Learning to Run: Life and 10Ks

On many occasions I have tried to be a runner. The first time was when I transitioned from 8^th grade into high school and I wanted to play on the field hockey team. (I played in middle school and really enjoyed it.)  To play on any of the high school sports teams you had to be able to run the mile loop around the playing fields every day before practice. I could not do that. To make matters worse, I was so far from being an athlete I didn’t even really know how to ask anyone to help me. One of my teachers told me to practice over the summer. Run from one telephone pole to the next and then walk the next length and vice versa until I could run a mile. Sounds simple, but for a chubby middle schooler who looks kind of like a spastic Fraggle when running, it was not simple. It felt impossible. I kept at it on and off for a month and then I decided I couldn’t play high school sports. 

Fast forward to 32-year-old Audrey deciding to run a 10K for cancer.  Yeah, crazy pants! Well, this morning I went out for another practice run. I’m just starting week 3 of my couch to 10K program and I was not looking forward to this run at all. You see - week 2 did not go so well. I was not able to complete all of my runs during any of my training sessions during week 2. I either had to stop running early or skip a running segment entirely during each of the training runs week 2.

For those not familiar with Couch to 10K programs let me offer an explanation:

Couch to 10K (C210K) is an app I downloaded to my phone that is effectively a stopwatch with a trainer’s voice attached. I plug my earphones into my phone and listen to the greatest playlist of all time (click here to see aforementioned playlist) and the app tells me when to: warm up, run, walk, or cool down. When you first start C210K you walk for a few minutes and then run for one minute and then walk again and then run again… each week your runs get longer and your walks, obviously, become fewer. The idea is that the trainer helps you build up to running for distance. It is a 12-week program.

Okay, continuing on:

This morning I was taking my first run since last Tuesday. (You are supposed to run every other day.) Yep, almost a week off! I brought my running shoes with me on my camping trip but after taking 2 days off to recover from soreness the rain set in and running in the mud while camping with 3 small children was not seeming like a good plan. When I got home on Sunday I planned to go out and run but my hip had been killing me so my wise friend, Missy, told me that Jesus thought it was okay for me to take my last day of vacation off. I spent the day relaxing and recovering from the camping trip. (And I searched online for some good hip stretches.) I felt guilty not running on Sunday, but I knew Missy was right.

This morning I went out to run week 3 day 1. I gave myself permission not to time my pace or to hold myself to any standard aside from simply completing the time prescribed. The run segments increased by a full minute this week. That means that even though I couldn’t finish all my 2-minute runs last week, this week I was going to be asked to run for 3 full minutes at a time. While this sounds easy to many of you, it isn’t for me. Three weeks ago when I started this adventure I could barely complete all of the one-minute runs. This morning when I ran my form was better than it has been, my breathing was more focused, and somehow when I checked to see how much longer my run was I saw that I had completed the whole 3 minutes of the first interval! This continued for each running segment. On the last running interval I huffed and puffed but I got through it. I nearly cried when I realized that I did the whole workout without stopping. I am a beast!

When I got home to dress for my first day back at work I realized something. This week off from running only to come back and have my best training session yet is a parallel of the month of vacation I’m returning from today. At the beginning of July I felt like it was crazy to take a full month off. Sure I was feeling burned out and depleted, but taking a full month off with no plans seemed like such waste of valuable time. But as I’ve returned to the office today I realize that my stress level is markedly decreased, my productivity today has been off the charts, and my general joy about my call is revived. Without allowing my soul this time to recover and renew I couldn’t do the work I am doing right now – just as I couldn’t have run (pain free, I might add) with the form and energy I had this morning if I hadn’t listened to my body and rested it. In life and in races we have to push ourselves to be better but we also have to pay attention and realize that sometimes the most important push we can make is to push away the guilt so we can rest, recover, and renew.

I am grateful to my colleagues and parish for making it possible to take this time away to regain my focus and rediscover my light. I am grateful for the strength it took to listen to my body and to rest it enough to run a smarter race. And I am grateful to God that I’ve gotten over my ego enough to realize that running like a spastic Fraggle can be a beautiful thing.

The Art of Saying Yes

This is what saying yes to a walk in the sun looks like.

I am really good at saying, “yes.”

As in:

“Yes, I am happy to help you with that project you are a month late starting and is due tomorrow.”

“Yes, I can drive your children to Nebraska on Friday.”

“Yes, I would be thrilled to taste test your meals to ensure there is no poison in them.”

I exaggerate, but what I mean is that I actually have a history of being really terrible at saying “yes.” “Yes” is an art form. “Yes” requires the ability to weigh pros and cons in BOTH the lives of those asking and in your own. “Yes” when doled out too liberally leads to exhaustion on one end of the spectrum and crabbiness and lashing out at others on the other end. I’ve been working for quite some time on becoming better at saying, “no.” I thought this work meant that there was greater strength in the word “no” than in the word “yes.” What I’ve discovered, though, is that saying “no” appropriately gives strength back to the word, “Yes.” Saying yes in these instances goes from being draining to being affirming. When your “yesses” are balanced they are an opportunity to improve your life, and maybe even the lives of others.

Last night at Beer and Bible we were discussing the Gospel narrative of Martha and Mary. (Luke 10:38-42)  Some of the conversation turned toward who chose the "easier" route in that story. Martha was bustling around preparing food and tidying up for their visitors. Mary sat at Jesus' feet to listen. There are, obviously, cultural and historical elements at play but there is also the decision to say yes showing here. Mary said, "no," to many of the traditional responsibilities choosing instead to take advantage of the opportunity to learn from and be in fellowship with her friend and teacher, Jesus. This doesn't mean that Mary is a better person than Martha; rather, in this instance, Mary is prioritizing something that will feed her soul. We talked about the way that Martha "brings Jesus' rebuke upon herself," because Martha goes to Jesus to tattle. If Martha were happy going about her tasks this interaction wouldn't have happened. Sometimes we have to say "no" to the things that will deplete us in  order to have the energy we need to say "yes" to the things that will feed us. Sometimes we just need to say, "not yet" to the things that are necessary but not urgent to take advantage of a passing opportunity. Martha was doing work that may have been necessary, but Jesus was reminding her that it was not urgent.

I am not entirely rehabbed from my “yes/no imbalance disorder” but my recovery is going well. I am using this vacation as an opportunity to practice the art of saying "yes" in my personal life. Today I said yes to something very important to me. I’ve been contemplating participating in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training for the past several years. Each time I’ve thought about it I’ve come up with a reason to say “no.” Those “No”s came from a place of a place of fear. They came from a place of unbalanced priorities. So today I said, “yes!” I am thrilled that I will be training to run in Tufts 10K on October 14^th. That doesn't mean I'm not afraid. I'm terrified. I've committed myself to getting into the best shape of my life and running 6.2 miles 3 months from now! I will need all of your help. And I will need to say "yes" to many more things to make this possible. I hope you will visit my personal event page where you can learn more about that decision, about the Team in Training, and about my fundraising for a foundation aiming to rid the world of the cancers that took my mother's life and that my dad fights each day. (It's like 2 blog posts for the price of 1!) 

What could you say "yes" to that would make your life better right now?

broken and blessed

Take, Bless, Break, Give. That is the order of the Eucharist. Each week when we pray around the table we pray through the taking, blessing, breaking, and giving of Christ’s body. We watch as ordinary bread is transformed into our sacramental feast. This week, more than usual, I am cognizant of my own nature as a human being who is simultaneously blessed and broken. Living in that dissonance is an invitation into the heart of God and I feel drawn into the discord. My prayers are focused on figuring out how to take my broken, blessed self, shake the dust from my shoes, and walk forward in faithful humility to give what I can and absorb what I need. I am reminded that Christ walked this road before and because of that miraculous fact there really isn’t anything I can feel or experience that will surprise God. Pain, joy, hope, despair, love – all are experiences that God understands deeply and can walk through with each of us. So for today, I choose to fully expose both my brokenness and my blessedness. Today I choose to shine, not in spite of my brokenness, but rather because of the fractures in the crystal of my heart. Those fractures create the rainbows. In the words of Marianne Williamson:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”  

With faith like in child’s pose

Image from this Sarah Suero's yoga blog.

My name is Audrey and I haven’t been to yoga in eight months. Well, that was true until yesterday. When I moved back from seminary last summer I immediately got a gym membership and found a new Bikram studio. I went to Bikram regularly, but without the enthusiasm I used to have for it. The new studio didn’t feel like home. The focus it brought me in Alexandria was lost and it felt like a chore. The gym I joined felt big and impersonal after three years of workout sessions with my prayer partner at the school gym. I continued my workouts all summer thinking that if I just did what I’d become accustomed to it would eventually feel like home. It didn’t.

As the program year began at church and my stress level rose I did the opposite of what would have been good for me: I stopped going. First to fall away was yoga. Then went the gym. I could mention the length of commute to yoga during rush hour. I could talk about how big and intimidating and impersonal the gym was, but the truth is: I was mourning the relational aspects of working out with friends. Going to the gym by myself was sad. It was work when it used to be worship for me.

During seminary our class chaplains matched each member of the class with a prayer partner. Some prayer partners set weekly times for bible study and intercessory prayer. Some prayer partners went out for coffee or manicures together. My prayer partner and I went to the gym each night at seven o’clock. Our prayers didn’t start with “The Lord be with you” and they didn’t end with a literal “amen,” but they were holy and honest. 

I’ve noticed my energy and mood declining and I’ve resolved to do something about it.

Yesterday morning I went to a new yoga studio. They do hot yoga, but it’s not Bikram. At first I was Judgey-McJudgerson –

“There are no mirrors!”

“What is all this ‘Listen to your body. Do what feels good’ crap?”

“It’s not hot enough in here.”

But when I allowed myself to relax out of the strict Bikram mindset and to be fully present I realized how out of sync I have been with my body. I realized how much I needed to "listen to [my] body and do what feels good." I stretched and turned and sweated it out and it felt wonderful. The freedom of the prana flow was a release. As the class progressed I got dizzy. I tried to push through it but I realized I needed to rest. The lack of mirrors made me more comfortable when I descended into child’s pose while the rest of the class continued with the routine. The teacher came over and helped me to stretch my back out. As she pressed on my back she quietly sympathized, “ow,” when she felt the knots. As I stayed in child’s pose for a little longer I felt grateful: grateful for the lack of mirrors, grateful to be feeling the pain in my body that I didn’t know was there, and grateful for the ability and resolve I found to do something about it. Our bodies are gifts from God and how we use or abuse them is a reflection of our gratitude. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

I finished the class, but not without going into child’s pose to rest a couple more times. As I got ready for bed last night I could feel soreness that has been missing for a long time. It is a soreness that comes from a good workout. It is a “good ow.” 

Child's pose is a pose of total submission and surrender. In my practice it is a pose that allows me to let go of everything standing between myself and God. It is an acknowledgement that I can do nothing without Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13) At my ordination I wanted to lie prostrate at the point in the service when the congregation prays for the Holy Spirit to descend but it was not what my bishop wanted for the liturgy. I lay in child's pose on the floor of the sanctuary a couple days before my ordination in prayer and submission. Yesterday, entering child's pose helped to center and focus my prayers in a way I'd forgotten I needed.

Rarely are the good things in life easy. We have to work for them. We have to make choices. We have to decide that the end result is worth the journey. We have to realize that we are worth the effort. So my embodied prayer life is coming back. Spending 90 minutes in a hot room feeling my body just as it is and pushing it to be more is a place God has been waiting to meet me. I am glad I found my way back there. 

Blessed be the mothers

Have you ever woken up in the morning and lay in bed a moment longer just to marvel at how blessed you are? I find this an especially easy habit in the springtime. The birds have returned with their song and the sun finds its way to our windows earlier. During this Mother’s Day week, I find myself remembering my mother and being so very grateful that I was blessed to have her for the time I did. I think about all of the mothers in my life from my sister, aunts, and grandmother, to my girlfriends and mentors. I am blessed to have so many strong, female role models to look to and marvel at.

All of the focus on Mother’s Day also has me thinking about our images we employ to explore our relationship with the Triune God. Each week at church we profess our faith in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. For some individuals the masculinization of these Persons of the Trinity makes it difficult for them to connect to God for a variety of reasons. Likewise, the absence of pronouns when attempting to find a gender-neutral way of talking about God can make God seem impersonal and distant. What if this Mother’s Day could serve as an invitation to consider how our relationship with God would be changed if we thought of God as both our Father and our Mother.

There is biblical precedent for such imagery. In the psalms we find instances of God as a midwife attending a birth. The prophet Isaiah paints the picture of God as a woman in childbirth whose breath during labor pangs is the power of God “lead[ing] the blind” and “turn[ing] darkness into light.” (Isaiah 42:14-17) The Gospel of Luke shows us God as a mother hen desiring to gather her chicks under her wings. (Luke 12:34) In addition to these rich images, we can consider that the noun ruach –the Hebrew word for breath, wind, or spirit that Christians have come to name as the third Person of the Trinity– is a feminine word. Thus, even when these concrete masculine images of Father and Son are being spoken we can hold fast to the femininity of God inherent in the Holy Spirit.

This coming Sunday, when many of us go to Dorchester to march in solidarity with the mothers who have lost their children to violence – when you call your own mother – when you are awoken to breakfast in bed by your children – or when you worship here in Epiphany’s beautiful nave, I hope you will consider the question: How can I invite God to be a mother to me?