Run

My relationship with running is ambivalent at best. My earliest memories of organized running, if you can call it that, are ones that included feeling sick (and a few cases of throwing up afterwards). Not exactly inspiring. But I still remembered how good it felt to run as a kid- stretching my limbs and moving fast. I figured there was still some merit to it all and periodically got into running clubs or ran with friends. Not surprisingly I was never very good. Then, after seven knee and a minor heart surgery,* I had more reasons not to enjoy running. Quite frankly, I was scared of it by that point.

It's been over the last three years that I've entertained the idea again. Rarely timing myself (heart rate is more important after all), I've tried to set aside my own harsh self-judgements and competition to concentrate on enjoying it. That's right, I want to be one of those smiling runners. So I vigilantly monitor my legs impacting the ground for wobbles and pain. I slow down when my heart rate is uncomfortably high. I refuse to huff and puff so hard that it's no fun. And those are the times that my peripheral vision blurs and I begin to enjoy the ride.

There was a sermon the other day at church about angels. I'd never really heard much about angels in any sort of biblical study before. The pastor talked about how seraphim are actually a class of angels who exist only to praise God. Immediately I thought of how I've imagined hiking with God just walkin' along with a pack beside me and how cool that would be. So to think of wandering around with a herd of angels wasn't that much of a stretch.

As I ran along a pretty stretch of road at home one evening, I imagined them running alongside of me. We were all taking in the stunning sunset over the Gulf of Mexico and pretty white sand beaches. Yesterday evening, they were back again with me on a dirt road through the golf course admiring the pastel sunset** over the hazy woods and settling dusk. A cardinal flashed by, reminding me of Indiana, and a small rabbit hopped along a few feet next to me. It reminded me of desperately trying to pack in the fun on waning summer nights with neighbors. A squirrel seemed to be watching the swollen river run by us, now safely tucked in between its wooded banks (temporary ponds still dot the golf course and threaten the roads after all of the rain, but most of the roads themselves are out from under the flood). Some hawk was calling from the sky. It reminded me of the ones that call out to the canyons in the Southwest.

An hour of running later, transient bilateral knee pain, one heart palpitation, and African dust gritty in my tennis shoes, we sprinted home, thanking God for such a gift.

*An EP study with ablation isn't open heart surgery. In fact, it's a procedure in which you're only moderately sedated and they access your heart through large veins in your groin and neck. However, tell the person lying on the operating table with multiple wires threaded into their beating heart and the possibility of a permanent pacemaker that it's "minor."

** Alabama has no shortage of these. In my opinion, they've been rivaling Arizona's.