Saturday night was our CornFest #4. We had about 60 people (counting
babies) in our house in Midland
to eat fresh sweet corn. It’s become an important tradition for our family and
for many of our friends. The freshly-picked corn is wonderful, and watching a
room full of people gnawing away on bright yellow ears is a fun spectacle.

But there is more.

We do this, in part, to honor to Cyndi’s family who grew this corn on
their farms in northeast New Mexico,
and show them we value their lives. It is also homage to Cyndi’s Grandfather,
Forrest Atchley, who passed away in 1999, who was a larger-than-life patriarch
in every sense of the word. Even as we are preparing corn at our house in
Midland I still picture Forrest standing proudly beside his pick-up, the bed
filled with fresh corn, his heart full and face grinning as dozens of family
and neighbors gather around to shuck the husks from the ears, cook the corn in
a giant black cast-iron pot, and serve it to everyone.

But the most important reason we do this is for the relationships. I
doubt we’d go to this much effort just for food, but feeding relationships is a
different matter.

Each year shucking the corn is a big part of our tradition. We don’t do
any of it ahead of time, but save it all for our guests. This year I loaded up
the ears in my gray yard cart and hauled it around to our side yard under the
porch. As guests arrived at our house they were invited to shuck a few ears …
not, as many suspected, to earn their dinner, but rather to share in the
experience. For many this is their first time to handle corn in this way, and
we didn’t want anyone to miss the opportunity. At first the shucking operation
was random and chaotic, but eventually my organizational-wizard friends, Paul
and Joe, had it moving like a
rehearsed assembly line.

We also cooked hamburgers. When I say “we,” I mean that Cyndi spent the
afternoon grinding wheat and baking fresh buns for the hamburgers, and my
friend Mark stood next to the hot grill and cooked all the hamburger patties
and hotdogs, while I walked around with a full heart and big grin in true
patriarchal fashion. I guess I learned a lot as Forrest’s grandson-in-law.

We had a lot more young families this year, which means we had a lot of
babies and young children. In fact, they set up baby camp in our hallway,
stacking diaper bags and blankets along the south wall. It was fun to see the
kids running around playing with each other, and then later, seeing them with
corn kernels pasted to their noses and cheeks.

We also had a lot of grandparent-aged families, which of course make up
our own peer group, friends we’ve grown up with and known since we were all
having babies of our own.

It occurred to me later that I should have made arrangements for the
older crowd to hold the babies and give the younger moms and dads a break. It
probably would’ve made both groups happy.

The next morning at church Paul said, “You and Cyndi do way too much
work for all the rest of us.” (It was an interesting comment from the hardest
working man I know, who is famous for giving his time and efforts to other
people.) It reminded me of a conversation from the movie Jeremiah Johnson …

Bear Claw: “You’ve come far, Pilgrim.”

Jeremiah Johnson: “Feels like
far.”

Bear Claw: “Were it worth the trouble?”

Jeremiah Johnson: “What
trouble?”

Sometimes we go a long way to make and keep relationships, but it
doesn’t seem that much trouble. It doesn’t feel that far.

I don’t know if having a houseful of people over to eat corn is a lot
of trouble, but I know it isn’t too much. Our friends are the weight and glory
of our lives, and the only way to sustain and grow relationships is to feed
them. We would be so much poorer if they didn’t come over often. We are surrounded
by families, young and old, who love us and love God, and they are one of the
biggest means of grace for us. How would we know God apart from the
relationships he has given us?

Ode to Sweet Corn, by Garrison Keillor

As we travel along on our earthly path
Through this beautiful world God has made
Tramping along at a stately pace
Like elephants on parade.
We discover the pleasure of grass and sun
And music and light and talk
And the joy when a day of hard work is done
And you've cleared five acres of rocks.
The joy as you climb in your bed at night
The joy of the brand-new morn
But of all these pleasures the greatest delight
Is a supper of fresh sweet corn.

O that fresh sweet corn that the Lord sent down
So we know how heaven will be,
No grief, no tears, just the young golden ears
Plenty for you and for me.
Though the road be hard and deep is the night
And the future we cannot see
Take my hand, dear Lord, and I'll be all right
If you'll save a few ears for me.

Photos from CornFest
2010: http://www.flickr.com/photos/berrysimpson/sets/72157624684712432/

Photos from the
original CornFest, at the Tramperous Ranch, in Union County, New Mexico:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/berrysimpson/sets/72157624684712432/

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

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running
With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact
Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

I recently enjoyed a big buttered
sweet roll with coffee at the Frontier Restaurant in Albuquerque, while Cyndi and Tanya attended
an early yoga class. When I was in high school we came to the University of New Mexico
for All State Music, and it was part of the ritual to eat breakfast at the
Frontier. I hadn’t been there since 1974, and I wouldn’t have thought of going
there this time except Cyndi reminded me. I came to renew a memory and reset an
experience. The sweet role and coffee were good but the renewal was better.

Have you done something like that
recently? Have you returned to an old haunt or repeated a previous experience
simply to reinforce your memory?

The first time I remember doing
something like that intentionally was going to Mesquite’s
BBQ in Lubbock
in a blinding rainstorm one afternoon in 1994. I was on my way back to Midland from a business trip to Vernon, Texas.

The memory I was after happened when
Cyndi and I were first married and she was still attending Texas Tech in Lubbock we met at Mesquite’s
for lunch one blustery winter day. It was one of our best dates ever. Cyndi was
especially attractive in her soft sweater and I was so hot for her I couldn’t
sit still. I go back to Mesquite’s
every chance I get to relive that moment.

Last week I went to Dallas with Cyndi. She was
attending a church media conference called Echo at Watermark Community Church,
and I did what I usually do – take a backpack full of books and my journal, and
go underground for a couple of days. I also ran one lap around White Rock Lake
Thursday morning and it was great.

Well, in fact it got hot and humid
and it was really brutal and I got dehydrated and I was lucky to make it all
the way around. But besides that, it was great. White Rock Lake is one of our favorite places to
run and I am disappointed  if we are in
the area and don’t have time to make it.

Unfortunately I was too worn out
after running to go to our favorite La Madeleine Restaurant afterward and reconnect
another great memory. It’s mostly a cold weather memory anyway.

One winter Saturday Cyndi and I ran
the Lake and then warmed up over coffee and tea and buttered bread with jelly
near the big fireplace at La Madeleine at Preston and Forest.
This time, it would’ve been hard to imagine Cyndi’s silhouette against the
fireplace after a 90*F run, so I didn’t go. But running the Lake
was great; more about renewal than fitness, and I was glad for the opportunity.

And this past weekend I took my
7-year-old nephew, Kevin, on a
two-night camping trip at the Ft.
Davis State
Park. We joined Corey and his son Carter. I had
two objectives for the weekend: (1) do manly stuff with Kevin,
like sleeping in a tent when there are bugs inside, eating hot dogs when they have
dirt and ashes on them, hiking without complaining, using the bushes, and
playing in the fire; and (2) repeat some of the experiences I enjoyed with my
dad when we used to go to Ft. Davis, like touring the fort and climbing the
rocks alongside the highway. We did all of those and Kevin
had a good time. He came home with cuts and scrapes to show off to all the
other men and to draw sympathy from the women. It was a successful weekend with
Kevin, but it was also great for
renewing my memories.

I’m not sure why I am telling these
stories about memory renewal; it isn’t a nostalgia grab, or merely reliving the
good old days. I think this is connected to one of my favorite verses that I
recently rediscovered in my Daily Bible, Jeremiah 6:16, “Stand at the crossroads
and look; and ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in
it.”

Refreshing old memories has less to
do with sentiment and more to do with asking the questions again – which is the
good way? How can I walk in it?

P.S. Much to my surprise, the White
Rock run did me some good. My legs and knees had been stiff and sore the entire
month of July, but after 9 miles around White Rock Lake, they felt much better. Who
would’ve expected that? Memories aren’t the only things that can be renewed. It
works for knees, too.

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

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running
With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact
Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

While my tendency to try new things
and experiment is a part of my personality I am most proud of, a couple of
weeks ago I might have carried it too far. I was lucky to walk away.

I could blame Seth Godin for it all
since his writing challenges me to be brave and adventurous. His has become one
of the most influential voices in my life these past months. He told a story
about an ultra-lightweight backpacker: Wolf was carrying a super-small pack which
weighed 14 pounds including food and water. When asked how he got his pack
weight so low, he replied, “All you need to know it that it’s possible.” Godin
says that somewhere in the world someone is doing something that you decided
couldn’t be done, and they are calling your bluff.

I have been running once a week in
my Vibram Five-Fingers shoes, which are actually gloves for the feet and not
really shoes and have nothing to do with fingers. I’ve written a lot about that
already. But barefoot running, or in my case, quasi-barefoot running, has
intrigued me, and I have continued to read internet accounts of people who run
truly barefoot –skin on the ground – on a regular basis. There is a
back-to-earth hippie element to it that does not attract me in the least, but
there is also a foot-strengthening and mid-foot strike element that has real
value. I have weak and tender feet and I have used that as an excuse not to try
real barefooting, but those stories I read – they keep calling my bluff.

So one Tuesday I decided to finish
my regular three-mile Vibram run by doing a few laps on the track in my naked
bare feet. It is a modern rubberized soft-surface track, smooth and flat, so it
seemed the perfect place to take the next step. I ran to the track, pulled off my
Vibrams, and the first thing I noticed was the surface of the track was
scorching hot. I couldn’t believe how hot it was. I had expected it to be much
cooler than the concrete sidewalk or asphalt street. I guess I thought it would
be more like that surface around swimming pools that never really gets hot even
in the middle of a sunny day.

I was wrong. It was so hot I knew I
couldn’t stand still and get used to it like you do when the bath water is too
hot. This was hot enough to do serious damage to my feet. So I hopped across
the track to the football turf assuming green grass – even artificial turf –
would be cooler.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The turf was
just as hot as the grass. I couldn’t believe it. So I hopped a few yards across
the turf to a large patch that was painted white, part of the sideline
markings. Even thought it was white, it was just as hot.

I stood on that scorching turf and
pondered my options. I knew I couldn’t stay where I was without burning my
feet. I had to move back across the hot track and grab my Vibrams and get
outside the gate to a cooler place. And I had to do it right away. Not only
were my feet burning, but it was so hot I was holding my breath. I had to move
immediately.

I bounced and hopped across to my
shoes. It was so hot I didn’t even care whether anyone was watching me or how
nerdy I looked. I grabbed my Vibrams and staggered out the gate to the real
Bermuda grass and collapsed on the ground. I was glad to be off my feet.

Even though this bout of
barefooting was a failure, I am certain I will try it again in the fall when
the surfaces are cooler. I want to get stronger and I think this will help. I
want my knees to last a few more decades and I think this will help with that,
too.

And I suppose I should’ve known
better about the hot track. It is Texas
in July, after all. And the air temperature that day was over 90*F. I am a man
of hope, but in this case hope was not enough.

As I am typing, two weeks later, my
feet feel much better. All the tenderness has healed. I have run a couple of
times in my Vibrams, enough to know I did no lasting damage dancing across the
hot track. I will be back; the experiment continues.

So I ask, what are you trying
that’s new? What are you working on that can’t be done? Let me know … I’d like
to hear your story.

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

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running
With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact
Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

Maintaining family ties can be a lot
of trouble. We might have to drive eight hours across the central New Mexico wilderness
just to spend an afternoon with family who flew across the country to spend the
same afternoon with us. We might spend hard-earned money on trivial things like
matching T-shirts because we want to be one-of-us.

We do it because we love each other,
but more than that, we do it because we love the bigger idea of family. We want
our kids to live in a world larger than our own small household. We want them
to feel a part of the big family and know they are not alone in the world.
Going to a lot of trouble to keep a big family together is important. And it is
worth it.

We go to the trouble to be with each
other because being one-of-us is more important than personal dislikes or old
offenses or personality differences. We might have to temporarily suspend old
grudges, overlook recent transgressions, and accept ongoing crazy behavior.
Some of us introverted types have to set aside our discomfort and mingle with
distant family we barely know. Some of the more extroverted types look forward
to a bigger family stage.

July 17 is a big day for family in
my life because the reading assignment from my Daily Bible comes from Isaiah
51: “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord: Look to
the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn.”

I like this notion of “the rock from
which you were cut.” Isaiah went on to point out Abraham and Sarah, so we know
he was referring to people, ancestors, predecessors, parents and grandparents,
when he wrote about “the rock.” He reminded those of us who seek the Lord to
draw strength from our family.

A few years ago when I helped my
grandmother write her autobiography and family history, I was reminded how many
Baptist preachers and deacons and church officers and women’s leaders are in my
tribe. There is a rich vein of grace and strength that runs through my DNA, and
I feel the blessing that comes with that. It is my provenance. I am part of a
big story that extends for generations. Isaiah 51 also reminds me that I am
part of the quarry and it is my duty and obligation to be faithful and strong
for those coming after me.

And when I am with my inlaws I
recognize the deep quarry from which my wife Cyndi came. I can see the veins of
strength and creativity and adventure and we-can-do-that-ourselves running
through her family, the very same characteristics that caused me to fall in
love with her over 30 years ago.

One thing about quarries – they are
seldom from homogeneous rock. There are always variations and fractures. Blocks
of stone cut from the same quarry are never absolutely identical. They are all
a little different.

And so it is with a family quarry.
We are not a homogeneous band. We may be alike, but we are also different, with
many variations and shades and fractures. And we unwittingly pass along some
variations or impurities we wish would remain hidden, and we propagate
fractures we wish would heal.

Whenever any of us have a role as
leader or teacher we have an obligation to those in our care, in our circle of
influence. But most of those relationships are voluntary, so the pressure is
less. They can walk away. Family is different. Babies are stuck with the family
they fall into. It is up to us to rise to the occasion, to be solid rocks.

And there is more, from Isaiah 58:
“Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old
foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets
with Dwellings.”

Simply being a strong building stone
hewn from a deep quarry isn’t the whole assignment for a family man. We are
also rebuilders and restorers. We have a duty and obligation to understand the
age-old foundations of faith and trust and acceptance and forgiveness and
grace, and raise them up. As one-of-us it is our responsibility to be a
Repairer of Broken Walls.

As it turns out, I don’t mind the
trouble of family maintenance. In fact, I like it. I want to be part of a big
and deep quarry. I want to live my life in a world that is bigger than my own
opinions. I want to be one of us.

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

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running
With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact
Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

This week I started a new phase of
my life. I have been in the office of a Midland
oil and gas consultant two hours a day re-learning an economics software I once
used when working for one company or another (there have been too many to
remember exactly). I’m exploring the possibility of doing some contract work
for this group. It is a tentative move back into the workforce after six years
of being self-employed.

I am actually looking forward to the
change in schedule and change of pace, but it didn’t come to me easily since I
love my own freedom and independence above anything a job can offer. Months
ago, when I first started thinking I should make a change, I wasn’t happy about
it. I prayed, “God change my heart about this and make me ready.” I’m more
ready now that I was then.

I spent too much time fretting about
my daily schedule and how will I get this all worked out so the company will be
happy and I will be able to do the writing and studying that I want. But I
eventually decided I shouldn’t worry about it so much in advance. I had to
trust that I could work out the details as I went along.

That hasn’t been a natural approach
for me for most of my life. I usually want to have all the details worked out
before I start something, so that once I finally get started it will all click
along like clockwork. I love it when the contingencies are covered and
surprises are accounted for ahead of time like a caper from the Italian Job. It
makes me happy and proud.

But that sort of thinking can also
paralyze me. If I don’t start a project until I have all my details lined up,
which may be never, I may never get started at all. It was that sort of
thinking that kept me from going backpacking all those years. I finally made
myself go to the mountains anyway, even though I was unprepared and went with
marginally adequate gear. I had to push myself over the hump of preparation and
finally make the trip. It’s true that I suffered from being wet most of the
time and I was way too cold in my broken sleeping bag, but I survived and I
learned how to prepare better for the next time. Now I am pretty good at it …
but, I almost never got started because I was too worried about being ready.

I once heard David
McCullough say in an interview why he likes to write turn-of-the-century books.
He said he loves the feeling of discovery and possibility of the era. He quoted
an engineer from the late 1890s who turned to his crew as they were about to
fire up some new industrial-age contraption and said, “Let’s start it up and
see why it doesn’t work.”

The engineer wasn’t being fatalistic
or negative. Quite the opposite. He knew he could fix the problems once they
were identified, but he also knew he couldn’t foresee the problems without
starting the project first. I need more of that sort of thinking in my life.
Start now, fix it later on-the-fly, stop using detailed planning as a stall
tactic.

Yet I know this about myself: I am
neither happy nor productive until I work out my schedule, until I develop a
system. Only then can I live beyond the distraction of details and let my
creative mind flow. I tend to value process over events, at least in my own
personal life, and I am never settled in my soul until I have the process
worked out.

Maybe I am like the Rich Young
Ruler, trying too hard to get my life perfect while God is whispering, “I will
take care of you, just follow me.”

The reason this discussion matters
to me is NOT because planning ahead is wrong or because details are not
important. There is no glory in living an improvisational life if the result is
running out of gas in a church bus or suffering from blisters after a marathon.
Having details work out according to plan is a good way to live.

The reason it is important is
because my motivation for planning (or stalling) is too often about my fear of
looking stupid. I would rather sit down and stay home than risk looking like a
beginner. For me the part that demands the most courage is not the risk of the
event but the risk of public failure. I wonder how many opportunities I’ve
missed because I was afraid to look silly.

Cyndi says we should all do
something brave every day. For me that means living with a lighter touch,
taking more chances on new ideas, being more improvisational. At least, that’s
my plan.

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

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running
With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact
Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

We started class with a list of
things we could all agreed were wrong (murder, adultery, stealing, not
respecting the women in our house (especially your mother), letting your cell
phone ring during class, and like that) and things that were more subjective –
things that some thought were always wrong but others didn’t worry about at all
(alcohol use, movie ratings, dancing, gambling, yoga, acceptable attire for
church, and so on).

The class was discussing I
Corinthians 8, in which Paul addressed a divisive issue in the church. Some of
the people were eating meat that had been used in pagan worship and they were
doing it without concern or reservation. They didn’t believe the false pagan
idols had any real spiritual significance and, after all, it was the best meat
available. So why not enjoy their freedom?

There were others in the church who
had been freed from those very same pagan practices and for them eating this
meat was way too close to their old way of life before Jesus. It caused them a
great deal of spiritual pain to live so close to the edge.

It’s easy for me to imagine the
church members falling into two camps – one preaching careful consideration of
new believers and following a close set of rules to prevent any possible drift
back into paganism … after all, we aren’t the same people we used to be and we
should live differently now. Eating this meat is one more slide down the
slippery slope of losing our identity in an increasingly immoral world.

The other camp preaching freedom
under grace and asking why we shouldn’t enjoy the best food when we’ve been set
free from laws and rules – and maybe this group celebrated their freedom by
serving BBQ at their church parties and wondered why everyone didn’t attend.

Paul started this part of his
letter, not with a checklist of rules as we might expect, (and wouldn’t such a
list have made our lives easier since all we’d have to do is check off the
items as we obeyed) but with this statement: “Knowledge puffs up, but love
builds up.” (NIV)

The Phillips translation says it
this way: “We should remember that while this “knowing” may make a man look
big, it is only love that can make him grow to his full stature.”

Apparently the controversy in the church
at Corinth had
descended into intellectual debates with both sides using their superior
insight and wisdom to browbeat the other side. It is easy to imagine; even
today there are hundreds of websites and blogs used by Christians to hammer
away at other Christians who disagree with them. They are certain if they yell
loud enough and type hard enough and make their intellectually-superior
argument often enough the other side will have no choice but to submit and
humbly admit they were wrong.

Paul said we don’t need to know
more, we need to love more.

He also gave this advice in verse
8:9, “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a
stumbling block to the weak.” But why do I always have to be responsible for
someone else’s weakness? How far do I have to go allowing someone else’s
conscience control my behavior? Why not command the weaker Christian to wise-up
and grow up? Is it fair that we have to continually adjust our life to
accommodate the least common denominator?

I asked the class, “What if someone
joined our group from a church that taught women should never wear pants in
church – should all the women in our class stop wearing pants in order to
accommodate her?”

The answer that came back from the
class was brilliant. “What we have to do first, before changing our behavior,
is get to know the other person. We aren’t here to patronize each other but to
take care of each other, and we can’t do that unless we truly know each other
on a heart level.”

We are always willing to change our
life and our behavior for people we know and love. Our true value isn’t about
how much we know, but about how much we love – and even more – it is about who
we love.

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

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running
With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact
Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

OK, I’ll go ahead and admit it:
There is no logic to running long distances. At least, none that make sense to
anyone who doesn’t want to do it.

I can make a list of why I like it –
the battle against my own desire to quite early, the peace of
meditation-on-the-move, the self-awareness that comes from so much time alone
within my own thoughts, the emotional transformation from finishing another
marathon, the short list of skills required, feeling the earth under my feet
and hearing the buzz of a community, the camaraderie of fellow distance runners
telling war stories, the vanilla milkshake reward earned after 15 miles – but I
understand none of those are enough for most people I know.

And marathon training, well there is
no logic to running 17 miles on a hot Friday morning in June, either. All I say
can say is that I still hear the marathon drumbeat in the back of my head and
I’m not yet ready to hang up my shoes.

But I cannot forget that I have 35,098
miles on my legs and feet and knees, and like most people I am getting older
and slower day-by-day, not than younger and faster.

I once heard Jim
Rohn say, “Casual living breeds casualties.” I think one reason I’ve been
hobbling on one bad knee since 2004 is that I got too casual about my running.
I thought I knew all I needed to know. I stopped paying attention to things
like strength training and stretching because I didn’t need them any longer. I
was beyond all that simple stuff.

I forgot about what George Sheehan
taught us: Our life is an experiment of one. I stopped experimenting. I stopped
learning. And, I got hurt. Now I am getting better, slowly, but it took a lot
of deliberate action on my part.

For example, I’ve been going to a
weight-lifting class a couple of times a week. I never did anything with
weights before that and I ended up with a lot of imbalance and weakness. I’m
much stronger now, especially in my quads and glutes and back. I believe that
will help prevent future injuries and stabilize existing aches and pains.

I’ve also been attending a Vinyasa
yoga class about once a week. I spent too many years, about 50, not stretching,
and this class has helped me overcome that a little. It has helped me learn
better balance, and given me greater flexibility and strength. I even breath
better, which has improved my trombone playing. Who knew that would happen?

A few years ago Cyndi and I
discovered a technique known as Chi Running.
I believe it’s allowed my sore knee to find peace, and taught me how to stop
hurting myself in the future. I don’t buy into the chi energy part of the
technique, but I do believe that learning to land on my mid-foot instead of my
heel has stopped further damage and will allow me to keep running for a long
time.

And because of the patient work of
Gladys Nichols at Seton Medical in Austin
I have strengthened my core muscles and worked to achieve better muscle
balance. Before Gladys I couldn’t run more than 5 minutes at a time; since
Gladys I have completed one marathon and I am currently training for my next.

Maybe the weirdest experiment I’ve
tried in my journey is barefoot running. Well, not exactly barefoot, even
though I tried that once and it took the skin on my feet a week to grow back,
but I have been running once a week in a pair of Vibram
Five-Fingers. I hesitate to call them shoes since they look more
like gloves for the feet. They have helped me learn mid-foot landing better
than anything else I’ve tried.

And I can’t go on without mentioning
Jeff Galloway’s run/walk technique. Once
I started using it on long training runs I realized I could finally hope for
many more marathons.

So I’m sorry if I am boring you
non-distance-runners with this litany of experiments, but I believe in living
intentionally, and that means trying new things. Just last week I was reading
from a devotional book and it quoted Hebrews 12:2 from The Message and it
reminded me of my recent adventures. “Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began
and finished the race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost
sight of where he was headed – that exhilarating finish in and with God – he
could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever.”

The first phrase that caught my
attention was “began and finished the race we’re in.” Since I hope to keep
doing that for many more years I felt a personal attachment to that sentence.

But the most important phrase was
this: “Study how he did it.” I hope I can study Jesus with the same deliberate
attention I’ve applied to my running.

I have been doing spirituality for
so long it is tempting to get casual about it. But casual living breeds
casualties, and I don’t want my life with Jesus to become a casualty; I want to
be always learning, always experimenting, always hoping.

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

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running
With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact
Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

So my opening question to the group
was: What is the worst thing about judging other people?

We talked about this for awhile, and
agreed that judging gives you a false sense of superiority, it scares other
people away, it can become a habit which leads to a judgmental lifestyle that
turns into bitterness and cynicism, it wounds other people, and it masks our
own problems.

My next question was: What is the
best thing about judging other people?

Well, judging other people is very
fulfilling, it helps us know whether to hire someone for a job, helps us
evaluate a prospective son-in-law, gives us the ability improve other’s
behavior, lets us know how to genuinely help other people.

The Bible says many things about
judging other people; sometimes it tells us to leave all judging to God, other
times it reminds us to make our own judgments about who we follow and who we
associate with. It isn’t a simple discussion. We must engage the world around
us if we want to share the love and life and grace of God, but we can’t engage
effectively without picking-and-choosing, without passing a few judgments.

We were studying from I Corinthians
5-6, where the Apostle Paul wrote a lot about judging other people. He started
off by stating his disbelief that the church had allowed a blatantly immoral
situation to remain among their membership. He urged the church to drastic
action … to pass judgment. Paul made it clear that he had judged the situation
already, even from a distance.

I had been chewing on this question
of judging other people all week as I prepared my lesson for Sunday morning.
One day as I read from my Daily Bible, from the prophet Hosea, I realized it
spoke to the issue of judging, if only tangentially. Hosea has always been one
of the hardest books in the Bible for me to read because of what happened. The
prophet (Hosea) was told by God that he should marry Gomer, a
habitually-unfaithful prostitute, in order to communicate a message to the
people. Gomer’s adulterous life and Hosea’s continued acceptance of her would
remind the people of their own betrayal of God and his own acceptance of them.
While it was a powerful real-life illustration, it seemed like too much of a
burden for a man to bear, even a prophet of God. Surely being a prophet was
hard enough without being saddled with an intentionally bad marriage.

When I read Hosea I wondered about
my own prayers to know God’s will for my life. What if God told me he wanted me
to do something terrible just so my life could be an example for the people
around me? I didn’t want that. Maybe I didn’t want to know God’s will if that
sort of thing was a possibility.

Then I realized my mistake. I had
always put myself into the story as Hosea, wondering if God would do something
like that to me. I should have put myself into the story as Gomer, wondering if
God would heal me and take me back. I assumed I was always the faithful prophet
and never the unfaithful sinner.

And then again, while running on
Monday it occurred to me that when I asked those questions – What is the worst
thing about judging other people? What is the best thing about judging other
people? – I asked them from the perspective of being the judge, not the victim.

We assume we are the judges who know
the absolute truth, and whether we hammer people with that truth or accept them
with that truth, it is always our choice. At least, that was my personal
perspective.

But what if I am the person being
judged? How do I answer those same opening questions? Now what is the best and
worst part about judging? How arrogant it was for me to think I was always the
person in position to judge and never the person who begged “please take me in
I need healing.”

What I know now is that I have a lot
more thinking do about this topic. I just hope my own arrogance doesn’t keep
getting in the way of my understanding.

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

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running
With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact
Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a
necessity of the human spirit,” wrote Edward Abbey. I thought about that as I
finally drifted off to sleep, Monday night in my tent, in the Pine Top
primitive campground. I was backpacking in the Guadalupe
Mountains National
Park with Chad
and Cory and Clark. Our original plan was to
spend Monday night at Pine Top, do the nine-mile Bush
Mountain – Blue
Ridge loop on Tuesday, spend Tuesday night at Pine Top, and then
hike down Tejas Trail in the cool of the morning on Wednesday. But because of a
fire, most of those trails were closed, and the only place we could hike was Hunter Peak
and a small portion of The Bowl. It was a shame, but couldn’t be helped.

It took us a long time to hike up to
Pine Top. We arrived at the Pine
Springs Visitor
Center early enough, but
had to wait for them to open the doors, and then we had to wait in line through
lots of discussions about the forest fire and where we could hike and what we
could do. It was a bit of a shock to realize they’d been fighting the fire for
five days, yet this was the first any of us had heard about it.

We didn’t start up the trail until
10:00 AM. I had expected it would take us four hours at most to reach the ridge
line but the heat and altitude took its toll and demanded a full six hours. I
was so exhausted when I finally got the top and set up my tent that I took an
hour nap just to recover. I don’t think I’ve ever spent six hours on my legs
under a 60-lbs. pack (24 lbs. was nothing but water). I thought of a definition
I read somewhere: Backpacking is an extended form of hiking in which people
carry double the amount of gear they need for half the distance they planned to
go in twice the time it should take. 

Later that night we all sat outside
and ate and talked theology and family and history until well past dark. In
fact, I didn’t finally go down to sleep until 11:30 PM.

Tuesday morning we took a leisurely
pace to meet at Chad’s camp to
eat his pancakes. We felt obligated to keep eating so he wouldn’t have to pack
the weight of pancake batter and syrup all the way back down the mountain. We
were doing him a favor, taking one for our brother, and all that.

With full bellies we started hiking
toward Hunter Peak, one of the only trails open to us,
where we spent about an hour on the summit rocks taking in the view and eating
trail mix and Fig Newtons and talking about life. The view from Hunter Peak
is one of the best mountain views anywhere. It is the 6^th-highest point
in Texas, at 8,368’, and drops almost 3,000’ to a desert floor
that truly resembles the ancient Permian
Sea that it once was. And
to the south was a postcard-perfect view of Guadalupe Peak.
Using my 6×16 Audubon Monocular we could make out hikers on the Guadalupe Peak summit near the stainless steel
monument.

Looking at the Guadalupe Peak
massive I wondered what it was about mountains that speak directly into the
heart. Maybe it’s their size when viewed up close; maybe it’s their seemingly
indestructible presence in an ever-changing world; maybe it’s the physical
difficulty they cause when we try to climb them. Who knows? But sitting on the
flat limestone rocks at the top of Hunter Peak surrounded by the infinity of
the West Texas desert, talking about old favorite movies and rock-and-roll
bands becomes more than mere casual small talk. The shared effort to get to
that spot made us brothers of the trail, and the stories we shared made us
brothers of heart. It was a good day.

Since we’d exhausted the only trails
left open by the National Park Service, and since it was too hot to sit around
the camp all afternoon, we hiked down to the parking lot. We didn’t get started
down until 2:30 PM; we were on the wrong side of the temperature gradient this
entire trip. We unloaded our packs into Chad’s
pickup, sucked down ice-cold soft drinks from the visitor center vending
machine, and drove home to our waiting wives.

I wish we could’ve made the Bush Mountain
– Blue Ridge loop. I’m certain it is extra
green this year after a wet spring. Every time I do a solo hike through The
Bowl I wish I could show it off to more of my guys. And I wish we could’ve had
another night in camp to share more stories. But one of the attractions to
going outside into the mountains is the unpredictability of it. Nature dishes
out whatever it wants, whether rain or snow or lightening or fire, and the
hiker has to respond and adapt. The risk of last-minute plan changes is part of
the charm.

And another thing. I’ve been doing
this with the guys long enough to know I can’t evaluate an experience right
away. The true value of guys-outside-together may not show up for months or
even years. I’m OK with that. Men make friends outside, and the more often we
get outside together, the better we will be.

One of the glories of my present
life is that I am surrounded by good men; they are among the finest men I have
ever known. It was a privilege and honor to share the trail with three of my
best.

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

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running
With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact
Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org

Having standing water in the corner
of my front yard is not the sort of problem I expected to have living in West Texas. Around here we usually want to find more
water, not get rid of it.

We first noticed our water problem
last summer while planting a new bush. Our yard is designed with
low-maintenance in mind. One of my goals when we built a new house was to never
have to mow the grass again, so we don’t have any turf grass. The house takes
up most of our small lot, and the yard consists of Jasmine groundcover and
trees and bushes. One day we noticed the plants in the northwest corner of our
lot dying so we decided to replace them with something hardier. But when we dug
the hole for the new planting it quickly filled with water and never drained.
This was in the hottest part of the summer, and it was a dry year, and it was
unbelievable that the hole would stay full of water. That seemed like a Louisiana problem not a West Texas
problem. Out here we expect any wet dirt to become dry dust after one day of
exposure.

So we spent last fall and winter
brainstorming what to do about our underground swamp. We suspected some sort of
barrier, like dense clay, was preventing the water from draining. And since the
northwest corner was the lowest part of our lot, all the irrigation water ran
to the area and accumulated. One solution seemed to be to dig out the corner
until we found good dirt and then refill the hole with porous sand. I suggested
an alternative might be to plant something that needs a lot of water, one of
those plants we usually avoid, like salt cedar or kudzu, to drink up the water,
but I knew they would eventually jump across the street and choke out our
neighborhood pond and I would be thrown out of town.

So my first free weekend after
Easter, I went to work. I couldn’t stall any longer. I dug for four hours on
Saturday and another hour on Sunday (Cyndi didn’t think my Saturday hole was
big enough). My hole was roughly L-shaped, eight feet on each long side and
about three feet each width. I dug about 18” deep into a mixture of clay and
soft dirt, apparently the result of the original landscaper tilling the soil to
break up the clay. But then I hit a solid layer of clay and I couldn’t go any
deeper with a shovel. I put about 2” of water in the hole hoping it would soak
into the clay and make it more digable.

But Monday morning the 2” of water
was still standing in the hole. It might’ve been deeper having gathered
drainage form the rest of the lawn. And at the time of this writing, about
three weeks later, I still have several inches of standing water.

So what do I do next is my biggest
question. I could get a backhoe and keep digging until I get past the clay, but
I’m afraid a backhoe would leave a bigger hole and more damage to my sprinklers
than I want. Or I could rent a drill and try to sink deep holes into the clay
to allow the water to drain. I have been offered the use of a pickax and a
posthole digger, and I’ll probably try those next. But since I don’t know how
deep the clay extends, and it may go all the way down to caliche, I have no
assurance digging deeper with help.

This week I have been working
through I Corinthians 4, and in verse 16 Paul said something that used to
frighten me. He said, “I urge you to imitate me.” How could anyone be so bold
and presumptuous is what I thought.

Of course, I said the same thing to
my kids when teaching them how to run, or how to ski, or ride a bicycle, or
read a book. It wasn’t scary to tell them to do it like I did. But when talking
about spiritual maturity, like Paul was, I never felt qualified to be the
example to be followed.

I was wrong. I thought being mature
in Christ meant I was a reservoir of wisdom and knowledge, and I couldn’t hold
myself up as an example until I was sufficiently full. But filling up just to
be full could be just as destructive to those around me as my water-logged
corner of the yard was to my plants.

To be a healthy place for my bushes
and trees the soil has to be a conduit for water to pass through, not a jug
from which water cannot drain. And so to be a healthy place for other people to
grow closer to God I have to be a conduit through which God flows rather than a
full reservoir. I can say “imitate me” if I am willing to give it all away.

One of my new rules for living is to
give something away every day. I urge you to imitate me. You don’t want to be
the sort of person to hold onto stuff and never let it out. You don’t want to
hoard the ideas and insights and dreams God has given you. Give it away every
day.

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

To learn more about Berry’s newest book, “Running
With God:” www.runningwithgodonline.com

Follow Berry on Twitter at @berrysimpson … Contact
Berry directly: berry@stonefoot.org