There is always something else to look forward to, even in paradise, even in Hawaii. All Wednesday morning I had looked forward to our afternoon trip to the Kukui’ula Shopping Center for their weekly outdoor produce market and art show.

It’s true, I seldom look forward to more shopping, but this was different. I was hoping John Rivera would be playing in the market. We heard him last summer, and I bought one of his CDs. In fact, I used his cover of Harry Nilsson’s song, Echoes of my Mind, on my 2012 Love Song Collection. Since I was still in love with the same girl, I wanted to hear some more of his music.

I have to admit that Rivera is only one of many fine Hawaiian musicians, but having heard him play live last July gave me a sense of ownership,  like he was my guy. And besides, live music moves my soul. I would rather sit and listen to music than do much anything else. Even music that I don’t really like, that isn’t my style or taste, is better when performed live. Especially in an open-air market next to the Pie Lady’s table.

So while we were standing in line for our pie, Rivera played and sang, I’m Yours, by Jason Mraz, (which I used on my 2009 Love Song Collection) and I could hardly stand still with Cyndi so close. Lucky for her, I suppose, this was a crowded public venue and I felt restrained.

I tweeted: “Everything is better while listening to live music. Everything. My heart is happy and full and in love. And, I’m eating Macadamia Nut Pie.”

While we were eating our pie, a little girl ran over in front of the musicians and started waving her arms and dancing to the music. She wore a giant smile on her face, she radiated joy, and she kept dancing for a long time. Her parents even seemed a little surprised at her reaction.

I tweeted: “I hope I can live my life with the hope and joy of this little girl dancing to music at the farmer’s market.”

Well, this week, while working on this Journal, I asked myself: Why does music matter?

I actually Googled the question, but all the discussions were long, wordy, and boring. Not one of the answers had that swing, which means, of course, they don’t mean a thing.

We have a friend whose entire life revolves around music, yet, it isn’t obvious that they get any joy from it. As if it is a duty instead of a delight. Like those definitions I found with Google – way too clinical. Maybe they just need more macadamia pie.

Why am I writing about music? This week I started listening to my big playlist of love songs, those I haven’t yet put in a collection, about 120 songs, intending to find 19 or 20 for my 34^th Anniversary Commemorative Love Song Collection due July 28. I will be swimming in love songs and tweeting lyrics for the next few weeks. If you have any song suggestions for me, now is the time to send them.

And remember to keep following the advice generously given by the Doobie Brothers – Listen to the music.

QUESTION: Why does music matter?

“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

“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

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

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

I was looking through my weekly
journals, all the way back to November 1998, surprised how few times I wrote
about the joys of Thanksgiving. I was certain I’d written more

I’ve always enjoyed Thanksgiving.
Maybe because I don’t personally participate in the two frenzied traditions –
cooking and shopping. I enjoy cooking, but don’t really cook anything myself
unless trapped in a corner. And I enjoy shopping for gifts, but would rather
pay more for something than dive headfirst into Black Friday.

It’s curious that I enjoy
Thanksgiving so much when the traditional Thanksgiving foods I long for are few:
leftover turkey sandwiches and Cyndi’s homemade apple pie. I can eat almost
anything if the social situation demands it, but I’m no longer tempted to eat
green bean casserole, brown-sugared sweet potatoes, Jell-O salad, anything with
cranberries, anything with pumpkin, or even dressing.

On several occasions, usually after
running the Turkey Trot in either Dallas or Ft. Worth, we end up eating
Thanksgiving dinner at Cracker Barrel. I order the chicken-fried steak with
corn and (plain) green beans. It is wonderful.

So why do I enjoy Thanksgiving so
much when I don’t enjoy so much of the regular fair? I think because we always
eat with people we love, usually a lot of them, and we take our time and enjoy
the company as much as the food. In our family, we laugh more than anything
else.

But of course, the Thanksgiving meal
isn’t the most important part, is it. As Americans we get plenty of food all
year long, and most of us eat too much of it every time we sit at the table.
The most important aspect of
Thanksgiving is the name itself. Thanksgiving.

Brene Brown, in The Gifts of Imperfection, described our real
hunger like this: “We're a nation hungry for more joy: Because we're starving
from a lack of gratitude.”

Ms. Brown understands practicing gratitude to be fundamental in our
search for wholehearted living. She wrote, “When it comes to gratitude, the
word that jumped out at me throughout the research process is practice. As
someone who thought that knowledge was more important than practice, I found
these words to be a call to action. For years, I subscribed to the notion of an
“attitude of gratitude.” I’ve since learned that an attitude is an orientation
or a way of thinking and that “having an attitude” doesn’t always translate to
a behavior. It seems that gratitude without practice may be a little like faith
without works – it’s not alive.”

I’ve noticed several of my Facebook friends counting down the days of
November by listing something they are thankful for, something different every
day. I’m thankful for their reminder that being grateful takes initiative.

This year I’m grateful for big changes. Cyndi’s sister Tanya
just bought a new house here in Midland, and she and her son Kevin have spent
the past two weeks moving in. It’s a phase change for all of us, and big
changes like that create energy and excitement.

I’m grateful to have Cyndi back all
to myself, but even more happy to witness Tanya and Kevin moving boldly into
the next chapter of their life. Fresh starts should be savored, never wasted.

I’m grateful for all the young couples in the Compass class at First
Baptist Church. You make me happy. I look forward to leading in class every
week, and I hope we have many more years together.

I’m also grateful for the valiant men God as surrounded me with every
Thursday morning. In my old life, I underestimated the value of having good men
around me. Not anymore. The Iron Men make me braver, stronger, and bolder.
Thanks, guys.

I’m grateful that my own children have become fine adults and faithful
parents. Knowing the future is in their hands is comforting.

I’m grateful for the drive God has given me to write and teach. I would
have missed almost every lesson I’ve learned had it not been for my desire to
tell the stories.

I’m grateful that my legs can still move. I am not ready to sit down,
yet. I think God has too much more to teach me, and I need to keep running and
hiking and biking to hear his words in my heart.

I’m grateful to live with a woman that loves me with all her heart, who
works very hard to stay sexy and beautiful, and who listens to all my
ramblings. Without Cyndi, I would be a lonely pathetic shell of a man; I am
grateful for all the ways she has changed me these past 35 years.

And finally, for those of you who read this far, I’m grateful for you.
A writer is not a writer unless he has readers. Thanks.

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

Running in the mud is something I
wish I got more of. Of course, if I got a lot more of it I wouldn’t enjoy it as
much. As it is, I think it’s fun.

So when we got that big 4” rain a
few weeks ago, the one that dumped more water on Midland than we received in
all of 2011, I couldn’t wait to get out on the dirt roads near my house, even
if I knew there was a risk I would get into a big mess.

This is a booming town and someday
all that open land will be developed into residential neighborhoods and I will
lose the dirt roads, so I run on them as often as possible. I don’t want to
waste my turn.

I went running Saturday afternoon
while Cyndi and Kevin when to the fair. It had stopped raining by then, but the
air was still damp and smelled wet. I hoped it would start again while I was
out so I tied my water-resistant jacket around my waist just in case, but no
joy.

However, my mud run was great,
anyway. It got tricky in a couple of low spots because the boys in their mud
trucks got there first and tore up the road, but I just bushwhacked my way
through the adjoining mesquite and yucca and prairie grass.

Here’s the deal. When running, I
will almost always choose dirt over asphalt.

I started running on dirt years ago
because it was softer and less damaging to knees than asphalt or concrete. Before
it was love, it was therapeutic. It seems ironic, now, that God would put that
love in my heart yet plant my life in West Texas where there are few
opportunities for trail running. My first experiments were down dirt alleys in
the neighborhoods between the gym and the par course. The uneven surface took
getting used to, but it strengthened my feet and ankles. And it made me happy.

What happened once I started running
on dirt is what happens to me often – a simple mundane choice becomes a
spiritual adventure. Each mile on dirt spoke to my heart. It made me softer,
and more alert.

There’s power in being a free range
runner, but before you join me, I should mention the risk. I’ve had some
spectacular falls. Unlike Cyndi, I have never fallen in the street on asphalt,
but I’ve skinned both knees and hands numerous times running on dirt.

One bad fall was on the northwest
edge of Kelly Park before it actually became a park, when my feet tangled with
loose wire from the nearby fence. I went straight down, landing on face and
hands.

Another fall happened near the
Scharbauer Sports Complex. It removed three square inches of skin from my left
knee and led me to discover magic bandages (Johnson-Johnson Advanced Healing Adhesive
Pads). At least I was able to maneuver my landing to a spot between two giant
yucca plants and avoid impaling. I also managed to roll to the left and land on
my shoulder and back, saving both palms.

Another time, I fell in the median
on Esplanade Boulevard in New Orleans, when I jammed my toe on a rogue tree
root. I bloodied both knees and had to limp back to the hotel to clean up and
recover. I was a pathetic image working my way through the hotel lobby, full of
women attending a cake decorating convention.

But it isn’t all about falling. Some
of my most profound spiritual encounters have come while running on dirt
trails. The most memorable was on the Colorado Trail above Buena Vista at about
9,000’. That particular run was a reward, a gift from God, following a difficult
spiritual battle. It was Nov 2003 and it is a great story in itself.

I don’t know why having my feet on
dirt is so important, or how it became a spiritual connection. To help
understand the connection I decided to do a Bible search hoping find the
perfect verse linking mud and dirt with spiritual insight, but all I found was a
story about the time Jesus spit on the ground to make mud so he could heal the
blind man’s eyes (John 9:6). It is a good story, but not what I was looking
for.

So I turned to another deep
resource: Jimmy Buffett’s book, A Pirate
Looks at Fifty. He called his time spent on the water, “hydrotherapy.” He
wrote, “The ocean has always been a salve to my soul … I made the discovery
that salt water was good for the mental abrasions one inevitably acquires on
land.” I wondered how I would phrase this for my life. How can I describe the
healing that comes from running on dirt? Maybe, “terratherapy?”

I once wrote an essay about the five
things I could not live without, and the fifth item on my list was dirt. I need
to get my feet on dirt fairly often. Whether I am running or hiking or
dreaming, I have to have my feet on dirt. Terratherapy is a powerful thing.

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

Gary’s opening question on Thursday night was this: What three words describe your story in the last year?

My first word was “movement.” I tell everyone that my wife Cyndi experiences the world through movement, and if you know her, you agree. However, I’ve learned that I’m no different. Just like her, I have to keep moving to stay alive and engaged. I have to keep running, cycling, hiking, reading, learning, writing, teaching, and loving, or else I will go to seed.

My second word was “speaking.” I’m learning how to speak into the hearts of the men and women God has circled around me.

My third word: “retraining.” This past year has felt like a retraining time for me as an engineer, as a runner, and as a cyclist. I suspect there are also other categories where I’ve been retraining, but they aren’t as obvious to me, yet.

Why was I answering Gary’s questions? I spent the weekend high above Colorado Springs at the Bear Trap Ranch, at a men’s retreat with Noble Heart. It was an entire weekend full of questions. Hard questions, to be exact. They were the kind of questions that dig deep into your heart; that demand close listening to insights from God.

The retreat was called a Base Camp Gathering, and it was a great time of deep and serious experiences with God that left me feeling light and free.

I was also reminded that we are all individually important for the work of God. Too often, we look at a ministry or a church and all the spiritual leaders seem to have the same skills, personality and talents. We don’t see a place for us, with our different set of skills, personality, and talents. It can make us feel useless.

But at a weekend like this, surrounded by guys with different personalities and extreme stories, it was clear that God needs all of us to live as he has called us.

It occurred to me that when we talk about our calling from God, maybe we should use the word “obligation” instead. It isn’t enough to be called, we have to step up and live it out. Not merely to feel successful, or useful, or better about ourselves, but because the community around us will suffer if we don’t live our calling.

And that thought leads me to Gary’s second question form Thursday night: What desires are you most aware of (at this moment)?

I wrote, “My desire it to leave a deep wake of changed lives. I intend to spend the rest of my life giving away all that God has given me.”

Gary’s third question was this: Where do you sense God has focused his training of you during this past year?

I answered, “I feel like God has been training me to concentrate on those closest to me. That is where my “giving away” begins.”

Saturday afternoon they asked me lead one of the sessions, and I was so happy. It’s always good news when the cool guys give you a turn.

To settle my mind before teaching, I decided to go for a run. I had prepared enough, didn’t need to go over my notes again, and I knew a run would blow out the cobwebs in my mind and burn off excess adrenaline.

However, the fact was, we were at 9,100’ elevation. Not only that, all the roads and trails out of camp went straight up. So what I did could hardly be called running. I was short of breath even on the downhills. But even a wheezing shuffle calms my brain and my heart and opens them to new ideas.

My session went great. And as usually happens I learned more from the guy’s responses than I did from my own study. That’s the best part about teaching: the teacher always learns the most.

Gary Barkalow reminded us that a base camp is the place where alpine climbers cache supplies and shelter to prepare for the next level of the ascent. And so for this group of men, the purpose of our Base Camp Gathering was to reorient our hearts, recalibrate our efforts, and resupply our courage for the next level of ascent God has for us.

Your personal journey can take you deeper and closer to God, resulting in eternal significance, but you have to live your life on purpose. I am stronger and braver because of my time with these men. I can’t wait for the next opportunity.

QUESTIONS: What three words describe your story in the past year? What desires are you most aware of (at this moment)? Where do you sense God has focused his training during this past year?

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

I almost always have at least two
books going at the same time. One typically stays on my nightstand or in my big
brown chair at home. The other lives in my backpack (my town backpack, or book
bag, that is) which sits in the front floorboard of my pickup when I’m not hauling
it around. I started keeping a second book in my pick-up a long time ago, when
my kids were young and I would sit reading, waiting for the end of soccer
practice or dance class.

I do try to mix up my reading so I
won’t get the two books confused, and also so I won’t get stuck in a rut. I
won’t read too many hard books in a row, or too many spiritual books, or
science books, or humor books. If I read the same category back to back to back
I end up skimming more than reading. I want to give each book a fair reading.

But the strangest thing happened
recently. My system got messed up. Both of my books were about distance and
endurance. My home book was a memoir by Marshall Ulrich titled, “Running on
Empty: An Ultramarathoner’s Story of Love, Loss, and a Record-Setting Run
Across America.” Not only is Ulrich one of the world’s toughest endurance
athletes, he might be near the top of lengthy book title writers.

My backpack book was another memoir,
this one by Paul Stutzman, titled, “Hiking Through: One Man’s Journey to Peace
and Freedom on the Appalachian Trail.” Another long title.

For as long as I remember, I have
enjoyed reading about epic life-changing journeys. I read enough of them that I
feel obligated to tell Cyndi, “Don’t worry; I’m not going to try this myself.”

Not that the idea of running
coast-to-coast or through-hiking the Appalachian Trail doesn’t sound appealing
to me. They both do.

So where does this come from, I
wonder? Why do I like adventure stories? Especially man-against-nature or man-against-distance
stories? Why does the thought of epic journey sound so attractive?

I think it has something to do with
the pursuit of vulnerability.

After all, we can’t test our own
limits without putting ourselves in vulnerable, risky situations. We can’t know
what we’re made of unless we have something to lose.

Maybe we don’t want to know what
we’re made of, afraid to ask the question because we are scared. What if the
answer is – you are weak, and a loser, and a quitter?

But merely being brave enough to ask
the question, take on the risk, makes us stronger. A Through-Hiker who has to
leave the trail due to injury or weather is still stronger than the wannabe
sitting at home waiting for the perfect moment to try. Willingness to show up
makes us a little braver each time.

The greatest adventures are often
the simplest. Maybe even mundane. And they are laced with vulnerability.

Loving someone is uncertain and
risky. Putting our art, our writing, our photography, our ideas, our music out
into the world with no assurance of acceptance or appreciation is extremely vulnerable.

One of my current mundane
adventures: I’m relearning how to run, nowadays. It’s my post-foot-surgery post-arthritis-diagnosis
running phase.

I’ll admit that what I do is more hobble
than elegant gait. And I’m not always comfortable doing it on public streets in
front of friends and neighbors. For someone who writes about the joys of
running as much as I do, for someone who had published a book titled, Running With God, I feel like I should
be better at it.

People have even asked if I’m race
walking now, so I work hard to have both feet off the ground at the same time …
the defining distinction between walking and running.

But moving is important. I’m happy
with small incremental gains, even gains that would have embarrassed me in the
past. I’m pleased when my pace drops into the 14-minute range because I think I
can do 13 next.

 And if I can do 13s, then 10s, and then maybe
even a 50K.

As I push my knees and learn how to
handle the new sensations in my legs, the very activity seems to add value to
life. It makes my heart happy. I end every run thanking God for his
encouragement.

I’m just not ready to sit down yet.
I hope there are lots more epic races in my future. Maybe even a long-distance
trek.

What are your adventures? Is there
something epic you dream of doing?

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