Poetry | Faith, Family, & Focaccia

Today’s run wasn’t my best. That probably goes without saying considering that I was running outside in Milan in August, but the cognitive understanding that heat and humidity and heavily polluted air make running more difficult offered no comfort to my body as it labored under this three-pronged assault. After the first mile I felt more exhausted than I had felt at kilometer 7 of my last 10K (and that had been the hardest interval of the race ). I consoled myself by mentally composing a Facebook post that would be my futile revenge on this awful exertion.

Then, however, I remembered a new discipline I has planned to start this morning. The idea had come from a blog entry on prayer and stress that I had skimmed the night before (http://work4christ.wordpress.com/2013/08/02/too-much-stress/). It had offered the familiar encouragement that daily prayer is an important practice for spiritual and even physical health, advice that I know and strive inconsistently to follow. It also suggested some guidelines for the best ways to structure this daily practice, including the advice that you should NOT plan your daily prayer time at a period of the day when you are “tired and exhausted.” Well, that knocks out the very beginning and end of the day. And with the kids home all day for the summer, what does that leave me? Thankfully the post had another suggestion in passing: “perhaps time during your morning or evening walk will work well for you.” Well, the luxury of an evening walk is not something I have, but I do have my morning run 3 or 4 times a week…

And so the idea was born. Prayer first thing in the morning is usually a struggle for me, at least any version of meditation that extends beyond a whispered “thank you for this day God. Please help me to live in a way that shows your love.” Attempts to be still before my God, or to focus my mind on the four pillars of praise, confession, petition and thanksgiving, tend to dissolve into blurry-minded distraction. I’m just not alert enough in my first 30 minutes of consciousness to give God my best. One of the things I love about running, however, is how it heightens my awareness, as though the rushing of blood through my veins rinses the cobwebs out of my mind as well. The immediate aftermath of this invigorating activity could be the perfect time to focus my awareness on the Truth that is so real it can be difficult to see in the haze of everyday.

So this was my plan. I would run the half mile to the neighborhood park that is my usual destination and add a few extra twists to my circuitous laps around this urban green space to bring my total distance to about 2.5 miles. Then, rather than racing home, I could walk the return journey and use the time to calm not just the beating of my heart but also the rushing of my thoughts. It would be the perfect time to focus my mind on the glorious Creator who has blessed me with a functioning, relatively healthy body and a beautiful (if polluted) city in which to run.

This fountain borders one edge of the normal park route... it starts to look really appealing by the 2nd lap

This fountain borders one edge of my normal park route… it starts to look really appealing by the 2nd lap

That was the plan… but as I heaved my way through mile two I was feeling anything but worshipful. I was over-hot and aching and not in the mental space I wanted to be to approach the One to whom I owe everything. But, another exhortation on prayer that I read recently wouldn’t let me abandon the plan: “Prayer is a discipline before it is a joy, and remains a discipline even after it becomes a joy” (Ben Patterson, Deepening Your Conversation with God: The Life-Changing Power of Prayer, Bethany House Publishers, 1999, p. 51). Prayer has often been a joy for me, but that wasn’t a prerogative and I needed to find a way to engage in prayer when it didn’t feel joyful; to embrace the spiritual discipline even when the physical discipline intended to prepare me for it had instead done the exact opposite. And so, for the last mile or so, I prepared. I didn’t try to pray, but I intentionally rejected all the negative thoughts that were crowding into my head and screaming up from my muscles and lungs. I might not be enjoying this run, but I wasn’t going to let that steal my gratitude for it. I was going to feel each wheezing breath as a reminder that I am blessed with life, and a life that does not bear the scrutiny of complaint. Not from a Sovereign who fought for each pain-wracked breath as he pushed whip-torn skin across the splintering wood of the cross on which he hung out of love for me.

And so, I finally slowed to a walk with aching lungs and a pounding heart, but also with a well-spring of gratitude re-opened in my soul. The prayer that flowed up from this inner renewal gave me a refreshment that I hope can bless others as well.

Running Prayer

Sweet Creator,

Thank you for the summer day,

even when it breaks too early on my drowsy bed;

Thank you for the shining sun,

even when it’s sharp heat assaults my sweating head;

Thank you for the air so full,

even when its weight cloys at my gulping throat;

Thank you for the solid stones,

even when their angles try to trip my toes.

Thank you for the spinning world that slides beneath my pounding feet,

Pushing.

Resisting.

Propelling.

Thank you for my churning legs,

even when they tremble at the distance still to run;

Thank you for my well-shod feet,

even when they murmur protest, longing to be done;

Thank you for my heaving lungs,

even when they gasp for air and then for rest;

Thank you for my pumping heart,

even when it beats a deafening rhythm in my chest.

Thank you this struggling body that moves against inertia’s pull,

Pushing.

Resisting.

Strengthening.

Thank you for these wakened eyes,

to see your light refracted through the dappling leaves;

Thank you for these sharpened ears,

to hear the music of your breath refilling lungs that heave;

Thank you for these softened lips,

to whisper praises so soon after tasting of complaint;

Thank you for this opened mind,

to comprehend the weight of glory witnessed by the saints.

Thank you for your Spirit’s breath again, in sense and will reborn,

Pushing.

Resisting.

Finally resting in this grateful Peace.

(And thank you also for my little runners in training – such a joy and inspiration to seek health)

Various experiences this past Tuesday combined to confront me with the fragility we must embrace when we become mothers (parents). To bear and raise children opens our lives to a kind of love that empowers us to do things we never could have done before, but it also leaves us vulnerable to the hurts we cannot fix for our children. I am so grateful that, so far at least, my children’s pains have not been shattering. They are young enough that Tyler and I can protect them from most dangers, and the unavoidable ones have not targeted us for devastation. I know, however, that security today offers no guarantees for tomorrow. They are growing; their worlds are expanding; and there are so many, many ways that they could be hurt.

When I confront those dangers, my first instinct is to hold on tight. To try to gather my little ones to my breast and hold the evil world at bay. When my spunky little Gigglemonster banged his head jumping onto his bed, I jumped to snuggle him into a little ball of comfort on my lap, offering kisses and ice and soothing sounds as he cried. But he didn’t want to stay there. He wanted to jump again, and hit his head again! I stopped that particular activity, of course, and other than a temporary goose egg on the top of his head there was no lasting harm to my little adventurer. But the jolt of panic when he let out that first scream left an echo in my soul. An urgent imperative that I have to protect my child.

Then I met Madonna on the street in the course of my morning, the young mother who begs on my street and whose struggles with deep poverty I have discussed in an earlier post (see Encountering My Privilege: https://faithfamilyandfocaccia.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/encountering-my-privilege/). I could tell something was wrong just from her face, and as we talked she explained that her daughter was sick. Madonna’s two children are back in Romania with family while Madonna and her husband try to earn money in Italy to send home. The family caring for them allowed the kids to play in some dirty water during a heat spell, and now the daughter had pneumonia. I can only imagine the panic that must create for Madonna – unable even to stroke her hand across her daughter’s forehead to impart a momentary coolness against the pain of fever, she must somehow find money now for medicine, not just food. I did what I could, and she was effusive in her thanks, but the encounter left me a bit shaken. What must it be to lack the resources to buy your own child medicine when they are sick?

Then I followed a friend’s Facebook link to a moving music video. It shows a young man, Zach Sobiech, performing his song “Clouds”, which he wrote about his experience of approaching death from cancer. The video cuts between shots of him singing and playing his guitar, short descriptions of the path his cancer journey has taken, and brief moments of his interactions with his family, including his mother whose adoring smile at him is an eloquent testimony of her love and pride in her son. The link that led me to this heart-breaking video explained that he had finally “found the clouds” after his long struggle. Watching his mother smile up into his face as the video played, I can only image the pain in her heart as she deals with that loss.

That afternoon, as I hugged my two healthy, happy children whom I get to see and love every day, my heart was broken for so many mothers who don’t have that joy today; so many mothers whose children face dangers they simply cannot protect them from. I offered prayers for Madonna, and for Zach’s mother, because I believe in prayer and I believe it can heal. But I also know that too often the promise “I will pray for you” becomes a trite and shallow offering that we can use to insulate ourselves from the pain another person is suffering. I don’t want to insulate myself from the pain. Every mother in the world is my sister, and I don’t want even one of them to feel that she is crying alone.

So I dedicate the poem this day’s encounters inspired in me to every mother who is crying today. You are not crying alone.

“Mommy, my head hurts!”

The joyful play

of yesterday

has left a painful bruise.

So, I kiss, give a rub

and a warm, gentle hug,

reassured, this brief pain he will lose.

“Mommy, it hurts to breathe.”

Her ears can’t refuse

the frightening news,

‘Your daughter is sick in Romania.’

With cupboards bare

and nothing to spare,

How to cover the cost of pneumonia?

“Mom, there’s not much time.”

A young man’s song

pulls my heart along

on the painful, ending journey.

He’s now found the clouds,

but his song still plays loud

for the mother he left, now in mourning.

“Mommy, why are you crying?”

How can I explain

the bittersweet pain

of holding my own children tight,

when I know of the loss

and the fear and the cost

for those mothers who face pain each night?

“Sister, I will cry with you.”

When love meets with pain

that can rend and can stain

all the joy that your child inspires,

may a chorus of voices

discard other choices

to give sympathy that never tires.

And may all of your tears

and your doubt and your fears

rest in love that flows now to you.

You are not alone.

My hearts hears you moan.

And my prayer seeks the God who renews.

(For now – I am relishing the laughter)

Faith, Family, & Focaccia

A faith and culture Mommy blog, because real life gets all mixed together like that.

Tag Archives: Poetry

My Running Prayer

Love and Pain

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