Run Rev Run

The Pleasures of Adult Children

My son Joren is in town. He is 29.  We only see him now about 4 or 5 times a year.  But how wonderful are these times.  After years of worrying over his personal finances, car maintenance, and other nagging parental sorrows, we now (finally!) can just enjoy his visit as our beloved son.  We have so much to talk about, share so many similar interests(music, travel, current events,exercise, food,books, films), and have lots of laughs over old times and all the eccentric interesting people we have known over these 29 years.

Joren and I went on a run together last night and talked of church matters.  I am happy to report that he is much wiser than his father and more successful though not quite as tall and only slightly better looking. I think we could have run for 2 hours and not run (bad pun) out of topics to discuss.

I was only 24 and Kate 23 when Joren was born in July of 1981.   I was a poor young mostly clueless seminarian.  Yes, we were actually trying to have a baby; ready I guess after being together since our senior year of high school. So here we are 53 and 52 with children 29 and 26.  I have a friend my age who has a four year old.  Can't imagine it! Don't want it! Been there. Done that.  But I think we are actually ready for grandchildren.  Neither Joren nor Emily are married. We will wait patiently and hope for the best.

Wine is Fine But.......

We probably have about 10 health and nutrition books in our house.  Most are written by doctors and scientists.  As far as alcohol consumption is concerned, the consensus is that men who drink moderately(emphasis on moderately) lower their chances of hearth attack and coronary disease.  But for women, even moderate drinking increases breast cancer incidence by 41%!  Sounds like a male organized conspiracy to keep our women stone cold sober all the time.  But sadly these are the facts. 

The part that always bothers me about the benefits of alcohol for men is that there don't seem to ever be mentioned alternatives for equally good heart benefits.  Such as exercise, drinking grape juice instead of wine, or other foods that also promote heart heath.  There are many- nuts, avocados, salmon, etc.....

Just once (haven't seen it yet) I would like to see an article that says, "Yes, moderate drinking of alcohol for men can promote heart health, but really you would be better off eating a handful of almonds or running 3 miles a day."    Are the wine, beer, and spirits industries in cahoots with the doctors?  I doubt it, but .....

Here is something else to consider.  Drinking alcohol can reduce your body's fat burning capacity by as much as 73%.   After drinking alcohol, your body produces acetate and the body starts burning the acetate instead of your fat.   So a good way to lose weight is to stop drinking for a while.  Without alcohol in your system,  your body far more efficiently burns fat- which is what we all want.  Bad news, I know, but I thought you should know.  

Lastly, a gentle suggestion that many people seem to think that wine is somehow healthy and therefore good for us and so very European.  We don't seem to be as troubled by two people sharing a whole bottle of wine over dinner than say each having two gin and tonics.  But alcohol is alcohol, and I am pointing this out.  

Ok, enough of this.  I promise no more sermons on fire water.  And yes, I do enjoy alcohol myself.  But I wanted you to have a few facts.  

The Amazing Human Body

My friend Jon ( my age and a Princeton Seminary classmate) ran the San Francisco marathon on Sunday in 3 hours and 39 minutes.  That is about 8 minutes and 30 seconds a mile.  He ran the last 6 miles in just over 8 minutes a mile.   You might have to be a runner to realize how good that is.  To me, it is in the realm of superman.

My last 10K in late June I ran in 51 minutes.  That is 6.2 miles.  He ran over 4 times that far in basically the same pace.  I was pretty much fried at the end of that race.  There was certainly no gas left in the tank.

I told Jon the body is an amazing thing, and his just did something amazing.  He wrote back, "the body and the spirit are amazing- both!"   Amen.    He said he enjoyed the run and had no bad effects from it.  He trained well and got himself ready.   This is also his first marathon and from a guy who had a heart attack a few years ago.

Very inspiring.  I ran 3 miles this morning and will now go forth and run 3 more at 7PM.  This is not amazing, but this is where I am.  Jon has inspired me to consider a half-marathon this Fall.  

As the Mexicans say,  "Adelante!"  Go forth.  Let's get moving!  

China in One Day

Travel has its joys and sorrows.  One famous poet was asked if he would like to visit China.  He replied, "Of course, if I could return home the same evening."

I have a friend in Fincastle, Virginia (where I was a pastor for 11 years) who was getting older and set in his ways. In his day, he was a great Hippie and still wears blue jeans with his tweed jacket and tie on Sunday. The last time I saw him he was sporting a pony tail.  

I invited him to join me and two other friends on a trip to Ireland back in 1999.  To which he replied, "Neil, I don't even want to go to Troutville anymore."  For a Guilford County translation, think Kernersville.   

I don't even want to go to Kernersville anymore- too far, too much trouble, sounds exhausting, not curious, don't need it, whatever.......

I do love to travel and have been very lucky to travel a lot with my job here at the church.  It has been a whole lot of fun and very very interesting.  But it is also fun to stay home and watch a movie.  

I have to admit that my favorite travel now is the quick trip.  Three nights in Haiti, four days in Peru, a sprint down to Cuba and back.  After 3 nights anywhere, I am thinking about the comforts of home and my daily rituals and -alas- my beautiful wife.  Lately, she has been able to go with me, which makes it a whole lot better.   

We can also travel in our imaginations and through books and films- a whole lot more comfortable and cheaper and sometimes just as satisfying- sometimes better than the real thing.

Beside the White Chickens

Just as we go through stages of life, we also go through stages in our understanding of prayer.  Chet Raymo, paraphrasing Samuel Taylor Coleridge, suggests it goes like this:

First Stage-  HELP!

Second Stage- Here I am!

Third Stage- Oh my God I am sorry for having offended Thee

Fourth Stage- Gee! followed by, Wow!

Fifth Stage- Silent attention.

Silent attention- I think that is where I am and where I am likely to stay.

John Updike wrote: "Ancient religion and modern science agree: We are here to give praise.  Or, to slightly tip the expression, to pay attention."

John Ruskin wrote, "The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and to tell what it saw."

Perhaps that is all William Carlos Williams was doing with his much-loved 8 line poem.

so much depends

upon

a red wheel 

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

Two Needles in a Haystack

Every now and then I enjoy spending maybe 30 minutes browsing in the public library.  Greensboro is blessed with many wonderful libraries.  The main one downtown is beautiful and has the largest collection. Benjamin Branch is closest to my home and has been recently expanded and improved. If it were not for traffic,  I could easily walk there.  Kathleen Clay Edwards is tucked up nicely in the woods under giant oak trees and has very attractive and comfortable furniture. And Glenwood has a great selection of books in Spanish that I occasionally have a go at.  There may be others that are wonderful, but these are the ones I know.  

I found 2 really fine books on my browse the other day-  "In a Cardboard Belt! Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage" by Joseph Epstein  and "When God is Gone, Everything is Holy: The Making of a Religious Naturalist" by Chet Raymo.   I have 2 quotes to share.  Let's begin with Raymo.

"Who among us isn't depressed by the sectarian madness that seems to engulf the world, the fury of antagonisms between peoples of different religions and cultures.  There is nothing new in any of this; thus it has always been.  Is there any chance that we might rid ourselves of this irrational fear of the other?  Only if we can find a way to generate reliable consensus knowledge of the world.  Such a methodology exists, of course, and it is called science.  It is the basis for modern technological civilization, but it has so far had only minimal influence of the way most people conduct their lives. In his introduction to Michael Shermer's book "Why People Believe Weird Things," the late great biologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote: "Only two possible escapes can save us from the organized mayhem of our dark potentialities- the side that has given us crusades, witch hunts, enslavements, and holocausts.  Moral decency provides one necessary ingredient, but not nearly enough.  The second foundation must come from the rational side of our mentality.  For, unless we rigorously use human reason to discover and acknowledge nature's factuality....we will lose out to the frightening forces of irrationality, romanticism, uncompromising "true" belief, and the apparent resulting inevitability of mob action."

  Genuine spiritual grounding has changed the lives of millions ( I really believe that) but for some reason it has not stopped us as humans from killing each other and hating each other.  I hope we can be more rational, but there is something deeply irrational about the human psyche and something very compelling. Therein lies the problem.....

On the lighter side, some of   Epstein's essays are very funny.  Here is one I like.  He is writing about turning 70.  But sadly at 53 I can relate.   "Sleep has become erratic.  Someone asked me if I watched Charlie Rose, to which I replied that I am usually getting up for the first time when Charlie Rose goes off the air. I fall off to sleep readily enough, but two or three hours later I usually wake, often to invent impressively labyrinthine anxieties for myself to dwell upon for an hour or two before falling back into aesthetically unsatisfying dreams until six or so in the morning." 

In Praise Of Cosmopolitanism

Don't think of being cosmopolitan as being hip, elite, fashionable, or trendy.  The true definition is a person who is not bound by local or national habits or prejudices, who is at home in all countries and places.  From kosmopolite- a world citizen and cosmos, the universe and harmony.

The opposite of a cosmopolitan is a jingo, a person who boasts of his patriotism and favors an aggressive threatening warlike foreign policy; a chauvinist- one with an unreasoning devotion to one's sex or race with contempt for other races and sexes.

Most of my reading lately has been history.  The last book I read was "The Dogs of God: Columbus, The Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors" by James Reston.

My current hero is the Castilian King Alfonso X (1252-1284) who represented the high point of cosmopolitanism in Europe at the time. He welcomed Jews and Muslims and had the Koran and the Talmud translated into Latin.  There was a great cross fertilization of languages.  Modern Spanish has at least 800 words derived from the Arabic- such as alcohol, elixir, syrup, zero, algebra, zenith, ginger, lemon, and coffee. 

But here is the sad news.  Almost always following a wonderful era of peace and cosmopolitanism is an era of ethnic violence and closed-mindedness of the worst sort.  Out of the wonders of King Alfonso, called El Sabio (The Wise ONe) came the Spanish Inquisition where Jews and Muslims were killed, books burned, heretics burned at the stake, etc......

Ah humanity....we revert to tribalism over and over and it makes me sick. 

Surely Jesus is meant to be a unifying force for the world.  I have never understood how Christians can be anti-semitic since Jesus was a Jew.  Read the Bible again and you will see how very Jewish it is.

Ah humanity, we can't seem to think straight most of the time.  Let's pray for each other and hope we can avoid the stupidities of history.

Watch It and Weep- And Be Inspired

Go to google and type in "Haiti Soccer Against All Odds."   You will be led to a video on espn about a 17 and under girls soccer team from Haiti.   Rather than sermonize on it, I urge you to take 10 minutes and watch the video.   It moved me to tears. 

We are so fortunate to live in this country!  We join in prayer for the people of Haiti.

Neil

Being Real and the Fear of Death

There is now medical evidence that being authentic and honest with oneself and others is good for your health.  Yes, of course your mental and spiritual health but also your physical health.  This morning in the support group for people looking for work(FPC Jobs), a guest speaker urged the people to get into a small group where they can be real- confess their true selves, their worries, fears, concerns, joys, etc.  

With that in mind, I found this quote yesterday, in of all things, a health book called "The Anti-Cancer Book."    "To be fully human, people ought to have as authentic a relationship as possible with others.  For this to be so, they must go beyond the image they have of themselves and of others. They should know that in their deepest being they are intrinsically free to reconstruct and transform themselves, and they need to grant others this same powerful freedom."  And "in confronting death, human beings sometimes fully become themselves."  

think about that.......

On Avoiding the Lead Balloon

We are living in a fortunate age.  We have more knowledge and access to food than ever before.  We all know the foods we should be eating.

Here are the ones I actually eat that I hope are good for me.

Sweet potatoes, carrots, dark green leafy greens, nuts, whole grains, berries, legumes, onions, garlic, chiles, cilantro, olives, broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes, other fruits and vegetables

Here are the ones I should but don't-  green tea

Here are the ones I know I shouldn't but do anyway- ice cream, cheese, tequila, refined sugar

Basically I live mostly on beans and brown rice served with pico de gallo- cut up tomatoes, tomatillos, onion, chiles, cilantro, and lime juice.  Sometimes I include corn bread or corn tortillas or a baked sweet potato or some collard greens or spinach.  That is the meal that makes me feel good and healthy.

Here are the type of meals or foods that give me what I call the lead balloon.  There is something sitting on the stomach heavy and malignant for several hours.  Running 5 miles will sometimes but not always deflate and cure the lead balloon.  It is to be avoided...

Indian curries, greasy Mexican food like refried beans and gooey melted cheese, cakes, pies, red wine, most casseroles, sauces, stews, cookies

Here are a few meals you can buy out that will make you feel healthy even if they really aren't that healthy.

tostado de ceviche at San Luis or Casa Vallarta

Black forest ham or Italian sub at Subway

soups at Vietnamese places and some Thai if not curry

the chile relleno and cactus salad at Azteca

There is one other way to avoid the lead balloon.  Eat these balloon creating foods after strenuous exercise.  Last summer, my brother Keith , my nephew Jeremiah ,and I hiked in the mountains of Wyoming.  Sometimes we were carrying heavy packs and walking many miles over rough terrain. One night right before closing, we made it into the little town of Choteau's cafe.  We ordered buffalo burgers, fries, big tankards of cerveza, cheese on the burgers, etc.... and the food just seemed to immediately work its way into our muscles and tissues.  We slept like babies and our stomachs felt as if we had had a bowl of quinoa with bluberries and soy milk.  But that was one time.  Maybe it was the altitude.  All I know is that if I had normally eaten a meal like that at 9:30 at night I would have slept poorly and been full of regret.