We find magic - it doesn't find us

​I have a tough week ahead. A week full of challenges and changes and opportunity and healing. A week full of reminder that sometimes those things all work together for good. At least if you lean into them with good in mind.

I think that's why I was in the perfect place this past weekend. I was running one mile loops on a wooded mountain trail called the murder mile. If you want to know why they call it the murder mile, I'll forward you the address. You can go run it or walk it or crawl it. When you're done, I promise you'll say, "oh - so that's where that name came from."

My friend Becca - proud founder of the murder mile - said, "I hope you found magic out there."

And I think I did. I think maybe the magic is discovering that magic is something you find, not something that shows up.

There are moments in an adventure like the murder mile when I stop and ask, "what am doing here?" I'm 500 miles from home, alone, running on a secluded mountain, my legs feeling like they could collapse at any moment, no trophies or awards ceremonies will follow my individual race - so what am I doing here?

Finding magic. I think that's the best answer I can offer myself. Or you.

After 4 loops of the murder mile, which was about 4 miles into the run and over 1400 feet of climbing, I told myself that if I could do 4 more loops, I'd feel like I accomplished all I could. In that moment, I couldn't imagine 4 more loops.

I wanted to tackle what I couldn't imagine.

After those 4 more loops, I thought, if I can do 2 more - that would be 10 loops - double digits - that would be something I could feel proud of. That would be something well beyond my imagination.

And after those 2 - and feeling like the murder mile was about to live up to it's naming - I knew if I did 2 more to get me to 12 total - I'd have run a half marathon on the toughest course I've ever been on. I had a friend running a half marathon back home to support our mutual friends who were running a marathon. All week I told her we were "keep going-ers". In that moment I knew I had to find 2 more loops in me to earn my "keep going-er" badge for the day.

And so I did. I kept going.

But you know, the magic isn't found in the simple act of going on, in surviving, in finishing one more loop than you thought was possible. A lot of people quit while they keep going. A lot of people survive life without ever living it. A lot of people get to say I did it without ever seeing or feeling the beauty in what they did.

With each new loop over that murder mile, I challenged myself to find something beautiful I hadn't seen the previous lap. I reminded myself that even if I survived the murder mile, in some ways it would be a defeat if I didn't discover something more beautiful than just simply surviving the course. I challenged myself to remember life is easy to find the beauty in when life is beautiful - the murder mile challenged me to find it when life felt a little less than that, when life felt a little more like - well - murder.

There's a stream I didn't notice the loop before.

There's someone climbing the mountain zig zagging instead of going straight up - maybe I'll try that. Maybe they know a secret.

There's a footprint in the mud - I wonder whose that is? I wonder if they hurt as much as I hurt. What beauty did they find in that loop.

My great-grandparents had a farm like this - it too had a woods to romp through, but no murder mile.

It's pretty cool that with each new loop we get to enter the woods. There's something peaceful about that. Jesus used to enter the woods.

With the finish of each loop we come out of the woods and see people congregated, sharing time and food and cheers. The smell of food on an open fire.

Jesus used to come out of the woods and need to be with people.

Maybe we need both to be fully alive. The woods and the people.

I'm grateful for my murder mile experience. I'm grateful for the chance to find magic. I hope you find magic this week. If you're not feeling the magic, remember it's not coming to you, you have to go find it. You have to be a "keep going-er"