Tuesday, June 28, 2011

running and reverence

Today I ran just to run.

Why else would you run? my daughter asked in disbelief when I announced that fact at the breakfast table.

To be honest, most days,  I run for all the wrong reasons.  Sometimes I run because I ate too much dessert the night before.  Other times I run because I see my neighbor out running.  Still other times I run because I am afraid if I stop running I will never run again and I will turn into a great big couch potato.  Because, most nights, I eat way too much dessert.

When you run for the wrong reasons, running becomes a less than pleasant experience.  When I run to compensate for past excesses,  all I can think about is how far I have to go.  And when I run to keep up with my neighbor, all I can think about is how fast I have to run.  And when I run because I am afraid of becoming something or someone I do not want to be, I simply cannot run far enough or fast enough.  But today was different.  Today I just ran.

As I ran, I thought about all the parts of my body that were working together in that moment; the harmony between my brain, my heart, my arms and my legs.  And I listened.  I listened to the beat of my heart, the way it quickened as I climbed a hill and the steady rhythm it dropped back into when I came to a level stretch of roadway.  I listened too, to the sound of my feet hitting the pavement; the splash of water as I ran through a puddle.  And I remembered: people and places. birthday parties and Christmas and the lyrics to an old favorite hymn.  And I ran; just ran.

Reverence, Barbara Brown Taylor notes, is the act of paying attention; of looking twice at the people and things you might tend to run right past.    "It is one way," she writes,  "into a different way of life, full of treasure for those who are willing to pay attention to exactly where they are."

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