That is often the great conflict in our relationship with God. We can be tricked into believing growth is tied to a new level of comfort. But God knows growth is tied to new levels of discomfort. So if you ever wonder why you can never seem to settle into a smooth sailing place in life - that is why.
God couldn't be more disinterested in our comfort, and he couldn't be more invested in our growth.
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It might seem backwards, but running has taught me to be less focused on goals and more focused on who I want to be. Sure, there are finish lines I want to cross, mileage peaks I want to hit, times I want to accomplish - but what I've learned is whether I hit those targets or not - the moments within which I succeed or fail, those are such brief moments of my life.
Who I am in between those marks, how I respond to winning and losing, that takes place every second of every day, not just at a finish line, not just when the miles are tallied and the clock is finally stopped. Goals - whether you achieve them or not - don't define character. Decide who you want to be. Work hard to be that person. I imagine, then, some memorable moments will happen all along the way, whether you have a goal or not. 12/19/2020 0 Comments What we do in love will lastThe older I get, the more I wonder about the stories that will be told when I die. What stories are going to stick? I don't say that in an "oh, I think I'm going to die next week" sort of way. I just think to fully look at the story of the life we're living, we have to at least wonder what stories will be told about our lives when we're gone.
I always find it revealing - the stories people tell about the dead in the immediate aftermath of their passing. I find in particularly interesting when "famous" people pass on. Earlier this year, Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash. I've always been a bit of a Lakers fan so I followed this story. It's interesting - the newspapers highlighted all of the basketball accomplishments Bryant had achieved. Reporters on the outside looking in. But his friends, the people Kobe did life with, they told completely different stories. None of them were related to his basketball career. They told stories of Kobe helping them in hard times, creating opportunities for women because he was raising daughters, donating money and resources to those in need, putting a good word in for friends so they'd get the "lucky break" in their job they'd been looking for. For people close to Kobe, the stories that stuck, the stories they couldn't wait to recall and tell, they were the things Kobe did out of love, not with his basketball talent. They were stories about the heart Kobe gave, not the possessions or awards he had accumulated. This week, Christians will celebrate Christmas. The story of a God who lovingly left paradise to be humbly made human through a birth in a cold and lowly manger. Christians love telling that story; it's a story that sticks. It sticks almost much as the final chapter in his story. The day Christ marched peacefully to a death on the cross. The cross where he lovingly turned to a criminal and said, today you're joining me in paradise. The cross where he lovingly asked God to forgive the people who hung him there. The stories that stick about Christ aren't the sermons he preached. Oh, we can read about them, but the stories that stuck are stories about the man who hung out with lepers when no one else would. The man who fed the hungry when no one else cared to. The man who lovingly healed people on Sundays when the religious laws forbade him to do so. Christ lived with a radical love because he was radically interested in leaving behind a story that wouldn't blow by like it never happened. More and more, I find myself interested in that same thing. More and more, I find myself asking, how many things am I doing in love? 12/18/2020 0 Comments It's Going To Be OKMy great grandfather's name was Evans Elliott. He may be the coolest guy with the coolest name I ever got to meet. And not only meet, I was blessed to grow up with him right across the rural Ohio highway from the house I grew up in.
When I teach or do presentations on the developing brain, and talk about how much of the brain we have as adults was wired and built when we were kids, I always say I have a lot of wiring in me that sees the world as "everything's going to be okay." For much of my life, I don't think I saw that as a God thing nearly as often as I saw it as an Evans Elliott thing. I suppose a lot of that is because my great grandmother was a compulsive worrier; all Evans Elliott had to do was sit next to her and, relatively speaking, he'd be the calm in the storm. But he is also a man who survived the great depression. In my eyes, though, he always seemed to have thrived it - not survived it. This is a man who could reach deep inside a ewe and pull a lamb out like he was calmly pulling a candy bar out of a vending machine - me nearby wanting NOTHING to do with that candy bar - and moments later he'd sit there in the afterbirth covered straw feeding that lamb a bottle. Kind of like that's just how life goes. I remember a couple of times vividly when the man, his cheek full of chewing tobacco, told me everything is going to be OK. And walked off as if he'd just revealed nothing more meaningful than the obvious. I think more, though, I remember the feeling of everything's going to be OK that came with his presence. The day he died, I leaned on an old steel gate that opened into the pasture where I often watched him feed sheep or drive a tractor off to tend to the nearby fields. In that moment, I knew if I ever had a boy, I'd name him Elliott. 14 years ago today, Elliott was born with - as the doctors put it - little more than a heartbeat. The doctor worked furiously to save him - collapsing his lung in the process. In that moment - I remember saying the first prayer of my life. Oh, I'd said plenty of "our fathers" and "hail marys" and "the salvation prayer" and tons of scripted conversations with God we're taught or coerced into having over the years. But this was a different kind of conversation. This was me and God and my own free will in the hall of a hospital that smelled too much like death to me. Without a script, the only words I could come up with were, "God, I have no idea what you're up to here. But I trust you. I trust that everything is going to be OK." Looking back, I don't know if I was having a conversation with God or Evans Elliott or even if it matters. In the end I felt God saying I know you trust that. And it will be OK. This past year I've had to lean on that conversation a lot. I've had to lean on that reminder a lot. That it's going to be OK. I don't suppose there's a greater reminder on earth than looking at my 14 year old son - a deep thinker, compassionate, a crazy New York Giants fan - and a kid who doesn't seem to worry too much. A kid who always seems to walk around looking like it's all going to be OK. Some days I watch him play ball and lament his lack of aggression - then I recall the gentle old man feeding that lamb. I think along with a name, maybe Elliott inherited some wiring. There are many days lately when I bow my head, just me and God and my own freewill, and I say, "God, I have no idea what you're up to here. But I trust you. I trust that everything is going to be OK." And today, I add, "and I thank you God - for the kid who once had little more than a heartbeat - for the kid who many days keeps this heart of mine beating - beating with more belief than I've ever had - that everything is going to be OK." 12/17/2020 0 Comments There's a growing inefficiency in love, I fear, that comes in our rush to simplify life.We are a culture hungry for efficiency.
We have apps that help us do a million things at once. Alexa turns on our lights and off our television and even lets us know if someone's at the front door. I can push a button on my keys and my car starts before I ever leave the house. A meal service delivers me dinner; I'll never have to cook again. I get it. We're busy. Why not automate as many processes as possible so we can get busy doing the meaningful stuff in life. Only, what is the meaningful stuff? What exactly is it we're trying to create more time for? I fear it's not each other. Some days it feels like we're looking for the mic drop moments with each other - what's the quickest way possible to move through this conversation - so we can get home just in time to ask Alexa to turn on the kitchen lights. Your meal service is here, she announces. The problem is, not everyone has Alexa. Not everyone has a meal service. All some people have IS that conversation. When the mic drops and the talking ends, some people are not left to rejoice. They are left, instead, to wonder when will that happen again? I fear in our rush to automate the world we've found a way to automate our connections. A world that once had no choice but to stand face to face with one another to be heard, is now a world that can communicate a 30 minute conversation in a two sentence text message - and even that is filled with abbreviations and acronyms. There's a sadness, I think, that comes with a world where the loudest voices are named Alexa and Siri. There's a growing inefficiency in love, I fear, that comes in our rush to simplify life. And maybe that's why some days life feels more complicated than ever. THE THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT
Last week I said the second advent candle represented preparation – our personal preparation for the arrival of the baby in a manger. I suggested that our preparation is done through loving God and loving one another. And so it probably comes as no surprise that this week’s advent candle represents love. Do you know God often compares his relationship with us to marriage? Given that, I wonder what God thinks about the fact that roughly 50% of all of our marriages don’t work out. My guess is he’d tell us they don’t work out because we don’t have a great grasp on love. If you think about it, a lot of people go into marriages believing the happily ever after fairy tale painted about marriage in books and movies. The problem is, many folks believe it’s the act of marriage itself that delivers the happiness and it doesn’t require much of the married. When they ultimately realize happily ever requires a lot more than saying I do, it’s often too late. I think we often overlook this reality about love: Love is not a beautiful emotion, it’s a beautiful act. Think about God’s love for us – a love that is triggered by the baby in the manger. Let’s start with that manger. If you know the Christmas story you’re aware of all the incredible details God had to orchestrate to pull it off. And if so, you know, then, Christ being born in a manger was a very scripted detail of the story. I think God had his son born in a manger, a manger the cattle had just finished eating from, to tell us love is humble. A marriage doesn’t work out if one partner puts themselves above the other – if they think they are above some of the struggles and low places a marriage often takes us. A marriage works best when both partners are servant minded and not “being served” minded. The other piece of Christ’s story is the cross. Christ came in that manger to ultimately die on a cross at Easter. And again – of all the ways God could have scripted his son’s death – a tortuous death on a cross? But that was God’s best way of telling us love is sacrificial. How many marriages fail because one partner is unwilling to sacrifice? Think about it. How meaningful would God’s love for us be if he’d said, I’ve been in this marriage with you all and everything, but it’s starting to look like I might have to sacrifice a bit, so I think I’m going to have to call it quits. But that’s not what God said at all. In fact, he took sacrifice to the most sacrificial level possible to give us the ultimate example of love. So, the question on this 3rd Sunday of advent is - what does your love look like? Does you love serve others or does it prefer to be served. And - does your love rise to the call of sacrifice or run from it? Next week, when we read the story of the baby in the manger, maybe give just a little extra attention to the manger, as beautiful as that baby is. And be reminded, that baby will rise from the manger and climb onto a cross. All to say this is how you truly love one another. Shortly after reading the words below from Bob Goff this morning, I learned that a dear friend had lost his battle with Covid. My first thoughts when I heard the news - that dude knew how to accumulate love.
"Pop" Bob Himmel was a night watch and then later a cook at the wilderness camp I worked at for many years. I remember when Bob started as a nightwatch. After he'd been on duty about a couple of weeks, our yellow lab, Calypso, would run to the door and start whimpering when she heard Bob's truck arrive late at night. (It became a great way to know Bob was on time for work 😊). I'd open the door, let the dog out, and she'd be gone until morning. One night I decided I was going to follow Calypso. I needed to know what on earth kept that dog out all night. I walked down to the little nightwatch office Bob called home when he wasn't doing his rounds checking on the kids and the counselors. I opened the door and walked in. I found Bob kicked back in a reclining desk chair, feet up on the desk, lunchbox open, one hand putting a sandwich in his mouth, the other putting a sandwich in the dogs mouth. I was never curious again. That dog loved the hands that fed her. But make no mistake, as she stayed by his side all through the night, the two of them marching through the Croatan National Forest like they owned the place, that dog loved the man behind the hands even more. A few years later we moved from North Carolina to Virginia. Circumstances prevented us from bringing Calypso along with us on the move. There was only one logical home for that dog. I remember Bob crying when I told him Calypso was all his. I was sitting in a school parking lot several years ago when my phone rang. It was Bob. I hadn't heard from him in a while. When I answered, I immediately heard a sadness in his voice. He was calling to let me know Calypso had died. Bob cried when he told me about Calypso. I know he was sad to lose his friend. He told me how Calypso stayed by his wife's side as she battled and later lost her war with cancer. He told me how Calypso looked after him as he grieved that loss. But you know, you know what I know Bob was most sad about - he was most sad about the sadness he anticipated the news bringing to us. Because that was Bob. Bob spent his life accumulating love. And when you love like Bob loved - even thinking about another man's hurt - it hurts you. By many financial measures, Bob lived rather poor. He never had much in the way of material possessions. But that man had a laugh like no other. He had a joy in him that overwhelmed you within seconds of being around him. Not sometimes - not fickle joy - but every single encounter with the man. I've been gone from that forest for nearly 14 years now. I have many dear friends from those days. Most of them are friends I've done a poor job keeping up with - as they've done with me. I get that; life gets busy. But there's one man that never let me get too far removed from those days in the woods - and that's Pop Bob. He frequently called me out of the blue for no reason other than to check in. And he never missed sending a holiday text message. That's just who Bob was. In his mind he was the richest and happiest man on earth. Maybe he was. And maybe that's because he spent so much time accumulating love. He's a beautiful reminder for me today - oh there is no doubt - we DO become what we accumulate. I pray some of that love will comfort Bob's family and friends in the days ahead. I offer gratitude for the love I got to accumulate in my life thanks to Bob. It too let's me experience what it feels like to be rich. Chances are, before you got to my post, you scrolled through and maybe even stopped and looked at or read a half dozen other posts. And it's possible - a half dozen times you found yourself thinking I need to be THAT pretty or I need to be able to run THAT far or I need to have kids who are THAT smart or a family THAT happy or I need to have THAT kind of success at my job or I need - on and on and on it goes.
Chances are, before you got here you spent a lot more time thinking about THAT life than you did thinking about YOUR life. By almost every mental health measure available, we have more unhappy people living among us than we've ever had. Those numbers were true long before Covid - we can't blame the virus for everything. I think that's a mirror problem. Too often, when we look in the mirror, we see who we are not - and not who we are. We see who we think we can never be - who we can never measure up to - we see THAT life - and not someone on a journey to becoming THEIR best life. The mirror that constantly has us thinking of and feeling pressured to live THAT life; it's exhausting. And - because it is forever unobtainable - because believe me once you get THAT life another THAT life pops up in the mirror - it's depressing. You were not put on this earth to play a part. You were put here to be you. The world doesn't need who you feel like you are supposed to be - the world needs you. The world needs the you that follows your heart and your mind and your soul - not the you chasing THAT life in the mirror. You know who else needs that? You do. You deserve to experience the freedom that comes with accepting you are on a perfect but painfully flawed journey to becoming you. You deserve to look in the mirror every morning and every night and loving the you that you're becoming - because you ARE always becoming you. What you will never become? THAT. You will never become THAT. So quit trying to play THAT part. Just live you. Episcopal priest Justin Holcomb once said, "It is only in the shadow of Advent that the miracle of Christmas can be fully understood and appreciated; and it is only in the light of Christmas that the Christian life makes any sense."
So profound. It's in the shadow of advent we can personally experience the longing for a Savior the people of Israel felt thousands of years ago, and can fully understand what a miracle it was when Christ, the light of the world, was born in that manger. Thousands of years of prophecy and expectation answered in the unlikeliest of ways. And at the end of this advent season, we celebrate that light. In a day and age when our society has different but equally challenging reasons to understand why the world is the way it is, and we desperately wonder where it is all headed, only in the reflection of that light does it begin to make sense at all. Christmas season can get hectic. Busy. Which makes it harder but more necessary to stop and reflect, understand, and appreciate exactly what this advent season means. Don't let busy rob you of the beauty. I woke up yesterday morning to the message below. It was a message from my friend Gregory Horlacher letting me know he'd registered to run the 50-mile Georgia Jewel Trail Race. My heart raced - is the race really still 9 months away?
Wait, I've never run 50 miles before. Is the race ONLY 9 months away!?! 😲 My friend Greg has never run 50 miles before either. He's also never run a trail race. I met Greg when we worked together at a residential wilderness camp a couple of decades ago. Greg is one of the greatest examples in my life that opposites attract. Our opposites start with Greg is Atheist and I am not. Yet, it's that difference that's probably challenged my faith, and in many ways who I am, as much or more than any similarities I share with anyone else. Greg has taught me that as a Christian I don't have a monopoly on fighting for the widows and the orphans and the oppressed. And many days, he's quietly - and sometimes not so quietly - forced me to examine whether I practice what I preach in that area at all. With his message, I was relieved to confirm that the influence sometimes goes both ways. Over the years Greg has accused me of spreading running propaganda. I've watched Greg go from a casual runner to a guy who last week messaged me about his running shoes collection and the 4 marathons he's signed up for next year. What?!?! I was still processing the magnitude of that "holy cow I've created a monster" when his message came through about the Georgia Jewel race. The funny thing is, what put him over the edge on the Georgia Jewel race wasn't MY propaganda, but instead the heart and soul of the same person that put ME over the edge about the Georgia Jewel - Jenny Baker. Several years ago I was fortunate enough to have an hour and a half phone conversation with Jenny. She barely mentioned that she was the race director of the Georgia Jewel - but she did mention it. And by the time I was done talking to her, and had discovered just how much she loved and fought for people - when I discovered just how much she saw running as an avenue to loving people more and better, running that Georgia Jewel became the MAIN thing I took away from our chat. Greg told me what sealed the deal for him about the Georgia Jewel was reading a recent article Jenny wrote about closing the gender gap in the ultrarunning world. Last year Jenny and her co-director and husband, Franklin, offered crazy incentives as a way to invite more women to their race. In Jenny's words: "Fervently pursuing inclusion is a hill we’ll die on Every. Single. Day. We don’t always get it right, but we won’t let perfection prevent progress." Those words were important to my friend, just like Jenny's words were important to me many years ago. You can read the article here: https://ultrarunning.com/.../georgia-jewel-closes-the.../ I've been reflecting on Greg's message to me. Not just the "hey, I've registered for the craziest race of my life" message - and be sure pal - this IS your craziest. Not that message, though, but the bigger message. The message that we are all propaganda. We are, with the things we say and the way we live - we are all spreading a message with our stories and with our lives. And people are watching and listening and reading. There is a lot of propaganda out there that wants to promote how differently we all believe. Beneath the noise of all that, though, there are a lot of people who believe quite differently who are living some beautiful similarities. Similarities often powerful enough to bridge the divides in our beliefs. And I don't know, but I think running 50 miles together might be another way to discover a few more of those similarities. One of which is discovering crazy isn't a belief, it's something you do!! A new year is coming, and with it, another year of counting down the days until the Georgia Jewel. |
Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
May 2024
CategoriesAll Faith Fatherhood Life Mental Health Perserverance Running |