The irony was not lost on me as I started out on my run tonight.  For those who don’t know me all that well, I am not of slight build.  Flat-footed as can be, afflicted by shin splints sometimes just on long walks, and little stamina to go with it – the phrase “started out on my run” hasn’t been a part of my vocabulary in YEARS…and back then it was forced upon me by either a high school coach of one sport or another, or my father who knew I needed the conditioning.  But I saw a friend post via social networking a slick little application for my iPhone that would condition me to become a novice runner.  From a walker to a runner in 8 weeks…sounds nice doesn’t it?  What’s more, I get to play whatever music I want in the background while I listen periodically to the commands to “Walk” or “Run”.  It’s a neat little package.

As I often do when choosing my music, I’ve evolved from an iTunes listener – of music I’ve either purchased or copied over from CDs in my collection – to a Pandora listener.  Pandora predicts what I want to listen to based on my past listening habits.  Trust me when I say, my Pandora account ranges from Willie Nelson and Marty Robbins, to Metallica and AC/DC.  I’ve got classical, reggae, Christian, country, rock, pop…you name it.  Among the tens of thousands of songs that could’ve played tonight as I started the running segment, Pandora picked my all-time favorite band, U2.  The song:

Running to Stand Still

I couldn’t help but laugh as I tried to start my breathing rhythm.

The words to this posting have, as usual, been in the oven for a while.  I’ve been kicking around some things I’ve heard and read over the past few weeks.  It came pretty simply to me once I heard the song.  The words of the song are not necessarily applicable to this post…but more to the ideas and idioms we’ve all said from time to time.  How often have you uttered words like these?  How often have you said, “two steps forward and one step back”?  Or “hurry up and wait”?  These are common to most of us…but I had a different idea tonight.

Much is made of 1 Corinthians 13:13 where Paul says, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”  Most folks like to focus on love…after all, that chapter is often referred to as “the love chapter”.  The “love” spoken about in that chapter is about far more than romantic love.  It is about a love of life and humanity.  The verse comes on the heels of one of those “when all else fails” phrases.  Through it all…through the pain, triumph, loss, gain, storms, or bright shiny days, those three pillars would still stand – nothing else would be important other than faith, hope, and love…with love being the greatest.

But have you ever noticed…love can hardly exist without the other two pillars in place?

Voltaire said of faith: “Faith is believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.”  Faith isn’t necessarily reasonable…in fact, it is believing in something when a reasonable person might say otherwise.  So how do faith and love twine together?  Simple…have you ever accomplished something that perhaps you shouldn’t have?  Faced with long odds, somehow or another you came through?  Without faith…in yourself or whatever else…you wouldn’t have accomplished that thing, most assuredly.  However, with faith, you accomplished it.  And guess what else happened along the way?  Your love of life grew a bit.  Your ability to believe in the unbelievable gave you that thirst that comes from a love of life.

Hope works the same way. 

We’ve all heard some version of this – take away a man’s hope and he’ll die.  That’s actually taken from Proverbs 29:18 (and paralleled in so many religions’ own proverbial statements) where it says “Without vision, the people perish.”  Vision, in this case, is very equivalent to hope, whether it be the hope for a better tomorrow, or the hope that you make it through some test in time, or simply the hope that all your loved ones are kept safe for one more day.  

Hope is the chauffer to our tomorrows.

Christopher Reeve – my lifetime’s superhero who went from picture-screen immortality as Superman to a very human and mortal quadriplegic at the hands of a Polo accident once said, “Once you choose hope, anything is possible.”  That quote sounds to me to weave all three pillars together.  Reeve loved life and much more ironic than the starting song on my run tonight, Superman became confined to a wheelchair the last 9 years of his life.  Reeve, like so many of us, kept his hope alive, had faith in a better tomorrow, and thus enjoyed a tremendous love for life.

So how did “Running to Stand Still” get me here tonight?

Oftentimes we’re in that hurry-up-and-wait mode.  We get busy for the sake of being busy without a focus on what it is we’re all in a fuss about.  Trust me…as a self-diagnosed sufferer of ADD, it’s good every now and then to turn that on its ear.  Slow down…stop, even.

Be still and listen…listen to your mind conjure up exactly what it is that you hope for.  What is it you love?  Where are your dreams driving you?  Or perhaps, did you forget to pack those dreams with you on the journey?  It’s never too late to add those dreams back to your routine

Get your hope.  Have faith.  Fall in love…with you…with the life you’ve been given.

Everything else is simply “running to stand still.”

Blessings,

Tim