaining weight and slowing down; Scott mentioned that he had not finished a marathon in under 5 hours since his 30th birthday. Just a few months later, Scott did his first sprint tri and suddenly morphed into a super-athlete. He followed the sprint with an olympic distance, in which he finished within the top 100. Somewhere in there he lost what looks like at least 30 pounds. Then, in October, he finished MCM in under 4 hours. Now, he's got the half-Iron under his belt and he is gunning for the full Ironman later this year. That is a total transformation in just a hair over a year. Incredible!
Case in point: Earlier this week, Kirchoff posted this entry, writing about how he does better at exercise when he takes group classes because the presence of other people kicks into his competitve drive. I totally get that. I wish I could say that I push myself just as hard when there's nobody watching, but it wouldn't be true. Even though I'm not enough of an athlete to compete with most of the people in my races and exercise classes, I still go much harder when there is some element of competition involved. A few examples from this week:
Thursday: Having finished one multi-week torturous cycle of activities in Boot Camp, our instructor Kate started us on something new. She divided the whole class into teams and had us compete in a series of timed drills and relays. Losers had to do extra pushups. It was SO MUCH FUN. Everyone got way into it- by the end, there was definitely strategy happening. It was so much fun that, for perhaps the first time in that class, I actually forgot how hard I was working. Good times.
Saturday: I joined a shockingly large number of people at my gym for a special 90-minute "endurance day" spin class. Our instructor Bill (who also teaches my Group Power class) put together a St. Patrick's Day-themed ride, including a video tour of Ireland, Irish music, and a leprechaun hat that he actually forced himself to wear for the whole 90+ minutes. In case you were wondering, 90 minutes is a lot of spinning. There were definitely a couple of points where I felt like packing it in. In this case, it was less competition and more just group spirit that kept me going. The room was packed and people were having a genuinely good time, which made the time go by much faster.
Sunday: My friend Jaquisha has been doing a "hibernation to 5K" training program for the past 6 weeks, and today she "graduated" by running her first 5K race. She invited friends and I decided to go (a) to cheer on my friend, and (b) to try again for a sub-30 minute 5K. (My previous best was 30:16, set last month.) My PC classmate and former fundraising partner Katie C. came too, along with her running buddies Erin and Amir. Having Katie, Erin, and Amir there was a real blessing for me. They set a challenging pace and having them around kept me motivated to hang on to it (which was not easy). When we got to the finish line, I had to do a double-take: 27:19! Better than I ever imagined! Then, as the icing on the cake, we got to cheer as Jaquisha crossed her first (but certainly not last) finish line.
Before I sign off, I also need to send a HUGE congratulations to my friend Scott, who completed his first Half-Ironman yesterday (1.2 mi swim, 56 mi bike, 13.1 mi run) in a staggering 5 hours, 38 minutes. That put him in the top 25% of all finishers, which is pretty unbelivable for a debut at that distance. What's even more remarkable is that I saw Scott, just a little over a year ago, when I was running the B&A Half-Marathon for the first time. Scott was running the full marathon that day, and we ran together for awhile, chatting about both having turned 30. We both complained about gaining weight and slowing down; Scott mentioned that he had not finished a marathon in under 5 hours since his 30th birthday. Just a few months later, Scott did his first sprint tri and suddenly morphed into a super-athlete. He followed the sprint with an olympic distance, in which he finished within the top 100. Somewhere in there he lost what looks like at least 30 pounds. Then, in October, he finished MCM in under 4 hours. Now, he's got the half-Iron under his belt and he is gunning for the full Ironman later this year. That is a total transformation in just a hair over a year. Incredible!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Biggest Mover (or, Happy Belated Lent!).
Once again, I am writing from the land of papers and panic. Thus, the belatedness of my Lenten greetings. As you may or may not know, the Christian season of Lent began last Wednesday (aka: Ash Wednesday). Lent is a 40-day season of repentance in preparation for the death and resurrection of Jesus at Easter.
Many Christians choose to observe Lent by taking on some kind of discipline (sort of like a Lenten resolution). These resolutions can generally be classified in one of two categories: giving something up or taking something on. My friend Rev. Katie Bishop used these themes to organize a little Lenten devotional booklet for young adults in our conference of the United Methodist Church. You can download the devotional here and read many great Lenten thoughts, including two entries from yours truly!
When I was making my own Lenten resolutions, I thought about Katie's themes of Giving Up and Taking On. So, here is what I am working on until Easter:
Giving Up: Spending that does not help me reach my goals. Last year, I did a total spending diet at Lent and only bought necessities. This year, I thought a little harder about why my habit of mindless spending is a bad thing, and I decided that the main reason is the way it keeps me from doing things I really want to do. In the next year, I really want to do some travelling, pay down debt, and get all the equipment I need for my triathlon. So, for the remainder of Lent, I am only spending money on necessities (very narrowly defined) and things related to those goals. So, no take-out, no downloading books on the Kindle (except the free ones), no clothes, no miscellaneous Target impulse purchases. The one exception I'm making is for eating out with friends, because seeing my friends more is another goal of mine.
Taking On: I have two resolutions in this category-
First, I am committing to put more time into my schoolwork. I have an obscene amount of work due by the end of April, and I am also taking my counseling licensure exam (ack!) April 16th. You would not know these things by the amount that I have been studying. I need to do better so that I can complete the work to anything near my standards and so that I do not spend all of April in a state of panic.
Second, I am taking my Weight Watchers to the next level. Last week, I weighed in at 148.5, which means I have lost 10 pounds since November! Hooray! In order to keep going, I know I need to kick things up a notch. My gym has been helping in this endeavor. Since the beginning of February, they have been running a contest called "The Biggest Mover." Every time you take 5 group exercise classes in a week, you fill out a little card and get entered into a drawing. There is a winner every week and there will be an overall winner who earns the most points throughout the contest (it lasts 12 weeks). Now, I always take a lot of group exercise classes, but I can't say that I was always taking 5/week before this contest started. For 5 out of the last 6 weeks, though, I have made my 5. (I'm a sucker for prizes.) I am definitely seeing the results of those classes on the scale. Even better, I got a call from the gym earlier today and I won this week's prize!
Well, in the interest of Lent, I need to go pick up my prize, take another group exercise class, and then resume studying. (Without spending money, of course.)
Many Christians choose to observe Lent by taking on some kind of discipline (sort of like a Lenten resolution). These resolutions can generally be classified in one of two categories: giving something up or taking something on. My friend Rev. Katie Bishop used these themes to organize a little Lenten devotional booklet for young adults in our conference of the United Methodist Church. You can download the devotional here and read many great Lenten thoughts, including two entries from yours truly!
When I was making my own Lenten resolutions, I thought about Katie's themes of Giving Up and Taking On. So, here is what I am working on until Easter:
Giving Up: Spending that does not help me reach my goals. Last year, I did a total spending diet at Lent and only bought necessities. This year, I thought a little harder about why my habit of mindless spending is a bad thing, and I decided that the main reason is the way it keeps me from doing things I really want to do. In the next year, I really want to do some travelling, pay down debt, and get all the equipment I need for my triathlon. So, for the remainder of Lent, I am only spending money on necessities (very narrowly defined) and things related to those goals. So, no take-out, no downloading books on the Kindle (except the free ones), no clothes, no miscellaneous Target impulse purchases. The one exception I'm making is for eating out with friends, because seeing my friends more is another goal of mine.
Taking On: I have two resolutions in this category-
First, I am committing to put more time into my schoolwork. I have an obscene amount of work due by the end of April, and I am also taking my counseling licensure exam (ack!) April 16th. You would not know these things by the amount that I have been studying. I need to do better so that I can complete the work to anything near my standards and so that I do not spend all of April in a state of panic.
Second, I am taking my Weight Watchers to the next level. Last week, I weighed in at 148.5, which means I have lost 10 pounds since November! Hooray! In order to keep going, I know I need to kick things up a notch. My gym has been helping in this endeavor. Since the beginning of February, they have been running a contest called "The Biggest Mover." Every time you take 5 group exercise classes in a week, you fill out a little card and get entered into a drawing. There is a winner every week and there will be an overall winner who earns the most points throughout the contest (it lasts 12 weeks). Now, I always take a lot of group exercise classes, but I can't say that I was always taking 5/week before this contest started. For 5 out of the last 6 weeks, though, I have made my 5. (I'm a sucker for prizes.) I am definitely seeing the results of those classes on the scale. Even better, I got a call from the gym earlier today and I won this week's prize!
Well, in the interest of Lent, I need to go pick up my prize, take another group exercise class, and then resume studying. (Without spending money, of course.)
Friday, March 11, 2011
Recognizing families.
I was talking to my Mom on the phone the other day and she told me about something that happened while she babysat my 3 1/2 year-old niece, Greta. Greta is way into princesses right now, as seen below:
She must have watched Cinderella recently, because she and Mom were playing princesses, and Greta kept talking about wicked stepmothers. My Mom, clearly upset by this, told me "I kept telling her that not all stepmothers are bad, but she wouldn't listen."
It took me a minute to realize why my Mom was so upset. Sometimes I forget that my Mom is a stepmother. When my Mom married my Dad, he was the recently widowed father of two very young children, my older sister and brother. My siblings were so young when when my parents married that they call my mother "Mom." I wasn't even told that my siblings are actually half-siblings until I was 5 or 6.
My Mom has only told me a little about the time when she married my Dad, but I know it was hard for her. She was very young- only about 20- and my Dad is more than 13 years older. As widowers often do, my Dad married my Mom only a short time after the death of my siblings' mother. I'm not sure how long he dated my Mom, but it wasn't long. So, she became a parent very young, and many people around her did not approve of the way it happened. We are a different kind of family, and we have struggled, but I'm glad to have the parents and siblings I have.
When people tell stories about wicked stepmothers, I know they don't mean to hurt my Mom, but they do.
My older sister also became a parent in a non-traditional way. When she was just out of high school and still a teenager, she had my nephew, Jordan. Jordan is bi-racial and, while I see family resemblance in him, many people can not see past his darker skin. My sister later married and had two more kids, Summer and Shane:
It took me a minute to realize why my Mom was so upset. Sometimes I forget that my Mom is a stepmother. When my Mom married my Dad, he was the recently widowed father of two very young children, my older sister and brother. My siblings were so young when when my parents married that they call my mother "Mom." I wasn't even told that my siblings are actually half-siblings until I was 5 or 6.
My Mom has only told me a little about the time when she married my Dad, but I know it was hard for her. She was very young- only about 20- and my Dad is more than 13 years older. As widowers often do, my Dad married my Mom only a short time after the death of my siblings' mother. I'm not sure how long he dated my Mom, but it wasn't long. So, she became a parent very young, and many people around her did not approve of the way it happened. We are a different kind of family, and we have struggled, but I'm glad to have the parents and siblings I have.
When people tell stories about wicked stepmothers, I know they don't mean to hurt my Mom, but they do.
My older sister also became a parent in a non-traditional way. When she was just out of high school and still a teenager, she had my nephew, Jordan. Jordan is bi-racial and, while I see family resemblance in him, many people can not see past his darker skin. My sister later married and had two more kids, Summer and Shane:
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| Summer and Jordan. |
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| Shane and Summer. |
Obviously, I'm a bit biased, but my sister has three great kids. Case in point: Just before Christmas, Shane's school hosted a special breakfast, and asked parents to come help with the cooking. My sister and her husband had to work, so Jordan and Summer (who are 22 and 17) volunteered to help. How many kids of those ages do you know who would get up early in the morning to cook breakfast for 5th graders?
Summer told me about the breakfast at Christmas, and mentioned an encounter with one of Shane's teachers. The teacher walked over to Summer and Jordan, looked at Summer, and said "You MUST be Shane's sister! You two look so much alike!" Then she paused, looked Jordan up and down, and walked away. Summer laughed when she told me the story, but I was livid. My sister's family may not look like the "traditional" family, but they are a great, loving family, and they all deserve to be recognized.
I'm sure that teacher did not mean to be hurtful, but she was.
Earlier tonight, I read this beautifully written blog post by a seminary friend, Susan (who is caucasian). In the post, Susan shares a story about a child's reaction to meeting her and her adopted Ethiopian daughter. Susan and her daughter are not a "traditional" family either, but they are a wonderful family nonetheless and they also deserve to be recognized.
Reading Susan's blog post helped me wrap my head around my feelings in response to the Maryland House of Delegates' failure to pass a bill legalizing same-sex marriage earlier today. I come from a non-traditional family. I have many, many friends who have non-traditional families. They might involve step-parents, bi-racial children, inter-racially married parents, adopted children, disabled children, no children, or children with same-sex parents. Regardless, they are families, they love each other, and they deserve to be recognized.
I am sure a lot of the people who did not support this bill, or who supported the bill but did not speak up, or who supported the bill but pushed it aside for political reasons did not mean to hurt families. But they did. When it comes up again, I hope that Maryland will not pass up another opportunity to recognize all families.
Monday, March 7, 2011
No such thing as easy: B&A Trail Half-Marathon 2011
As I mentioned in my last post, this weekend was my second running of my first half-marathon: the B&A Trail Half-Marathon in Severna Park. I completed three other halfs in 2010 as well, but I never beat my B&A time of 2:24:05. So, I went into this year's race with one goal: beat my 2010 time. The B&A course is almost totally flat- probably the flattest course I've ever run. Thus, if you are going to set a PR (personal record), this race is a good place to do it.
Going into the race, I thought that I could easily knock five minutes off my time. On the whole, I run faster now that I did last year at this time. More importantly, I ran into two issues in last year's race that I did not anticipate repeating. First, I violated one of basic rules of racing: don't try any new foods the night before a race. My penalty for breaking this rule was at least four bathroom stops over the course of the race. I won't do that again! Second, Val fell down, hard, during mile 12 of last year's race. Being the warrior that she is, she got up and finished, despite a black eye and some seriously wounded pride. Between the bathroom stops and helping Val up, I figured that I lost at least 5 minutes in last year's race. So, all I had to do was eat something bland the night before and watch my step and I had a 2:19 finish time in the bag, right?
Turned out, it wasn't so easy. This is one of the first races that I entered with a specific time goal in mind, and probably the first time I really kept track of my pace throughout the whole race. My plan was to do what I should have done during the Parks Half-Marathon back in September: keep a steady pace until at least mile 10, and then step it up at the end if I could. I ran the 2010 race at an 11-minute/mile pace, so I needed to stay a little ahead of that throughout, and then give it whatever I had left in the end.
The first half of the race felt pretty easy. I was keeping the pace without difficulty; in fact, I probably felt better in miles 4-6 than I have ever felt in a race. After the turnaround, though, it got tougher. By that point, Val (who is recovering from a knee issue) had fallen behind me, so I was on my own, rallying my inner cheerleader to keep going. Around mile 9 or 10, I slipped off pace a bit. So, at the point when I had planned to speed up, I was fighting just to stay on pace. Fortunately, I was able to do it, and I changed my goal to just holding pace until the end. When I reached the end of the trail, which is almost the end of the race, my watch showed me at 2:16. That was enough motivation to speed up and race for the finish. When I crossed, the race clock and my watch said 2:20, but I later found out that my chip time was 2:18:55. So, in the end, I knocked off a hard-fought 5 minutes, 10 seconds.
At the finish, I met up with several Striders friends and witnessed some major accomplishments. Solomon from our marathon training group beat his previous best time by 27 minutes. My friend Jen knocked 9 minutes off her previous best time, and has improved by 25 minutes in just two years. Val's friend Marie, who was running her first half, kept a pace of 9:50 for the whole race. (To put that in perspective, my best 5K pace has been 9:46.) Despite her injury and missing several key long runs, Val managed to finish in just under 2:30.
Going into the race, I thought that I could easily knock five minutes off my time. On the whole, I run faster now that I did last year at this time. More importantly, I ran into two issues in last year's race that I did not anticipate repeating. First, I violated one of basic rules of racing: don't try any new foods the night before a race. My penalty for breaking this rule was at least four bathroom stops over the course of the race. I won't do that again! Second, Val fell down, hard, during mile 12 of last year's race. Being the warrior that she is, she got up and finished, despite a black eye and some seriously wounded pride. Between the bathroom stops and helping Val up, I figured that I lost at least 5 minutes in last year's race. So, all I had to do was eat something bland the night before and watch my step and I had a 2:19 finish time in the bag, right?
Turned out, it wasn't so easy. This is one of the first races that I entered with a specific time goal in mind, and probably the first time I really kept track of my pace throughout the whole race. My plan was to do what I should have done during the Parks Half-Marathon back in September: keep a steady pace until at least mile 10, and then step it up at the end if I could. I ran the 2010 race at an 11-minute/mile pace, so I needed to stay a little ahead of that throughout, and then give it whatever I had left in the end.
The first half of the race felt pretty easy. I was keeping the pace without difficulty; in fact, I probably felt better in miles 4-6 than I have ever felt in a race. After the turnaround, though, it got tougher. By that point, Val (who is recovering from a knee issue) had fallen behind me, so I was on my own, rallying my inner cheerleader to keep going. Around mile 9 or 10, I slipped off pace a bit. So, at the point when I had planned to speed up, I was fighting just to stay on pace. Fortunately, I was able to do it, and I changed my goal to just holding pace until the end. When I reached the end of the trail, which is almost the end of the race, my watch showed me at 2:16. That was enough motivation to speed up and race for the finish. When I crossed, the race clock and my watch said 2:20, but I later found out that my chip time was 2:18:55. So, in the end, I knocked off a hard-fought 5 minutes, 10 seconds.
At the finish, I met up with several Striders friends and witnessed some major accomplishments. Solomon from our marathon training group beat his previous best time by 27 minutes. My friend Jen knocked 9 minutes off her previous best time, and has improved by 25 minutes in just two years. Val's friend Marie, who was running her first half, kept a pace of 9:50 for the whole race. (To put that in perspective, my best 5K pace has been 9:46.) Despite her injury and missing several key long runs, Val managed to finish in just under 2:30.
After everyone finished, we gathered for some photos and snacks inside:
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| Myself, Val, and Marie. |
I had a slice of pizza, which was probably the best pizza I have ever had. Then, I spent the rest of the day wrestling with the usual insatiable hunger. I wish I could say that I satisfied it with apples and bananas, but I actually went with a burrito and a milkshake. Fortunately, the hunger has abated today, so I might be able to salvage this week food-wise before my Wednesday Weight Watchers check-in.
Congratulations to my friends and all of this year's B&A runners. See you in 2012!
Friday, March 4, 2011
Drumroll, please...
That's what I heard in my head Wednesday morning when I stepped on the scale and saw... wait for it... 149.5! Finally, out of the 150's! Based on my saved Weight Watchers data, the last time I weighed in under 150 was November 19, 2008. Since that time, I have gone as low as 151 and as high as 158.5, but always stayed in the 150's. So, even if I go up a bit in the coming weeks (my usual pattern is down a lot, up a bit, back down again), it was super-exciting just to see a number in the 140's.
It was also super-surprising. Here's a bit of advice to those of you trying Weight Watchers for the first time: your weigh-ins sometimes make no sense. There will be weeks where you do everything perfectly and then stay the same or gain. Likewise, there will be weeks where you totally blow off the plan and lose anyway. Last week was the latter for me. I had two special events (the Striders' banquet and my brother's birthday) where I ate whatever I wanted, and I definitely did not balance those days out during the rest of the week. So, I was not expecting a loss, but there it was. The point is, don't put too much stock in the weekly weigh-in. As long as the overall trend is downward, you are doing fine.
Speaking of milestones, this Sunday will be my second running of my first half-marathon: the B&A trail half-marathon in Severna Park. Training for and running this race last year was a huge deal for me. Prior to joining the Striders' 2010 half training group, I had never followed a training plan or trained with a group before, and my two longest runs were one 5-mile race and a poor attempt at a 9.3-mile race. So, pretty much every week in training involved some kind of milestone. As race day approached, I was worried that I would not be able to finish in under 3 hours, and told my mom (who was coming to watch the finish) not to worry about getting there until at least 2 hours and 45 minutes had passed. To my great surprise (and my mom's chagrin), I finished in 2:24, while Mom was still en route.
Last year's B&A race is still my fastest half to date, owing to the good training I put in, perfect weather on race day, and the flat and fast course. I came within two minutes of that time back in October at the Baltimore Half-Marathon on a course that was nothing but hills, which makes me hopeful that I can knock several minutes off this weekend. Unfortunately, it looks like the weather is not going to cooperate with my plans, but I'm trying not to worry about it too much. Its nothing I can change!
Check back for a race report Sunday or Monday. Until then, have a great weekend!
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