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Playing it Safe?

Berry —  March 21, 2013 — Leave a comment

So Monday about two-and-a-half weeks ago, I went cycling on my quick, noontime twelve-mile route.
On the second half of the ride I was enjoying a mighty tailwind, riding east on Mockingbird, approaching the hard right-hand turn at the end of Mockingbird and Garfield, when I felt my back tire go flat just before the turn. I kept riding since I was going fast, and the corner was not a good place to linger because too many cars cut the tangent, and because I was full of myself and thought I was smart.

But as I leaned into the turn, my now-flat back tire rolled out front under me.

It happened so quickly I didn’t know I was in trouble until my right hip bounced hard on the pavement. I apparently rolled over on my back, too, since the whole back of my jersey was covered in road grime.

I stayed still for a few seconds, lying in the road. The fall knocked the wind out of me. But I knew I couldn’t stay there. It was too dangerous to lie there where cars turning the corner wouldn’t see me.

I stood up, slowly and carefully, making sure nothing was broken or bleeding. A quick inventory revealed no broken bones, no road rash, and I didn’t even rip my Lycra shorts.

However, my whole body was shaking and my ribs were sore. I didn’t have the energy or concentration to fix the flat. I had my phone with me and considered phoning Cyndi to come get me, but since my bike still worked and I could walk, I decided to try riding home. I was afraid if I sat too much too soon I would stiffen up and be done for the day.

I crept home on my bike, a little over three miles, riding on a sore hip and a flat tire.

By the time I went to bed Monday night my entire right hip was indigo, and it was swollen up with fluid. It felt hard, like a melon, and it restricted my movement.

When I got up Tuesday morning to go to work, I felt dizzy and nauseous.

I wondered if I had sustained a concussion when I fell, but I checked my cycling helmet for any road damage and there weren’t any scratches on it anywhere.

Cyndi suggested I check my blood pressure. It was 30 points lower than usual. That explained why I was dizzy. All my blood was in my swelling hip.

I thought, “I’m 56 years old, I shouldn’t be doing this to myself;” but I also thought, “I’m grateful I can still go hard enough to get hurt.” It’s possible to live your entire adult life doing nothing but risk management. Playing it safe. Avoiding crashes. Staying home on the couch. I knew I didn’t want to live like that.

I felt like I could manage my wounds with simple first aid, but I was worried that we were flying all the way to San Jose on Friday and Hawaii on Saturday, and how would I make the trip sitting on my sore self.

As it turned out, the flights weren’t unbearably uncomfortable. And in Hawaii I even went for several two-mile runs.

I read in my Daily Bible from Joshua 1, and the story got me thinking about how quickly our lives can change. Maybe because I was sitting crooked, leaning to my left side because of my swollen right hip, all because of my own sudden change.

God said to Joshua, “Moses my servant is dead. Now then you …”

As in, “The king is dead, long live the king.”

Moses is gone. Now then you

Just like that.

Even though Joshua had lots of time to prepare for this transition, knowing God had appointed him to be next in line, the suddenness of the promotion must have shocked him.

The discomfort of transitions can surprise all of us. The speed of the actual moment too fast to comprehend. And so, too often we avoid scary transitions by fighting change.

Well, later that night at Starbuck’s in Poipu, with our friends, David and Brenda, I mentioned what Erwin McManus said about drinking coffee with the lid on. We leave the lid on the cup to minimize spilling and protect ourselves from getting burned, but in doing so we also eliminate most of the fragrance. And odor makes up half the taste of good coffee.

And so in life, too often we are so afraid of getting burned we take the safe route (avoid hard relationship questions, never try anything new, refuse to change our habits or preferences, hunker down during times of transition and wait until we feel ready), and in the end, we miss half the experience. We miss the fragrance of living.

We have to go without the lid, cannonball into the moment, and be strong and courageous. Take the lid off, even though it’s scary (getting burned with hot coffee is a real risk and can cause permanent damage to skin and stain your clothes (and so can bike crashes)).

Well, I took my bike to Peyton’s for a onceover to check for cracks in the frame or bent derailleurs. It is now hanging from my garage ceiling, looking clean and sleek and fast, and calling out my name every time I hobble past. I can’t wait to get back on it.

I have no desire to crash again; I don’t know how many times I can recover from this sort of thing. But I’m not ready to stop moving, either. Living a completely safe life with the lid on, sounds even worse. I have to keep moving to feed my heart and soul, even if the risk is an occasional crash.

However, I’ve learned a couple of things that should help. I’ll stop sooner when I have my next flat, and I’m sure I’ll take that one corner slower from now on, even on two good tires.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

 

In Cycling, Spiritual
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Knowing the Answer

Berry —  March 7, 2013 — 1 Comment

Why do I always want to know the right answer, right away?

Maybe the engineer side of me wants to fix the problem and prevent further trouble, minimizing the damage. Or the writer side of me assumes I can see the big picture and describe the full meaning.

I used to believe conflict occurred because God wanted to teach me something specific, and the sooner I learned the lesson the quicker the conflict would end. I saw that as a spiritual principle, whether about school work, or relationship troubles, or sickness, or whatever. I don’t know whether I was taught that, or if I made it up myself.

I don’t believe it now, at least not in the same way. Conflict, and the lessons I learn, are usually months if not decades apart. This became clear to me as I worked on my personal timeline in preparation for the Storyline Conference. I realized I’m only just now finding meaning in events that happened twenty or thirty years ago.

So the night before I left for the conference, I finished reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed. It’s an account of her solo hike on a large portion of the Pacific Crest Trail.

She began the hike mourning for her mother who died at 47, her own failed marriage, and her descent into serial sex and drug use. But like most long-distance hikers, her reasons for hiking changed the further she went. Finally, the movement itself is what changed her; the daily monotony of covering the miles spoke to her heart.

She was a newby when she started. She had never been hiking or backpacking and knew nothing about gear or survival in the wild. (At least she was aware of her ignorance. Worse would be a beginner who thought they knew how to do it.) She wrote, “Every part of my body hurt. Except my heart.”

One thing about the book that personally spoke to me was how she accepted her inability to articulate the meaning of her trip. Making a mental flash forward to four years (married) and nine years (kids) after finishing her hike, she wrote, “I couldn’t yet know … how it would be only then that the meaning of my hike would unfold inside of me, the secret I’d always told myself revealed.”

“It was all unknown to me then, as I sat on that white bench on the day I finished my hike. Everything except the fact that I didn’t have to know. That it was enough to trust that what I’d done was true. To understand its meaning without yet being able to say precisely what it was.”

Cheryl Strayed addressed one of the lessons I’m trying absorb nowadays: to wait for the answer. Often, that means to wait for a long time. I’m learning to slow down and don’t get in such a hurry to solve the puzzle or know the answer. For lasting change, I believe we have to linger in the moment.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe God wants us to know him and know his purpose in our life, but it was arrogant of me to think I could quickly figure out God’s purpose in the middle of my conflicts. More often, I was lucky to survive, much less be spiritually insightful.

So I need to slow down, and stop being in such a hurry to understand my story. I’m learning to linger in the moment, accept the changes without knowing why they happened, and trust that God will show me the answer when he is ready. Or when I’m ready, or old enough, or wise enough, to handle the answer. This cannot be passive lingering, however, but constant conversation with God.

Well, speaking of conflict and trouble, last Monday I crashed while riding my bike. Specifically, I was turning a fast right-hand corner when my back tire went flat, causing my wheel to skid out from under me. It happened so fast I didn’t even know I was in trouble until my right hip bounced off the pavement. Instantly, I was down. I hit the asphalt hard enough to knock the wind out of my lungs and make my ribs sore.

My first comment to myself was, “I’m 56 years old; I shouldn’t be doing this to myself.”

But now that its three days later and I can move round and sit up without getting dizzy, I tell myself, “I’m grateful I can still go hard enough at 56 to hurt myself. It means I haven’t given up.”

Yet, I can’t help but wonder: what should I learn from that crash (other than to stop immediately upon getting a flat)?

I don’t know, yet. And I’m comfortable with that sort of conclusion. My engineer self, and my writer self, wants to find meaning right away, but I’ll just have to linger a bit longer and listen to God.

 

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

 

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

In backpacking & hiking, Cycling, family, Spiritual
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Meaningful Stories

Berry —  February 28, 2013 — Leave a comment

“If you don’t have a scar, you don’t have a story; and if you don’t have a story, you didn’t really leave home.”

That’s what I told my nephew, Kevin, who was 8 years old at the time, after he took a scary fall while climbing rocks during a camping trip in Fort Davis, Texas. He fell between two large boulders, skinning both his back and his chest.

What I said seemed to help. Rather than going for sympathy by complaining to everyone about falling on the rocks, he was the courageous hero and kept pulling up his shirt to showing off his wounds. In fact, he was disappointed when it all healed. I think he was hoping for a permanent mark so he could tell his story forever.

Without a story, it’s as if you never left home.

I took many business trips to Tulsa during the 1980s, and I enjoyed them all, but the only one I actually remember is the one with the coolest story – the time I was stranded across the Arkansas River in a scary thunderstorm.

And for all our fun ski trips to Snowmass Colorado during the 1990s, the one that hangs in my memory is the year we stopped in Denver on the way home and I took time to run around Washington Park while Cyndi took a fitness certification test. That run was instrumental in forming my opinions about city parks and public spaces, which eventually led to four years on the Parks and Recreation Commission and twelve years on the City Council. That story from Denver changed me.

Most of my business and vacation trips from before 1986, before I started writing, blend together, because I didn’t capture any stories to distinguish them. That may be the biggest gift I’ve received from writing; I’ve documented my stories.

But not every story has the same value. Donald Miller wrote, “If the character doesn’t change, the story hasn’t happened yet.” And for me, it’s usually the conflict stories that change me. Good-news stories might make me happy, but they leave me unchanged.

Also, I don’t know how to be clever or funny when writing about easy times, perfect weather, or beautiful scenery (which ruins any attempt to describe my trip to San Diego last weekend). Who wants to read about running long and fast with no pain? Not only does it sound unbelievable, in a strange way, it doesn’t even sound desirable. For me, as a writer, good news isn’t funny, and is seldom interesting. (There are exceptions: the Washington Park is one of my best life stories.) Mostly, stories need conflict to be meaningful.

So this past weekend I attended a Storyline Conference in San Diego, led by author Donald Miller. I told everyone that it was a writing conference, but it was really about how to live a meaningful life.

Sure enough, as I sat taking notes during the Saturday afternoon session, I started questioning my own interpretation of my life story. As in, if writing needs conflict to be meaningful, why do I expect my own life to be trouble free? Why am I so surprised to look back at the negative turns in my timeline?

I realized that I grew up expecting to sail through life with all green lights. Why? Because I was a good rule follower and commandment keeper. I called it grace, but it was really karma; as in, what goes around comes around. I thought that since I was a good boy, I should have an easy life.

So when the first big bad news of my life landed on me, I didn’t know what to do about it. The shock of my own vulnerability haunted me for the next thirty years, decades longer than the original incident. And here’s the thing: the actual conflict isn’t what bothered me so much as the idea that God didn’t keep his end of the bargain.

At the conference, I realized that I’d been thinking about conflict – negative turns, personal disasters, grand failures, and epic fails, completely wrong for most of my life. I assumed them to be hurdles to jump and obstacles to overcome, placed in my path to make sure I was paying attention and to throw token trust toward God.

But those stories were bigger than that. They made me who I am.

A life of all green lights might make for faster traveling, but it wouldn’t be interesting. It wouldn’t be meaningful, and it would have nothing to offer anyone else.

And there’s this: while driving in San Diego, I actually looked forward to red lights. That was the only safe time to stop, check my road map, and figure where I was. I needed conflict to find my bearings.

Well, I’m not eight years old, which means I don’t have to go around pulling up my shirt to show off my scars. I can feel them just fine on my own.

I’m learning to do more than feel them; I’m learning to own them, redeem them, and know that I am a different man because of them.

I would have little to offer the men and couples in my ministry if I didn’t have those scars. I wouldn’t have any stories to tell. It would be as if I never left home. It would be a boring, meaningless life.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

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Battling Old Habits

Berry —  February 21, 2013 — Leave a comment

How much of your life is controlled by old habits? For me, the answer is, too much.

We were recently in San Angelo, where Cyndi attended a workshop and I hung out around town (meaning I found places to read, write, and run.) It was a typical weekend for us.

I ran about four miles along the Concho River, and I loved it. San Angelo has invested a lot of money in making this part of town beautiful, and I could tell from the fresh construction they are still investing.

There weren’t as many runners along the trail as I expected. I anticipated a crowd of runners and cyclists, like those I find around White Rock Lake in Dallas, or Town Lake in Austin. But of course, both of those trails are much longer and serve a huge population.

Since the section of trail along the Concho is only a couple of miles long, I suppose local runners who need to put in big miles go somewhere else. Even so, I was happy to see about a dozen other runners.

When I was about a mile from finishing my run, a man fifteen years older than me, passed smoothly on my left. He was not blazing fast, but he was very fluid and looked comfortable. He didn’t look like he had any pains in his knees or hips or feet. He looked happy. I was jealous.

The curious thing is, after the man passed me, I leaned a bit more forward and increased my turnover just a little. I picked up my own pace without even thinking about it. I did it unconsciously, and it didn’t hurt my knees any more than my previous pace.

I asked myself, “So why hadn’t I run like that all morning?”

The reason was, sadly, that my pace is usually determined more by habit than by fitness or skill. I’m so used to compensating for sore knees I fail to test them. I forget to see if I can go faster. I settle into my shuffle, proud of myself for moving instead of sitting, proud that I still consider four miles to be a short run, and leave it at that. My legs converge to their comfortable, habitual pace and go on and on without any input from me.

Well, that is not satisfying.

A few years ago, I read a book of essays titled, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, who was misdiagnosed with hemochromatosis (too much iron in her blood). Later, when she found out she wasn’t sick after all, she was a little sad. “I had myself an explanation for everything that had ever been wrong with me,” she wrote. “I wanted to hold my flaws close but controlled like a balloon tied to my wrist with a string. If anything went wrong, all I had to do was tug at the string and bring my explanation down for others to see. This is who I am and this is why.” When she lost her disease, she lost her excuses.

As for me, I often think, “I’m handling this situation just fine. I’m compensating. I’m getting by. All I have to do is get used to this limp and downgrade my expectations a bit and I’ll be OK. At least I’m surviving.”

That doesn’t sound much like adventure, does it?

The thing about habits is you have to choose. Not every old habit is bad. For example, I have a habit of coming home to Cyndi every day, and a habit of reading from my Daily Bible every day, and a habit of mostly following the posted speed limit and wearing my seatbelt, and wearing my helmet when I bike.

The trick is to identify the old habits that serve no purpose than to hold me back and hinder growth. I have to throw those over the side.

So I got another chance. This past weekend we were back on the road, this time in Dallas. It was the same scenario, with Cyndi attending a workshop and me reading, writing, and running. Only this time I found my crowd of runners while enjoying a seven-mile out-and-back on the east side of White Rock Lake. It was a brilliant blue, cool, bright morning, and I loved it.

And, more than that, my average pace was a minute-per-mile faster than it was the previous weekend in San Angelo even though I ran almost twice as far. What made the difference? This time I thought about what I was doing the entire run. I intentionally fought against my own habits.

Here is the problem: It’s possible for us to live so long with injury that we forget how to live without it. We even forget how good life can be. We might even teach ourselves to enjoy limping. After all, it’s a convenient excuse to explain away poor performances.

This problem with habits is much bigger than simply running around the lake. How many poor relationships are hindered because we wallow in old habits? How many New Year’s resolutions flounder because we don’t intentionally fight against old patterns? How many God-given gifts do we hide from view out of fear, out of habit?

There is no adventure is blaming old habits for our poor performances. We can live life better than that.

 

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

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Ash Wednesday

Berry —  February 14, 2013 — Leave a comment

The service opened with the lyrics, “You alone are my heart’s desire, and I long to worship you,” and I knew I was in trouble.

Certain songs are permanently linked to soft times in my life, and singing those songs opens me up, like a chink in my dragon scales, leaving a clear path to my heart. And so, that’s how my first ever Ash Wednesday service began.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the 40-day period of prayer and abstinence known as Lent. The name comes from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of worshipers as a reminder and celebration of human mortality, and as a sign of mourning and repentance to God.

Through the years, I’ve seen people walking around with an ashen cross on their forehead, and I knew what it meant, but I’d never participated. We always had something else to do at our own church.

But this year, First Presbyterian Church in Midland invited my church, First Baptist Church, to join them for Ash Wednesday. It was another one of those serendipitous relationships that have grown out of an unfortunate fire in our building. A surprising bit of grace.

The Presbyterians made us feel very welcome. In fact, sitting side-by-side in our church clothes, we all looked alike. Both churches are too large to know everyone, so there was a bit of uncertainty whether the new person sitting next to you was one of us, or one of them. As it should be.

After the service, I went to our friends’ house for a five-family potluck. Twice, someone came and sat next to me and looked at the smudge of ash on my forehead and asked, “Don’t you go to First Baptist?” The Baptists they knew didn’t usually go for Ash Wednesday, or Lent, or Maundy Thursday, or anything like that.

And my mark, originally a cross, was now more of a smudge. Of course, it could have been that way all along. I have no idea since I was the only person who couldn’t see it. And besides, it was painted on my forehead by the least experienced of the available ministers. Who knows if he used the best technique.

Well, I’ve spent my entire life in Baptist churches, and Baptists don’t do liturgy. In fact, we run away from it as fast as we can. We don’t even like someone reading a printed prayer; if it isn’t straight from your heart, if it isn’t improvised on the spot, we aren’t sure God actually pays attention.

So because it is so different from my upbringing, a liturgical service always catches me off balance. Liturgy is not magic. It can become stale and repetitious just like any form of worship. But being surprised by God is magic, however it happens.

I suppose I was more susceptible to surprise than I normally would’ve been because I’d already spent a large portion of the day thinking about surrender. It was the topic of discussion for a lesson I was to teach early Thursday morning; surrender was firmly on my mind.

As I read along with everyone else: “Open our eyes that we may see ourselves with clarity and truthfulness, that we may have eyes to see all that is within us that is not pleasing to you,” I understood something. There is an element of surrender in reading a liturgy aloud. You end up saying things you aren’t brave enough to say on your own initiative.

The thing is, I tend to be good at surrendering easy stuff, the stuff I don’t mind giving up, the parts of my life I have no control over anyway.

But I don’t like surrendering my favorites, like freedom, for example. I don’t like giving my schedule and time-management to someone else. I don’t like giving away my weekends, or weeknights, or days, or hours, or even minutes. I don’t like surrendering my attention span or projects or goals.

I left the Ash Wednesday service quickly and quietly, working my way silently through the crowd and out the back door. I was too soft to talk to anyone, and I wanted to linger in the moment a bit longer.

As I was crossing the street to the parking lot, I heard another song in my head. This one by Rich Mullins: “Surrender don’t come natural to me; I’d rather fight You for something
I don’t really want than to take what You give that I need.”

 

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

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How Much Can You See?

Berry —  February 7, 2013 — Leave a comment

Does God intentionally hide himself from us? Sometimes it feels that way, doesn’t it?

I was reading a cool story in my Daily Bible, from Exodus 33:17-23, when Moses said to God, “Show me your glory.”

God said, “I will cause my goodness to pass in front of you … but you cannot see my face … I will remove my hand and you will see my back.”

So Moses asked to see God’s glory, but he got God’s goodness instead. He couldn’t see God’s face, but he was allowed to see God’s back.

I doubt there is a big theological difference between glory and goodness, or face and back. I think God wanted to reveal himself to a much-loved and trusted friend, and showed as much of himself as he could.

Maybe Moses would have melted down if he saw all of God. Or maybe he would have seen nothing since God is so huge. Maybe he needed small details to focus on since the full nature of God was too much to take in.

I don’t know; I am guessing. But I don’t believe God was being coy, or contrary, or even hard-to-get. He doesn’t tell Moses – “If you handle this wilderness adventure like a big boy, I will show you some more.” No, I believe God was being generous with himself. He showed as much as Moses could take. Too much too soon wouldn’t help him see more clearly.

Here is an example: My ten-year-old nephew, Kevin, asked me, “So what are the Lord of the Ring movies about?” He has trouble seeing past the image of Gollum, having been creeped out by seeing one of the movies when he was too young. And in fact, I hardly know how to answer him. To describe the story behind the LOTR movies is complex even for people who’ve spent their life reading the books and watching the movies. I told him, “Frodo has to destroy a magic ring so the rightful king could be restored to his thrown.”

That hardly does justice to ten-hours’ worth of movies, but to explain further wouldn’t have helped Kevin understand. More details would only have confused him further.

I think there was an element of that between God and Moses. Showing more wouldn’t have helped Moses understand. It would have confused him further.

Another example: If you meet someone on an airplane – one of the few places where we sit close to strangers and have plenty of time to talk – and they ask, “Tell me about yourself,” what do you say?

Do you dive into childhood stories, life victories, and emotional wounds, telling about your goals and dreams, listing off New Year’s resolutions, spilling the content of your heart? I don’t. I doubt even my most extroverted friends tell their whole story to strangers.

Why is that? Without the context of a deeper relationship and shared history, most of what you tell won’t make sense anyway. Too much too soon does not become deeper understanding.

But then there is another question from Exodus 33: Why did God show himself at all? Why not tell Moses it couldn’t be done? And even more, why did Moses think he had the right to ask it of God?

I think part of the answer lies with the traumatic moment they shared. They had just discovered the entire nation worshipping a golden calf in full Egyptian fashion, and it broke both their hearts – God’s and Moses’s. God was so angry he was ready to destroy the people and start over with Moses, and Moses threw himself in front of that anger to plead for mercy and grace.

When we go through something traumatic together, it pulls us closer. We become combat buddies, of sorts. And mutual survival of a struggle earns us the right to share more of ourselves. We learn to trust each other through shared hardship.

I have hiked Guadalupe Peak at least a dozen times with the Iron Men group, in addition to multiple trips up Tejas Trail and Permian Reef Trail. And something happens to conversations as the miles on the trail pile up. Guys start sharing more about themselves and opening their hearts in a way that could never happen back home in a classroom. Not every guy; not every trip; but guys have told deep secrets they’ve held close for years. Why? Because we earn trust through the shared struggle of the hike.

And so, the more of life we experience alongside God, the more we’ll learn to trust him, and the more of himself he can reveal to us. We have to grow further up and further in to before we can see God more clearly.

Maybe God allows us to travel extremely difficult trails because that is the only way we’ll know him better. Maybe living through those moments when God seems to be hiding are the very times we learn to trust him so we can see him more clearly.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

 

In backpacking & hiking, Spiritual , , , , ,
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I Wasn’t Brave

Berry —  January 31, 2013 — 1 Comment

 

 

OK, I will admit this in print. I was a wuss  boy on Tuesday. Twice.

I left the office about 11:00 AM, where admittedly I work in a cubicle buried deep within the bowels of an office building so I have no idea of the weather outside, with full intentions of cycling over the noon hour, but by the time I got home I had chickened out.

I realize the wind was blowing 38 mph (according to The Weather Channel) with gusts of, what, about 50 mph, and there were tumbleweeds blowing down the roads to my neighborhood and West Texas dust filled the air, and so it would be acceptable for a reasonable person to decide not to ride. But I hate having to bow down to the weather. I had a goal to ride, and it was on my schedule to ride today, so why should I let the silly weather tell me what to do?

I don’t know why, but I did.

I salvaged my attitude by joining Cyndi, Daryl, and Amber for a bowl of Southwest Chicken Chili at Jason’s, but still. I was a wuss.

So in order to recover my esteem I decided to go for a run after work, before Taco Tuesday. The storm had not diminished, so I knew it would be a tough run, but I also knew the hot shower afterward would make it worth the abuse.

I dressed in my cold-wind gear. I keyed up my new iPod to chapter one of part three of The Honourable Schoolboy, by John le Carre. I checked the batteries in my headlamp since I knew it would get dark before I got back home. I left through the back, lowered the garage door, and moved west down the alley toward my favorite dirt roads. But I got no further. Once again, I turned into a wuss boy. The second time in one day.

I tried to run, but the wind was so bad I could hardly stand up, the tumbleweeds were still blowing down my route, and the flapping from my hood made it impossible to hear about George Smiley. I was miserable, and I realized that if I fought my way through four miles it would just make me mad. So I turned around and went back inside.

Bummer. Defeated by the weather, twice in one day.

I suppose if I had a stronger reason for fighting the wind, I would have finished my run. For example, if I had been carrying medicine to orphans trapped deep in the mesquite pasture, or if I had a message for the British Secret Intelligence Service that had to be delivered immediately, or if I thought Cyndi would be so proud she would throw herself at me as a reward for being brave, then I might have continued.

But I didn’t. I went back inside, put on warm clothes, and poked around on my computer while watching a video for Sunday morning.

I should take solace in the knowledge that maybe I’ve become wiser as I’ve gotten older. That’s usually a risky assumption, but could be true. I don’t have to fight every battle set before me, the wind won’t continue to blow every day, and it’s OK to rake a day off.

Sometimes the wiser thing to do is stand down and stop bucking the wind.

Just this week I read the story of Jacob wrestling with God (Genesis 32), which resulted in a permanent hip injury and corresponding limp, and I realized how Jacob would have been wiser to stop wrestling, surrender to God, and listen to the lesson God had for him. But he didn’t surrender, he fought on.

I don’t always have to fight on, whether against the wind (like on Tuesday), or against God (like Jacob).

I haven’t decided whether standing down as an act of will removes the wuss boy label, but that’s the story I am telling Cyndi. I still want her to be proud enough of me to throw herself in my direction.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

In Uncategorized
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Performance Enhancing Drug

Berry —  January 24, 2013 — Leave a comment

The first thing I want to say is that chemical intervention in the human body can work like magic.

The second thing I should say, or rather, finally, spit it out – Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhcckk-PTOOO, there, much better – is this: I have a performance enhancing substance in my body.

I know, I know, you’ve probably seen me running or cycling and your first thought is, “Performance Enhancing Drugs? No harm no foul,” considering how below optimum my enhanced performance can be. I would have to use every PED known to the UCI in order to be even slightly competitive.

However, since about 2004 I haven’t taken a step, or run a stride, without thinking about my knees and how to extend them a few more miles. People ask me often, “Are you limping today?” and I always answer, “Yes,” knowing that limping has become my regular walk.

The diagnosis is osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease that leads to loss of cartilage, resulting in decreased movement. The main symptom is pain, causing loss of ability and often stiffness.

You might suspect the cause for my condition to be all the miles I’ve run since 1978, but according to current scientific research, you would be wrong. Running has not been found to increase one’s risk of developing osteoarthritis. In fact, regular exercise delays onset of symptoms and extends the life of the joint. As in, use it or lose it.

So back to my opening confession: last Friday I got a Synvisc injection in each knee. It’s an artificial substance (made from rooster combs) which acts like a lubricant and a shock absorber in the joint. In the short term, it relieves pain and restores movement. In the long term, it delays knee replacement.

My only complaint about Synvisc is that the FDA only allows injections once every six months. I would install a portal in my knee for continuous feed if I could get by with it. Like a grease zerk.

There is no use whining about my running career cut short by disability. I was never competitive. For me, it has always been about meditating on my feet. Still, I had dreams to go further more often.

Just this week I read from Donald Miller’s Storyline blog:

It’s an aching truth we are not guaranteed our dreams will become a reality.

Dreaming is one of the things that make us human. We imagine a better future and then design a plan to make it happen. For me, I wish I had worked this particular dream a little harder back before 2004.

Donald Miller continued:

I believe a human being has more than an ability to dream. We have a responsibility to dream. And when our dreams don’t become a reality, we must realize our dreams have power all the same. They can motivate those around us. Our dreams can inspire generations who will keep the work going. We must understand the realization of the dream is not so much the gift as the dream itself.

And so, with the help of a performance enhancing drug, or maybe I should call it a dream enhancing drug, I am back to running longer and cycling further. It isn’t a huge change, more of an incremental improvement, but it still counts.

How about you? Do you have dreams still waiting for action? What enhances your performance?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

 

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

 

In Cycling, Running
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Give it Away

Berry —  January 17, 2013 — Leave a comment

Question: What truth do you feel obligated to pass along to others?

Last Sunday morning our adult Bible study class took a tour of the new construction at our church – a remodeled worship center, chapel, and visitor center – which will be open for use in a couple of months. It was great to see the progress, but the time spent touring meant I had only a short time to teach the morning’s lesson.

I didn’t want to dive into an Old Testament prophet with so little time, so I talked instead about some verses I read recently in my Daily Bible.

Do you have Bible verses that reach out to grab you, calling you by name? These are some of mine.

“What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you – guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” (2 Timothy 1:13-14)

The Apostle Paul was telling his young student, Timothy, how to live. He was saying, “Do what I do.”

To be honest, for most of my teaching career, that notion that I should expect people to live as I do has made me uncomfortable. Who am I to say something like that?

However, in the margin of my Daily Bible I have a series of notes, each from a different year, and they describe my personal journey through these verses.

“2001 – The longer I teach, the more comfortable I am to say this.”

“2006 – In fact, this is the heart of my ministry as a teacher and writer.”

“2011 – I shouldn’t teach anything unless I believe this.”

The cool thing for me was that once I got over worrying about how I could say, “Do what I do,” a worry that was too self-focused anyway, I was able to notice something deeper in those verses.

The verbs – hear, keep, guard, and entrust – describe a progressive deepening, an embrace, or ownership, of the message.

First, we HEAR something from someone we respect.

Then, because what we heard is important, and because we trust the person who shared it, we decide to KEEP it. We remember it. This requires a decision on our part since we don’t keep everything we hear.

At some point, merely remembering isn’t enough, and we realize the need to GUARD it. We make sure to follow it. We decide to own it. This requires another level of commitment, since we don’t own everything we remember. We remember many useless facts that have no effect on how we live. But when we own this “good deposit”, when we guard it, we have committed to living it out through our daily lives.

And finally, once we realize that what we’ve heard, kept, and guarded, has changed our life and drawn us closer to God, we have to share it. Because it’s more than data, it’s the truth, a good deposit, and it was ENTRUSTED to us.

This verse is talking about more than a transfer of useful information. Something of value has been deposited in our lives with the expectation of a return on investment. The only way to guard the truth is to give it away. A truth kept secret will eventually cease to exist, so we are obligated to give away what we’ve received. And that is that heart of being a Christ follower – giving yourself away.

As you make plans for 2013, ask yourself: What have you HEARD that you finally need to OWN? What has been ENTRUSTED to you that you need to GIVE AWAY? What truth do you feel obligated to pass along?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Find me at http://berrysimpson.com and learn more about my books. Or find me at  http://twitter.com/berrysimpson and at http://www.facebook.com/BerrySimpsonAuthor

 

In Spiritual ,
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Life-Changing Moments

Berry —  January 10, 2013 — Leave a comment

“Before I could convince myself otherwise, I paid the entry fee and changed my life.” – Martin Dugard

Martin Dugard, author of To Be A Runner, wrote that about entering his first race, the opening move in a life of running.

My guess is that Dugard had no idea how important that first entry fee was when he paid it. Most life-changing moments are subtle when they happen. In fact, if we knew they would change how we were going to live we would probably get scared and back slowly away. It is usually better NOT to know the future.

One of my life-changing moments happened when I first started running, in the summer of 1978, between my first and second senior year of college. At the time, I could never have imagined how many years I would keep doing it, or how it would change my life. I had no idea of the greater running community or the existence of races or training or anything like that. All I knew was that I needed to do something physical to lose some weight and win back the affection of a girl who’d left me for a track-and-field jock. It was the first time in my life to do anything physical on my own initiative.

Those first few miles in Stan Smith Adidas tennis shoes and Levi cut-offs were the beginning of a practice that has lasted 34 years and covered over 36,000 miles. Who could have anticipated that?

Somewhere along the way, I picked up a Runner’s World magazine and caught a glimpse of the bigger running community. I saw photos of people in races who looked like me, and that planted a seed that I could do it what they were doing.

I entered my first race in the summer of 1980. A Lubbock radio station was pitching the Cap’n D’s five-mile and ten-mile race as a (joking) alternative to the Moscow Summer Olympics, which President Jimmie Carter boycotted due to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.

The racecourse consisted of two five-mile loops. I entered the ten-mile race, having run nine miles a couple of times in Brownfield, thinking I was ready for the big time. However, it was a mistake to try to run so far. I knew nothing about racing and I lined up at the front of the pack, oblivious to the differences between my body shape and the bodies of the other guys who belonged on the front. Caught up in the adrenaline of the moment, and being stupid, I ran too fast the first lap. I had to pull up and finish after only five miles. I felt miserable, I almost threw up, but I was so happy I couldn’t stop telling my story to Cyndi. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was a changed man.

Not long after that first race, I discovered running writer, George Sheehan. I bought his first book, Dr. Sheehan on Running, at a grocery store in Duncan, Oklahoma, while at a two-week oilfield school, in the fall of 1980. Every evening I read a few pages from the book and then went outside to go out running. I noticed that it was possible to write about life and spirituality around the framework of running. It was a seed planted.

Running races led to new friends, and those friends led to my twenty-year involvement in the running club in Midland, Texas. I eventually served a couple of terms as club president, but more importantly, I served for several years as newsletter editor. And it was with that newsletter I started writing stories about running and life. Many of those stories ended up in my first book, Running With God, published twenty-five years later.

The thing is, I wonder what would have taken over my life if I hadn’t started running back in 1978. Would I be a writer if not for that newsletter? Who knows. It’s impossible to know such things.

But those first few miles down Sanger Street in Hobbs, New Mexico changed my life. And those miles are still changing me – I’ve run three times this week, and here I am writing about it, again.

So many things happen to us in the course of our life and we can never know in the moment how important they will become. Usually, we are just happy to have lived through it and survived. It is only when looking back that we see how our life was changed.

I have been reading the story of Abraham these past few days, and few of the events of  his life pointed toward the great man he would become. What seems to be random and unfocused action on his part was used by God over the course of Abraham’s life to turn him into the father of a nation.

I believe God works that same way in our own lives. It’s hard to see the importance as we live through the moment, but later we see how his grace turned us into different people. Life-changing moments are a gift.

 

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

 

Find me at www.berrysimpson.com, or www.twitter.com/berrysimpson, or http://www.facebook.com/berry.simpson

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