3/6/2023 0 Comments You paint your lifeI got up yesterday morning and decided this was going to be the day to break my run-less streak. I have many friends who embrace running at least a mile every day; I was currently in conflict with the reality I hadn't run a single mile in 16 days.
The run-less streak started with Covid. But now it was being kept alive by the run-less habit that is always happy to replace the running habit. I sat on the couch debating something I'd already determined I was going to do. Don't we do that a lot - make a decision about something then turn around and give ourselves permission to debate the decided? I reflected on a Mark Batterson quote that popped up in my memories earlier in the morning: "Time is measured in minutes; life is measured in moments." It hit me. My day would ultimately end. And when it did, it would be defined my the minutes in my day - all 1440 of them - OR it would be defined by the moments I created out of those minutes. Minutes come and go, often without thought. Maybe a good day is built on making decisions about what I'll make of those minutes, and then sticking to those decisions. Maybe a meaningful life is built on making decisions about what I'll make of those minutes, and then sticking to those decisions. I got off the couch. I did go run 4 miles. And what I felt in the moments of doing that - and in the aftermath - was a prettier picture than the picture the minutes would have painted had I chose not to go through with my plan. I think sometimes we forget just how in charge of our minutes we are. I think we forget that the minutes might be the all important paint, but we are holding the paint brushes. We are holding the vision of what that paint can become. When we give ourselves permission to change our minds about things we've already decided, we hand that paint brush over to the minutes. And minutes can be pretty destructive without our participation. So what will you paint this week? Maybe you'll paint over a picture of your past you've been wrestling with. We have permission to do that, you know. We don't have to hold on to old paintings; we can paint over them. Or maybe there's a brand new path in life you're excited about. Pull out a brand new canvass and start painting. Just. Start. Painting. Whatever you do today, though, don't hand that brush over to your minutes. Our minutes are quite lazy and will paint little meaning into our lives at all if we let them. So don't let them.
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Years ago, I read the book 'Undaunted Courage'. It's the biography of Meriweather Lewis of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
After reading the book, I took several trips out west. All of them left me in awe of Lewis and the courage it must have taken to venture into the complete unknown. I imagined what it must have been like to cross a river larger than you'd ever seen. Scale mountains taller than you'd ever imagined. Fight off animals larger and more ferocious than you'd ever crossed paths with. Endure blizzards the likes of which no one was remotely prepared to endure. And I imagined what it was like, each morning, for a year and a half, to get up and tackle yet again - the unknown. I woke up yesterday morning and wanted to tackle a light walk. I thought, I'll do the mile and a half loop around the block. It's been a dauting week, really, and I deserve a bit of a rest. That short walk will suffice. Then I thought, no - I did an eight mile trek a couple of weekends ago. I really need to press into that kind of effort today. I need the mental and physical distraction. That's when it occurred to me what I really needed wasn't rest or distraction, what I needed was courage. More. Courage. I've spent a lot of my life evading courage. That's what unknowingly happens when you create a life full of as many knowns as possible. The known becomes your idea of peace; the unknown your greatest threat to that peace. Until one day you find yourself in the unknown. And you tackle it. And come out the other side realizing you never knew anything about peace at all. Or anything about yourself. You come to know that the known was a lie and the unknown the source of your greatest truth. So I got out of bed and tackled not the short walk or the walk I did a couple of weekends ago - I tackled the 10 mile walk I'd been telling myself I was going to do for months but kept finding reasons not to. Most of them reasons found in the known.... It's not the first time I've tackled the distance. It wasn't a complete unknown. But yesterday it felt unknown enough - and scary enough - to know it was just the kind of push and reminder I needed. The reminder that courage isn't born in knowing everything will be okay. Courage is born in the willingness to repeatedly go where you have no idea if it will be. We all have western frontiers in our lives. Western frontiers no longer scare me as much as the thought of what I might miss if I don't explore them. I have discovered many spaces and places within my own heart and mind and soul the last several years that I had no idea existed. Places I found venturing into the unknown. Places that have come to be the most beautiful parts of my identity. Places that have redefined the unknown in my life. It is no longer a threat; it is only opportunity. An opportunity the known will always try to talk us out of pursuing. But we must go there. Repeatedly. If we are to be our most courageous selves. It's the perfect memory for today.
I've crossed a bunch of finish lines in my running life. Few mean more than this one. Five years ago today, I crossed the finish line of the Houston marathon. That - after just the year before - getting pulled from the course at mile 18 for failure to maintain the speed limit... In this finish line moment, it was reinforced in me the value of finishing unfinished business. Some business is best left unfinished. It's true. But some business settles into our minds and upon our hearts and we know from there only two possibilities exist: It forever eats you, or you once and for all eat it. AGENCY: the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power. That 2018 Houston Marathon non-finish ate at me for a year. But I had agency over that monster eating at me, and four years ago today I exerted the power I had to eat it. Once and for all. This morning I'm reminded that I have agency, and so do you. We all wake up this morning with some level of unfinished business in our lives. Unfinished business that lives in us as two possibilities. It eats us, or we once and for all eat it. Our choice. Our agency. 1/15/2023 0 Comments Life is a we thingBefore the start of the Megsmiles 5K yesterday, my friend Maria caught this picture of me taking a selfie with my dear friend Kelly Jarvis Anderson.
Over the last several years, I've said it a lot - I have presented and taught on it a lot - I've said, life is a we thing. At the heart of that message is the truth that we are neurobiologically wired to be our healthiest selves in the middle of we. And, maybe not so disconnected - if at all - we are most content in the middle of we. Relationships are the greatest protective factor we have over every unhealthy risk we might encounter in life. I confess, I have not always understood that. I've certainly not been good at it. I have spent a lot of my life avoiding we and not embracing it. I have spent a lot of my life feeling threatened by we and not the least bit open or curious about what lies in the depths of it. Because we thing is much more about depths than heights. It's much more about a longing to hold what you might find on the inside than it is about liking what you see on the outside. Kelly is one of the people who helped open my eyes to we thing. She always moves right on by the ornaments hanging on my outside and says tell me about what's happening on the inside. It was a gift yesterday for Elliott and I (because Ian got tired of our pace and ran on 🤷♂️) to walk with Kelly and her friend Renee (I love her expression in the selfie shot 😊) the final mile of the race. They talked about how they met 30 years ago as young teachers in rural Hanover County. And now, even though they live in two different states, they have remained best of friends. Their families have become each other's extended families. I found myself envious of that in many ways. But more than that, I found myself grateful to be in the middle of that conversation. I found myself grateful that my sixteen year old was right there with me listening in to the power of we. The joy to be found in it. I found myself believing we are almost always - if not always - in the right place at the right time. I found myself more committed than ever to this message: life is a we thing. I long for we, and I long to spread the gospel of we. Jesus once said, life boils down to this: love God, love one another. That often gets preached as a command. I believe if I was sitting with Jesus it would feel more like an invitation. I believe I'd feel Jesus longing to know what's on my inside while totally ignoring how put together I was trying to look on the outside. Jesus is a fan of Christmas I think; Christmas ornaments - not so much. I believe that because of my friend Kelly. I believe that because of the people who have come alongside me in some dark times and been curious about my darkness. And then, upon discovering it, sat there in it with me for a bit without feeling pressured to turn all the lights on. Because that is we thing. Meeting people where they are no matter where you are. Life is a we thing. I saw a lot of runners yesterday, but few were racing for the prize. Most seemed to be racing for togetherness. And more than any medal we can hang on a wall, togetherness is what ultimately holds us all together. Nothing is better for any of us than we. Nine years ago today, I was sitting in our local library when I received a text message:
“Meg Menzies was just hit by a car while she was running. She died.” I didn’t know Meg. I was friends with her husband, Scott. I'd worked with him on different projects in his role as a local law enforcement officer. But I knew a lot of people who did know Meg. And with shattered hearts, they began telling stories about a woman who, to me, sounded quite ordinary. She loved God, she was loyal to her friends, she treasured her family - especially her three young children - and she had a passion for running. But as the stories continued, as one after another they continued to build on each other, I discovered something remarkable in her story. In a culture that wants to lure us away from the ordinary - from the sanctuary of God to busy cities that never sleep, from the quiet embrace of our children to the pursuit of fame and fortune, from a commitment to wellness to the endless chase of unhealthy pleasures - Meg was never lured away. Less than a week after her death, it became clear to me I wasn’t the only one who’d found extraordinary in her story. On January 19, 2014, the Saturday after Meg died, over 100,000 people from around the world responded to a social media request to “Run for Meg.” Complete strangers were so moved by Meg’s story that they grabbed their families and friends and hit the streets to run. Many did so for the first time, others for the first time in a long time. I was one of those first time in a long time runners. I ran eight miles that morning. It was the furthest I'd run in decades. I've been running ever since. It's funny, though, over the past nine years, I've begun running toward things instead of away from them. I've processed a lot of what I've hated about my past in a way that's left me with hope and love for the future. One thing I've learned is that the beauty in the process, the beauty in the finish line, is often found in the people who help you get there. Back in 2017, I was running toward the finish line of the Patrick Henry Half Marathon. The year before, I didn't make it there. The August heat derailed my day at mile 8. A few miles from the finish, two friends who came into my life after Meg died showed up to help me find my way to that finish line. One was Meg's mom Pam, the other was Solomon Whitfield. I don't think I would have finished my race that day if they hadn't showed up. Back in the summer of 2020, I was going through one of the harder seasons of my life. I was out driving in the middle of the sunny afternoon, but life felt like a thousand midnights. I somehow found myself sitting on a picnic table in my friend Pam's yard. I was telling her about the challenges I was facing in life. I told her, I know it's not like losing a daughter, but it's hard. Pam looked at me, without hesitation, and said grief is grief, Keith. And you are grieving. I knew I was sitting in the beauty of the ashes of Meg's death. They were hard ashes to sit in. It's hard to feel beauty at the expense of someone else's deepest pain. But it was a beauty I desperately needed in that moment. A beauty I will be forever grateful for. A few months later, I found myself sitting at an Olive Garden with my friend Solomon. Again, I was lost. And again, a friend was showing up near the finish line to help me find my way. I'm not sure I'd have found that finish line if he hadn't been there that day. I know a large part of my life has been spent being lured away. The kind of lured away that Meg never experienced. Many times the last several years, I have felt Meg luring me back. Back to me. I have felt that through her mom and through my friend Solomon and through countless other friends who would have never come into my life if Meg hadn't been taken from ours. Finding yourself is beautiful. Especially when you'd been as lost as I'd been for as long as I'd been lost. Saying that - knowing it cost someone you love one of the people she loves most - doesn't feel beautiful. But it is. I don't know why life works that way, where beauty is more likely to spring forth from ashes than it is from beauty. But that IS how life works. For nine years now countless of us have been sitting in the beauty of the ashes of Meg's death. They are hard ashes to sit in. It's hard to feel beauty at the expense of someone else's deepest pain. But it is a beauty we all so desperately need. We miss you Meg, but may we all live lives that nurture beauty in the world long after we're gone. May we all live lives that will forever make it easy for others to find the beauty in our ashes. I stood at the finish line of the Richmond Marathon for 7 hours this past Saturday. I literally saw thousands of faces full of painful anticipation.
The pain of the miles behind painted on head to wobbly toe. The anticipation of a moment mere yards away ready to declare to the pained - you did it. A moment many had waited a lifetime to experience. Too often we hear pain as a statement. A statement that says: "if you were stronger you wouldn't feel pain right now, but since you are feeling pain, you clearly aren't strong enough to finish." But the reality is, pain is NOT a statement. Pain is a question. What's it worth to you? What's it worth to you and how much faith do you have that pain has showed up to add value to your celebration, not deny you of the celebration you are so worthy of. Maybe you are not a runner, but you're a dreamer. I know that. You have a finish line out there calling your name. To get there, you are going to experience challenges and curve balls and moments that feel like they are standing in your way - not showing you the way. You will experience pain. It's up to you whether you hear that pain as a statement or a question. It's up to you whether or not you hear 'what's it worth to you?" And the answer to that, well that might just be painted all over your head to wobbly toes. All the way to the finish line. All the way to that moment when pain wraps you in a celebratory hug - and says - I knew we'd meet here. I just knew it. Back in 2018, I interviewed my friend Solomon just prior to him completing his longest run ever at that time: The Pine Creek 100K. Yesterday, a little over 4 years later, he finished a race that was over 320K - or 200 miles.
The last couple of years, Solomon has become a best friend. It's a friendship rooted in him showing up for me at a time in my life when I really needed someone to show up. And he's kept showing up. If I think about it, the greatest impact he brings to my life is all about the power found in today. The power to recognize that if we keep changing our days, one day that will come to look like a changed life. We too often ignore that in our pursuit to change our lives. Maybe out of hopelessness. Or maybe it's out of wanting to believe that life can somehow magically change without intentionally doing the hard work of changing every day. In that interview, I asked Solomon a question I find myself still asking him some days: why? Why keep getting up and running. Why keep pushing yourself to run further. And further. Why four years ago were we talking about running what seemed like an unbelievable distance, and now this morning we're talking about running a distance that seems nothing short of impossible in my world. His answer: "consistency." He said he'd never been consistent at anything in his life. Not as a father or a husband or in friendships or in jobs. He said he'd begun to wonder if he even had it in him to be consistent at anything. And then along came running. He said from the earliest days of his running journey he knew it was going to be distance and not speed that motivated him. Because with distance, he'd always have to keep getting up - every day - and pushing himself a little further if he had any hopes of discovering just how far he could go. He knew he'd never get that answer without consistency. Today he'll tell you that he still struggles to be consistent in all the areas of his life he longs to be consistent in. Who doesn't? But he'll tell you he's more consistent than he's ever been. And he no longer wonders if he has consistency in him. Because 11 years he started running. One mile at a time. One day at a time. And today he knows he can run 200 miles. I know him well enough to know 200 miles isn't the answer to the question 'how far can I go?" No - I know he's already starting to wonder, if I stay consistent, if I keep making the most of each day, just how far can I REALLY go? As for me, I am once again reminded that in a life that has me longing for many changes, I know those changes aren't going to come by waiting out the days of my life. They are only going to come by CHANGING the days of my life. One day at a time. Every day. Consistently. Well done brother. Thanks for reminding us all of the power of today. 9/19/2022 0 Comments We Truly were Created to give.Friday afternoon, when I arrived in Dalton, Georgia, I was flooded with emotions. Not to be over dramatic, but it felt like driving by the hospital in North Carolina where my first son was born. Place can be triggering. Because place is often a place holder for some of our most meaningful memories.
When I sat at the Snake Creek aid station for the Georgia Jewel 35-mile race in 2018 - the place where I'd ultimately quit my first attempt at running an ultra-marathon - I had no idea just how different my life would look 4 years later in the year of 2022. I had no idea how much impact and influence that moment would have on my life. To say the Georgia Jewel has been personally pivotal – life-changing – that would be quite an understatement. I do get caught up at times trying to figure out whether I should blame or thank the Jewel for the direction my life has gone the last 4 years. I’ve decided it’s possible to at the same time thank AND blame the things we love in life. So that’s where I stop: I love the Georgia Jewel. I’m sure a lot of folks will read all of that and wonder – or maybe judge – how can someone feel such strong human emotions for an event? How can someone compare a trail race with the birth of a child? The folks who will NOT wonder and judge all of that are the folks who’ve had a relationship with the Georgia Jewel. Because they know the race is not an event. The race is a community. A community full of people with the most beautiful kind of love. This past weekend that community expanded for me. Until now, I’ve largely identified my Georgia Jewel community by its runners. But at this 2022 Georgia Jewel, I got to meet the volunteers – because I was one. I decided several weeks ago not to run this year’s race. I just wasn’t prepared for it for many reasons. But one of the race directors – my dear friend Jenny Baker – suggested a different race experience for me. She suggested I come volunteer at one of the aid stations. So, I did. And that aid station I’d volunteer at: Snake Creek. God has a sense of humor. Or, he just has a keen sense of how to use place in the stories he wants to tell us. In the lessons he wants us to learn. First, I got to spend the better part of 24 hours with some very dear people. Many of them were indeed runners – runners like me who’d experienced the Georgia Jewel through the lens of running – but this weekend they were there to serve other runners. Actually , it was fellow runners. Because that’s an important distinction when it comes to serving – we’re not serving OTHER people – we are serving FELLOW people. One of the beautiful things about watching runners approach Snake Creek in search of nutrition and encouragement and direction this weekend – I have been there. I have approached that aid station in need of all those things. I was comforted and loved by people when I quit there in 2018 by people who knew what it felt like to quit in that moment. I was encouraged to go on there in 2020 by folks who knew all I needed WAS their encouragement to ultimately climb Mt. Baker and finish the most meaningful physical accomplishment of my life. I realized this weekend how important it is for us to be able to predict what others are feeling and going through in our attempts to serve. I realized what a gift it is for those who are the great predictors of such. And I realized how those of us who aren’t so great at predicting what others are going through – maybe an answer to that is working an aid station. Volunteering. Serving. Looking into the eyes of the struggle approaching you. Holding back the urge to help while embracing the opportunity to feel – and hear – and honor the struggle coming your way. Humbly accepting it’s possible that I don’t know what you’re going through, but I want to know. Because empathy is something we can learn. It’s something we can all get better at. I’m so thankful to my friend Jenny for inviting me into a new place this weekend. I’m so thankful for the beautiful friends I go to serve alongside. I’m so thankful for the runners who came to be served, and for their gratitude that at the same time I was serving made it feel like I was being served in some beautiful way as well. I’m so thankful for the entire Georgia Jewel community – the runners and the servers – you are why Dalton, Georgia is an emotional trigger in my life. I don’t know whether to thank you or blame you for that. But I know this. I love you all. Years ago, I owned a pontoon boat. I'd often drive the boat to the middle of a wide open lake and then turn the boat off. I'd hop overboard and swim a bit, staying close to the boat. Until I'd notice the boat had drifted far away from where I had originally parked.
There was never any damage done. Sometimes it's okay to simply drift until you're ready to put the boat back on course. But if you do that too often - and if you don't really have a course in mind - you run the risk of getting lost. You run the risk of a life adrift. A life adrift looks a lot like a life doing what culture says you should do. It looks a lot like what family and friends convinced you you should do. It looks a lot like a life afraid of doing the things you've always felt called to do. It looks a lot like a life feeling unworthy of the life you are capable of living. A life adrift is a life that looks lost. I've lived a large portion of my life adrift. That's not the same as a life of regret - I've drifted to and in and out of some places I'm really grateful for. I feel like I've lived a life that God has steadfastly course corrected to some amazing spaces and opportunities. The course corrections in my life are the greatest evidence I have of a loving God. He's never fully let the boat slip away while I was swimming. But I know I have put too much burden on God in that regard. I don't think God FEELS overburdened by that as much as I do. But I wonder if God ever wishes he could do less course correcting and more applauding as he watches me steer my boat off to the places he and I both know I was meant to go? I think running taught me a lot about steering my boat. I picked a race months or a year out in front of me. A race I couldn't possibly run today, but if I followed the course I designed to get me to that race's finish line - I would get there. If by chance I didn't, it wasn't because I got lost, it was because I abandoned the course. Or, maybe I just picked a bad course to getting there. Not once, though, in any of those challenging races, did I ever drift to the finish line. I picked the finish line. I picked the course. I steered my way there. I'm afraid too many of us are adrift in our jobs, in our relationships and in our roles in our communities. We show up to these spaces in our life, but we haven't picked a spot where we want to go with them. We show up to them, but then we park and swim. How do you know if you're adrift in an area in your life? You're adrift in your job if at the end of this day you have no way of knowing if you're closer to where you want to be in your job. How do you know if you're adrift in a relationship? You're adrift in your relationship if at the end of this day you have no way of knowing if you're closer to having the kind of connection you long to have in that relationship. How do you know if you're adrift in your community? You're adrift in your community if at the end of this day you have no way of knowing if you're helping your community move in the direction you'd like to see your community move. You're adrift in your life if you have no way of knowing how close you are to becoming the person you want to be. A runner running a marathon - dead tired at mile 13 - totally unsure whether they can take another step or not - is NOT adrift. That runner KNOWS they have 13.2 miles to go. They know exactly where those miles are that they have to travel to become a marathoner. They know how close they are to becoming a marathoner because they decided they wanted to become one. How close are you to becoming who you've decided you want to become today? If you don't know the answer, you might be adrift. And if you're adrift, you might be at risk of becoming lost. I'm grateful for the places I've drifted to in my life, but I'm more determined than I've ever been to get where I know I'm made to be in life. Maybe that's because I've just never been a big fan of swimming. I am reminded this morning that can certainly be the case; the size of our victory is going to be the size of our struggle.
I spent the last couple of days virtually watching the Badwater 135 running race. It's call the most demanding and extreme running race offered anywhere on the planet. I don't know how one would verify that claim. But the race starts in Death Valley and travels 135 miles through 100 degree plus temperatures and includes 3 mountains totalling over 14,000 feet of climbing. So I'm not going to be the one leading the protest of that claim. For years, I've watched my friend Harvey Lewis run that race. And a couple of times WIN that race (he finished 4th this year). Harvey has found a way to make the extreme look easy when it comes to running. He's found a way to hide the struggle, even though we all know it's there - every step of the way. But this year, I was fixated on Harvey's fiance' Kelly, who was running it for the very first time. Fair or not, over the last few years it's been easy to watch Harvey's running feats and call him superhuman. But watching Kelly prepare for this race, reading her thoughts leading up to the race, feeling some of the pressure she felt going into it - it felt like I was watching a mere human tackle Badwater. And there is something powerful about watching fellow humans tackle the extreme. Following the reports online, it was clear Kelly's race was a struggle from early on. She battled to make the cutoff times at many of the checkpoints. If you miss a cutoff time, you are officially a non-finisher. She made one of those cutoffs by less than a minute. When your struggle is cutting it that close every time - every time you have a choice to make. Stop or go? Every time, you get to decide: am I going to chase victory the size of my struggle, or am I going to let struggle have the final word? Kelly finished the race a little over an hour ahead of the 48-hour time limit. She spent nearly two full days running through extreme heat which included 14,000 feet of climbing. But I've seen the pictures of her finish. You could tell - on that face was victory the size of the struggle. And in my eyes - an amazing woman may have just turned into superwoman. Very few of us reading this will be running Badwater anytime soon. But nearly all of us will be waking up to struggle. Some of us mighty struggles. We are all up against cutoffs - we are all up against the question some days - am I going to be defined by victory the size of my struggle - or in the end, does struggle get to tell my story. I am absolutely impressed by Kelly's physical capacity to pull off what she just pulled off. But more than that, the place from where I draw deep personal inspiration, is the number of times Kelly chose victory in the middle of a struggle begging her to quit. Chances are we will all hear the haunting voice of struggle in one form or another today. Just know that somewhere in there is the voice of victory. It's not often as loud. Maybe it never is. That is, unless we choose to hear it. When we choose to hear it, the voice of victory is every bit as big as the voice of our struggle. Your choice. Well done Kelly. Enjoy your victory celebration. So well earned. |
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 |