Running as a Spiritual Exercise

A few years ago I realized that my kids were at an age where they would soon begin to pass me up at activities I had enjoyed before they were born and that had fallen by the wayside of my life when they were too young to participate in these activities with me.  Things like hiking with Jeff to the top of Mt. Sneffels in southwestern Colorado on our first anniversary.  I decided that I needed to make a little more effort at getting into shape than I had been, if I wanted to be able to enjoy Bass and Abi's young adult years fully.  So I have been an off-again, on-again runner for the last four years or so.

I am by nature somewhat of a couch potato.  I enjoy many different activities that require sitting and concentrating for extended periods of time:  reading, various handcrafts, watching movies.  So I would not say that I am a natural runner.  I am not one of those people who says, "Oh, if I don't get my run in, I just feel like I am going to lose my mind."  I am much more motivated by the fear of losing the progress I have made and slipping back into a state where the 25 to 35 minutes I spend running will be more teeth-gritting, elephant-clomping than Chariots of Fire.

I am also by nature someone who enjoys a good rhythm.  Meaning, once I get in the habit of doing something, I can do it very faithfully.  (Some might call that a rut, not a rhythm...)  When my rut/rhythm  is interrupted, however, it is hard for me to find my groove again.  Thus the off-again, on-again nature of my running, as living with three other people is nothing if not rhythm-interrupting.  This is probably part of why I have only two children.  The four-way dance of our family takes about all the rhythm I have in me.

Late last spring I began an on-again phase of my running routine.  But when we traveled to Budapest for the fall semester, it took me a while to venture out and find my running rhythm there.  Running in a big city has a totally different feel than running in my Grand Rapids neighborhood.  Here at home I always run on the side of the street, facing the on-coming traffic, because Jeff (my running coach!) told me that the street surface is easier on your body than concrete sidewalks.  I usually run in the morning, and through residential neighborhoods where there is not much traffic, except when crossing a major intersection. 

In Budapest, however,  we lived right in the heart of the city.  There the streets were too crowded with both moving and parked vehicles for me to feel comfortable running in the street.  I had to cross many intersections and sometimes weave around lots of people, if I did not leave early enough in the morning.  Finding the inner will to take on these challenges and build a new running routine, however, was an effort that was fully rewarded.  Unlike my runs through pleasant but pretty unremarkable Grand Rapids, my routes in Budapest took me by stunning views of the city, across the Danube River on the Margaret Bridge and back on the Chain Bridge, sometimes around Margaret Island in the middle of the Danube River, nearly always showing me something beautiful, sometimes showing me the bad and the ugly mixed in with the good.

Now running is always a good spiritual exercise for me, in that it tests my endurance and my mind-set, always shows me where I need to improve and where I am gaining strength, and gives me time to pray and think about those I love at a time when I really need to get my mind off my own physical self.  But in Budapest, some of my runs became a spiritual exercise in a whole other sense.  Because as I neared the end of one of my routes, I could make the choice to run up Zrinyi utca, a street that would take me right to the front of St. Stephen's Basilica.  Over the entrance to the church is a semicircular mosaic of Christ enthroned on clouds, arms outstretched, underneath the words "Ego sum via veritas et vita" (I am the way, the truth, and the life).  As I would run the two or three blocks up this street, I could never fail to think about the fact that I was almost literally running into Jesus' arms. 

"...let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." 

 Hebrews 12:1, 2

For the first several weeks back home, I couldn't run without wondering, "Where would I be this far into my run in Budapest?" and noticing that my vistas weren't nearly as inspiring.  Now I can sometimes make it two-thirds of the way through my route before I think of my Budapest runs.  Back in Grand Rapids, I am running by faith and not by sight once again, as I have no beautiful mosaic of Jesus to run to a mere two blocks from home.  Running is back to being more a test of endurance and discipline and less of a time of wonder.  Perhaps my running experience and the life of faith are not so very different.  Most of the time what is required is perseverance and fixing my eyes on a Jesus that I cannot see, in the midst of surroundings and circumstances that are so familiar I usually fail to see their beauty.