running to lose weight and gain your soul

nearly two and a half years ago my wife and i were blessed with twin boys. they are brothers in every since of the word. they look out for one another, they disrupt one another, they play together, they laugh together, and they cause mischief together. life gets hectic after you have kids. you seem to forget about things you used to do, or liked to do, or did because they made you a better person in the crunch of scheduling feedings, playtime, bathing, parenting, and nurturing your own marriage and life. in short, it seems that every moment of those first days, weeks, and months of parenthood are sucked up by controlled chaos. you can't remember at times how you got from 6am to 6pm, and yet you eventually begin marking days, activities, and occurrences by the schedule that runs your life.

sometime within the past two and a half years and a well-developed and monitored schedule i quit running. it was a slow burn out really. leading up to the time that we started thinking about having children i trained for and ran my first marathon. i marked my days by a different calendar during those months. it was long runs, tempo runs, weekly mileage, and rest days. after that race i started to slowly drift away from running. it wasn't a conscious decision, but as is often pointed to in situations like this, life simply started happening. i stopped lacing up my running shoes, started making it from one feeding to the next, worked a 9-5 job in between, and quit making time to run. and i paid for it.

it wasn't a quick change in my life that indicated i had totally stopped running. i didn't throw out my running shoes, or abandon the solace of running on a cold morning against a crisp wind blowing into my face. i simply irregularly trotted out the door on a whim. and that's all running was to me for nearly a year and a half. when it struck my fancy i took to the roads and felt the twinge of inability to do what i once could do with little effort. inevitably at the end of the run i would tell myself i was out of shape, needed to run more often, or at least exercise in some way.

i can't tell you what happened exactly. it wasn't a magical moment that changed things in my life. sometime around a year and a half ago i stepped on a scale. i was at my heaviest weight and i could visibly start to notice not only clothes not fitting, but pictures of me looking differently and close family members gently suggesting that i had put on a few pounds. around this time i was unemployed for the first time, to be followed by a short stent of employment, and now entrenched in nine months of my second tour of unemployment - and that perhaps has been the biggest change. i had plenty of idol time on my hands after doing household chores and job searching every day. so i started to run again. and slowly it came back to me, much like the feeling of riding a bicycle for the first time.

reminding myself to take things slowly and to not push too hard too fast were difficult concepts. running slowly became something that i was doing again, was feeding my soul again, and was a priority. i gained the perspective that to effect change in one's life requires making priorities that can facilitate the achievement. after a while the pounds started to come off. and after a year and a half i have lost 40 pounds.

i was recently asked if i had any tips to help people who are looking to run in order to lose weight. this is what i shared:

1. keep pushing yourself to accomplish and work towards your goals. the best way to do this is to set concrete goals with concrete checkpoints, i.e. sign up for a 5k in the future and that will help keep you motivated to keep running and working toward a real event.
2. find someone to run with you. running can be an intimidating sport – it always seems like everyone else knows more than you – but the benefits of having a running partner or group far outweigh the drawbacks. it will be built in accountability for the days when you’d rather stay in bed. my brother provides that for me in the form of picking races for us to run together. i can’t let him down by flaking out simply because i haven’t been training – it keeps me going on the bad days.
3. my running mantra has gotten me through many a workout and run that i simply wanted to quit – “practice not quitting. practice not quitting.” pick something that will help refocus you on your ultimate goals and take you out of the present moment of pain, discomfort, or disillusionment.
4. there will be good days and there will be bad days when you are running consistently. don’t get too down on yourself when you are not seeing the results you want to see during a run. remember: there will be another run this week and you can work towards your goals then.
5. finally, to use a racing metaphor, this is a marathon not a sprint. losing weight through running will take time and will be a combination of exercise and change in diet. while the results may not be immediate, they will come and you should celebrate them when they arrive. 

ultimately when i consider my running journey the pounds gained and lost are inconsequential to regaining a part of who i am. there is no bigger joy for me than when i come around a final turn, into the view of the finishing chute, or just through the front door of the house and two toddlers are cheering their dad on. 

it doesn't have to be running. we all lose the passion, excitement, or fulfillment of hobbies from time to time. choose today to reclaim that hobby and regain part of who you are. happy running.

have you ever slowly lost a hobby that you found out later made a big difference to you?

the air of pain

my training lately has centered around time goals. slowly shaving seconds off of miles takes hard work and dedication. it isn't enough to just go out and put in your miles. you have to commit yourself to running harder, faster, and approaching, even surpassing, your thresholds of pain. one thought has consistently been repeating itself in my head during the endless footfalls of my runs:

in the stratified, thinly layered air and altitude of pain, it is a more mental than physical game. you must neatly, quickly, and efficiently dispense of the thought of pain and suffering stopping, slowing, or altering your pace. pain is but a natural consequence of the elasticity of the human form. 


happy running.

to rabbit or not to rabbit

elmer j. fudd, he of looney tunes fame, famously and dubiously, we might add, proclaims, "be vewy vewy quiet. i'm hunting wabbits!" it was and is a constant battle for him to catch these said "wabbits." the same cannot be said for runners.

rabbits are a pacing mechanism used in some races by elite athletes to hit goal race finishing times. the theory goes that the rabbits will pace the lead group for at least half of the race distance at the goal pace time in order to help them attain a specific finishing time, most often of the record (course, national, country of origin, world) variety. one could rightly ask, what would be the point of these mechanisms otherwise? the rabbit has a predetermined pull-off point at which they stop running. not fall back to a slower pace, but literally stop and quit running.

the wall street journal has an interesting article running today about the ban on rabbits in the new york city marathon. for several years the race organizers have eschewed rabbits for tactical racing. the idea behind this runs something like this: when you eliminate people employed in a race for the specific purpose of pacing the lead runners to a goal time you require the runners themselves to manage and dictate that pace over the total duration of the course, not just part of it. it also requires that the runners accept the mental burden of running in a tactical race for, say 26.2 miles in the case of the marathon, versus part of the race, say 13.1 miles in that same case of the marathon.

i have run competitively, granted not at the same level as people running for a living, and found that one of the most difficult parts of managing a race in order to achieve a desired outcome is the very lack of knowledge of the runners you are running against. in most cases you don't know what their race strategy will be. will they try to lead from the front the entire race? will they yo-yo their pace in order to test the strength, fitness, and endurance of the other runners? will they have a back half pace of brutality that is designed to see who has the most heart in a race rather than the fastest legs? in other words the mental game of furtive glances at the runners, watching as a runner disappears around a corner at a pace you can't maintain in that moment, or playing your cards at the moment you feel is right by accelerating the pace on a hill, flat, or downhill in order to pull away from those around you is not an easy game. it requires an extraordinary amount of mental toughness in the moment.

do rabbits hinder these game? do they steal from the beauty and art of play that unfolds over roads, trails, and fields as runners perspire? and are the two even mutually exclusive? do rabbits inhibit tactical racing?

what say you readers and runners? rabbits or no rabbits?

the trail

when i need a place that will be quiet, involve minimal human interaction, and be intensely focusing i head to the trail to run. trail running is one of the most physically focusing activities i have ever done. you are always on. you can't stop paying attention to the trail ahead of you, under your feet, your surroundings (who knows what animals are out there), and the quietness of the trail. it is this quietness that leads to an even deeper level of focus. the sounds of your breathing and exertion are magnified and the necessary decisions of stride length, pace, intensity level exerted on uphills, downhills, and flats become critical, footfall placement and quick recovery from misplacement of steps are crucial. all of this happens in split second decisions that if ignored can result in painful falls.

there is a depth of truth to running on trails that puts on display your fitness level, your strengths and weakness, the rightness or wrongness of the decisions you make. once you are out on the trail whatever happens is coming back in with you whether it is a looped path or an out and back. and this i know: there is no other place, despite all that goes into each and every step taken, in which i can focus on everything else going on in my life and find answers, peace, calm, and a sense of being centered. 

i hope you know of where that place is for you. where do you go to be centered when you need it?

just one more page

i finished a book yesterday by one of my favorite contemporary authors. blood meridian: or the evening redness in the west by cormac mccarthy is a beautifully, although strikingly violent, written book that borders the apocalyptic genre of writing. it is true to his style of efficiency and economy of word with scenic description paramount to the story. in fact, the scenic venues of the narrative are a character worth study in and of themselves in his writing.

i'm not here to do a book review though. i'm here to admit that i wanted one more page to tell me the rest of the story. to explain the untidy closure of the story. to fill in the rest of the timeline of events. have you ever wanted that in a story? i can comfortably disclose to you that i am most often o.k. with books that end without clear resolution for all of the characters, or a philosophical ending leaving the reader questioning whether or not they read the characters correctly throughout the book (think life of pi by yann martel here). but for some reason, this ending nags at me. perhaps this is the mark of masterful authorship.

what are you reading? have you ever wanted one more page in a book? what book?

a running perspective

a friend wrote a great post on her blog a couple of weeks ago concerning crossing over the chasm of running for fun to running as competition. it is a great and insightful post. you should take the time to read it. i commented on the post, and in light of my most recent race performance they were good words to review today. (i think i just patted myself on the back in semi-public...uhhhh...that was awkward.) here they are, hopefully, for your benefit as well:

i often remind myself that it is about perspective. i have goals, and that is what keeps me motivated, but in reality it is more about the experience of pushing myself than what happens at the end of the race in my age group or overall field that reminds me why i run. i gain far more satisfaction from giving everything i have in a race than not and doing well; there simply aren't any nagging wonders about what could have been when that is the case.

happy running!

race report: marathon 2 marathon

(brief disclaimer: this is long. parts are more graphic in their imagery and details than others. skip those if you'd like.)

marathon, tx is a sleepy town. it is also the last place of civilization before you head further south to big bend. finally, it is a beautiful stretch of land, marked by the davis mountains to the west and mesas and ridges surrounding you as you dip and rise over the mostly barren land, save for a few cacti and mesquite trees. at night you can see so many stars that the dust-like span of the galaxy is majestic and awe inspiring.

on a lonely, quiet stretch of two lane highway runners gathered in the pre-dawn light of the morning to prepare to run 26.2 mi. some consider this misery of the purest form. others consider it an exhilaration of what it means to be alive. still others simply can't conceive of why a person would want to devote 3, 4, 5 hours of their lives to the pursuit of putting one foot in front of another for a seemingly endless expanse of pavement, concrete, and blacktop until their legs feel like quitting.

my brother and i chose to run this race after i had come upon it quite happenstance. i googled some reviews of the race and found nothing but good things to be said and told him we had to run it. for the past year we have filled our calendar with races we wanted to do with little restraint to location. as a disclaimer, this is not a race for someone who enjoys the running of the pack, a lot of people to pass ahead of you who foolishly started too fast, or throngs of people lining the road to cheer you, oh anonymous runner on in your pursuit of individual challenge and glory. there are few people, simple aid stations, and cars going either direction every once in awhile. you are more likely to hear the voice of the local sheriff, ems personnel, or random race organizer asking you if you want water, need anything, or are doing ok than you are a spectator cheering you on or a fellow runner chatting about the pleasantries which runners are want to exchange during a long distance race.

a rolling course of sloping hills up and down persist for the entirety of the race. up and down you go as you climb from ~4,400 ft. to ~4,800 ft. of elevation at the peak of the race and finish mostly downhill over the profile of the race. to call it specifically downhill is not tell you the truth. the biggest climb was at mile 22ish and i wasn't sure it was going to ever end, but i am getting ahead of myself.

i felt prepared to run this race. my longest run in training was 23 miles. i ran that distance a couple of times before the race. the last time i finished the training run with a good amount of energy feeling i could have continued for several more miles. i declared myself ready, was confident, and believed that i could run a 3:30 marathon. if it were a perfect day, with a great run, i thought i had the outside chance of running a 3:15. my training plan, which wasn't necessarily "textbook" consisted of running 3-4 times a week. i have been "blessed" with injuries in my running history mostly of the over-use variety. so i wanted to train smart, stay healthy, and show up to the race with a realistic chance of running a great race. i feel like i accomplished that goal.

race morning went off without a hitch. we showed up to the race with good time to spare. we made our ritualistic forays to the port-a-potties or ranch fence -- hey, this is west texas afterall -- and i was ready to go. after saying our goodbyes to our support crew, my wife and sister-in-law who should win an award for the support they gave throughout the race leap frogging us in the car, i toed the start line.

the first several miles were flawless. i was running about a 7:45 pace and felt confident and comfortable. i actually wondered to myself at one point that it was fairly effortless with the cool of the morning. this is about the time that the problems started. i have been running for nearly 20 years, and running races through much of that time. i have never had any stomach or gastro-intestinal (gi) problems. today was my day. i felt awkward and wondered if it was simply food settling in my stomach. at some point between miles 6&7 i decided i would pull off and try to relieve some pressure on my bladder, aka urinate over the fence. that didn't work, i simply didn't have anything. about a half mile later i finally accomplished that, but still felt bad at this point. eventually i wondered if i could make it to a port-a-potty on the race course. the first one i saw, with some relief, a runner several hundred yards in front of me pulled off to use. at this point i was in the unenviable position of deciding whether or not to wait. i am glad i didn't. he must have been in there for awhile, because despite all my coming problems, i didn't see him again until well after the half way point of the marathon.

at mile 8.5 i knew it was desperate times and desperate measures were in my future. i started looking for the bush. you know the bush that in the empty west texas landscape would at least give me some muted sense of privacy while other people passed on the side of the road. it was either luck of a heavenly blessing that a bush, on the good side of the barbwire fence aka my side, that would be decent and not result in me displaying all of myself to the rest of the runners appeared ahead. i peeled off and did my business, with no tp. like i said, the operative word in all of this was desperate.

did i mention that we had a rockstar support crew? i knew they were leap frogging my brother and i as we ran. i knew he was behind me some way and that hopefully they would come along soon. i started running again, praying fairly earnestly that they would be the next car to creep by to no avail a couple of times. i then wondered how long it was going to take me to get to the next mirage of a blue box standing in all its glory. it was about this time somewhere between miles 9-10 that my crew rolled up and provided some napkins. it was relief of a kind that i hadn't known. chafing might yet be avoided for the remainder of the race. i had to stop again at the halfway point to utilize the blue box. this wasn't an ideal first half. and yet, despite all of this i looked down at my watch as i headed off and had covered the first half in 1:45. i was still on pace for a 3:30 finish.

because of my issues i had been distracted and focusing on my water intake had been a struggle. i carried a camelback which i had trained with for months and was comfortable wearing while running. i simply wasn't consistent enough in hindsight in taking in water. we'll call this foreshadowing.

the second half of the marathon settled in nicely. i started to feel some internal normalcy and reminded myself to simply run within my abilities and give it what i had left. and give i did. i rocked along passed aid stations and the few spectator cars feeling more confident as the miles passed.

about mile 20 i started to feel my calves tighten up. at juncture i knew it was only a matter of time before cramps set in and i hoped that 6 miles was inside that point. i was wrong. i had started to take water and gatorade in tandem with the liquid i was already drinking at the aid stations. when i hit mile 23, after the aforementioned hill of no end, the cramps won out. i was able to run about a half mile at a time before needing to either walk for about a minute to stretch out or to just stop completely and stretch. at about mile 24 it became pure pain as i had to stop about every 100-200 yards to stretch out my calf muscles which apparently wanted to evacuate my legs from either side of my lower legs.

i had given up all hope of finishing with a faster time and told myself that at all costs i could finish under 4 hours. it was a matter of want and desire. i trudged in (at least that's what it felt like) at 3:59:50. my wife urged me in under the 4 hour mark and i felt happy relieved exhilarated to be finished. i was disappointed. and if i'm honest i was really just mad at myself. i had trained, had the ability and potential, and didn't deliver the results i wanted. with some time between myself and the race, i can assess things more positively.

overall i placed 20th. i placed 2nd in my age group. i finished under 4 hours and dropped my marathon pr by nearly an hour. it was a good feeling. undoubtedly the most rewarding part of the race was eagerly waiting for my brother at the 26 mile marker and running him in the last .2 miles. for people who have never run a marathon there really isn't much more of a rush adrenaline and feeling of elation than those last tenths as you head to the finish. it was a moment i won't forget. we had trained for months and accomplished something many will not. it was more than just a long run on a saturday morning.

overall this is a great race. it is a niche marathon. there is little fanfare, but this is replaced with a level runner camaraderie that isn't matched in bigger marathons. we are tentatively planning on heading back next year. i have said before that every runner has good runs and bad runs. it is in the nature of pushing your body to do something to better itself. the same is true of racing. you have good races and you have bad races. so lace up those shoes, get out there, and run into tomorrow; you'll be better for it.

a marathon run to marathon

it's been just over a year since i have trod this space. a lot of things have been going on in my life and the life of my family. the boys are two and doing what two year old twins do -- cause havoc and mischief in a fun-loving way. i had a job and now don't have a job for just over 7 months. it's been a trying and equally rewarding time. i've learned a lot about myself and what i want to pursue long term. on top of all of this i have been running. a lot. 

i started to run, seriously, again over the last year and a half and have lost around 40lbs. that has been rewarding and valuable in its own right, but it also has allowed me to enjoy the sport with a renewed purpose for the first time in nearly 8 years. i am competitive in races and am able to set and vie for PRs that i previously could not have attained. for the past 10 months i have been working on my training and building my base miles in preparation for this weekend. 

on saturday i will run 26.2 miles in the middle of nowheresville west texas. the race is called the marathon 2 marathon. an appropriate moniker considering the race begins about 23 miles outside of marathon, texas and then takes one road into town where you take a turn and head to the finish line. it should be a challenging race both mentally and physically. check back next week for a complete race recap, replete with any glory or foibles that beset me as i run the race. i'll also share what my training plan has been, and as a foretaste we'll just say it most likely isn't in a textbook of training anywhere. 

i look forward to sharing my experience with you next week. 

penny for your thoughts

curious to know what the (small) readership thinks of the following statement:

sunday school does not equal small group.

thoughts in the comments.

the intimacy of empathy

in my last post i laid the foundation for the subject of this post, communion.

communion, in the christian tradition, has gone by many different names: the eucharist, the lord's supper, the sacrament of the table, sharing the table, the blessed sacrament, but they all point to the same theological undergirding: empathy.

no matter your theology of communion (and it can range from transubstantiation to purely symbolic), the basis of continuing in the practice of communion is empathic. the idea that you might share in an experience that is timeless and significant, at once transformative and communal, is what guides this practice.

there are different ways to receive communion, each typically emphasizing the theology at work in the particular practice that one experiences. i have been privileged to receive communion in many of the different ways, and one thing that stands true, for me, in all of the different ways is the way in which those whom i receive the elements of bread and wine with experience something as a community that provides the catalyst for greater transformation communally.

the idea that we can experience things together, through the basic elements of the earth transformed into food, should be thought of as revolutionary. there is a high level of intimacy involved in sharing food with others, and we probably take that for granted too much and miss its potential. in order to really get to know you, i will probably ask that we share a meal at some point in order to do so. it seems logical then to suggest that we might effect more change, develop deeper relationships, or know those points of view that differ from our own more completely if we are willing to include activities that allow us a level of comfort and experience from which we can draw on later.

the intimacy of empathy is what can provide for communion with others and transformative change to occur in our own lives. and then we can set ourselves to the work of communal action for which are prepared by our empathic sharing.

the vast chasm between sympathy and empathy

the last several posts about food have been built on a foundation of the shared experience. there is a power in an experience shared that doesn't exist in something that is experienced in solitude. when you are alone you cannot ask someone else if they just noticed this or that, if they felt that, or if they experienced something the same way as you.

i can hear some of the more astute readers protesting right now, that this is technically, if not categorically, incorrect. i was a philosophy minor after all in college. but i am not talking about the universal. i am pointing to the particular. i am making the subtle difference between sympathy and empathy stand out in the vast chasm which separates them.

i want you to think of empathy. those feelings and emotions, reactions and memories that are called up by having been practically speaking in the same place as another, not just similarly placed.

it is in these moments that we can probe the deeper things at work when we share with one another a beer brewed to perfection, a steak grilled without flaw, and vegetables seasoned from the earth, and yet, have something profoundly pass between us in our togetherness.

our small group experiences this at least once a year. we share the seder meal together. it is a traditionally jewish meal. it is derived from the jewish experience of passover that is passed down from one generation to the next in a narrative that shapes an entire culture. something special happens for us once a year when we share the tastes, the words, and feelings of the seder. we try to give voice to that afterward, but are not always successful at describing the ineffable.

i have found that as i have become more of an "adult" and "grown up," it becomes increasingly difficult to have these experiences. they must be scheduled. there are interruptions, excuses, reasons to not go and do. our culture seems to like it that way. i hope we can slowly change our culture, together.

meet me at babe's

one would think that in america, where we love our portion sizes enormous, family style eating would be popular. sharing meals with one another in larger groups over hours of raucous story-telling and spirits should be something that we enjoy.

but the very things that make up the idea of enjoying family style eating are what diminish its attractiveness to americans in my opinion. for example:

1. we like large portions. but we don't like to share those portions. i order my food at a restaurant because it is what i want, not what we might enjoy sharing. it is downright un-american, indeed, to share all the parts of our meal together. we might just lose a little piece of that enduring, rugged individualism that has made us what we are today as a country. or we might just lose a few pounds on the waistline. either way, i know we shrink back at the idea that we might have to compromise over things.

2. i think we see eating as utilitarian. i, too often, fall into this category. it is something that we have to do to maintain life and "health" statuses (but let's not get too carried away on the whole healthy thing, after all this is america). i eat with speed you have not seen and as though my food is going to disappear all too quickly if it isn't cleared off my plate. the idea that we might sit around sharing food and drink for hours at a time, seems counter-productive to our culture that demands productive progress, not exploratory and educational conversation.

3. eating family style means we share a closeness or level of comfort with acceptance of everyone at the table. to pass a plate or bottle around is a tacit way of offering yourself to another person. without saying the words and by participating in family style eating we exhibit the idea that what i have is for us, and not me alone. this is a corollary of #1. and yet, we do a great deal in our culture to wall ourselves off from others in our homes, with our fences, in our cars, and individualized, compartmentalized, and specialized lives. we are good at this. and we are inversely bad at sharing ourselves.

there are several places that i can enjoy family style eating where all bets are off. my favorite is something that i can't get in austin where i live: Babe's Chicken Dinner House. oh the gloriousness!

what would you add to the list?

a childhood lived together

i am more and more convinced that one truism in life is that you appreciate your parents more as you get older. there are, obviously, exceptions to this, but as you get older you begin to understand the perspective by which they lived through the days and nights of parenthood.

my parents were and are generous people. whether or not they really wanted to, they taught me what i have come to see as a virtue of food culture: to be hospitable and generous is a higher calling.

just about every day of the summer my friends and i engaged in an endless cycle of activity that went something like this: 1. get up fairly early and assemble said friends if not already present. 2. commence outside activity of running around, riding bikes, playing basketball, football, or home run derby until it became too hot to be outside without the aid of 100s of gallons of water. 3. go to a friend's pool and stay in it for the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening. 4. eat dinner...eventually. 5. find one person's house to stay at that night. 6. eat and drink nearly everything in sight. 7. stay up entirely too late. 8. repeat steps 1-7.

our merry band of friends numbered 4-5 and we could eat in our teenage years. and our parents let us. they allowed us to form bonds over the shared experience of a childhood lived together in happiness and struggle, fun times and hard times that friendships inevitably will come upon, and successes and failures as we grew older.

whether or not our parents meant to do this is now inconsequential. i think they taught all of us something much more important than we could have intentionally taught ourselves: that to share and live together is greater and more fulfilling than to isolate ourselves and create an island of our own personality.

much of my childhood was literally lived with the same 5-6 guys and they are still close friends today. they were the groomsmen in my wedding; they were the people i called first to let them know we were having a baby...and then 2 babies a couple of weeks later; they are still the people i feel a longing to know how they are doing and what is going on in their lives. they are most likely a part of who i am and feel most connected to.

and much of this was developed over shared food and drink, over nights spent bleary-eyed and tired but not wanting to let go of the fun to fall asleep, and over the countless hours of unconscious weaving of life experienced together that we didn't realize was happening.

we all owe a lot to our parents. they taught us that to be generous and hospitable was and is greater than anything else we had going on in our lives. i am sure that we were an inconvenience in their lives from time to time, but they must have seen the bigger picture and noticed what was happening day after day after day. and for that words cannot contain the gratitude that i suspect we all have for them.

what is a locavore anyway?

our little community of people, with whom we have been meeting for 4 yrs now, was presented with an intriguing opportunity recently. we could purchase a cow. we could not only purchase this cow, but we could have said purchased cow slaughtered, butchered, and packaged for our consumption.

and so purchase a cow we did! just a couple of weeks ago some of our friends brought our portion of the cow to our house, and we have since been trying to figure out ways to eat dishes consisting of beef. our first dish was a delectable brown sugar meatloaf. what can i say, i am a sucker for down-home favorites.

the cow we purchased was not grain-fed or fattened. our cow was raised on grass, not too far from our house and slaughtered and processed locally as well. it was participation in what is called being a locavore (maybe just the light version, but you have to start somewhere right?). purchasing food from producers in close geographic radius to your home can have far reaching impact on the local economy -- not to mention the added bonus of knowing how your food was raised and grown.

all of this is basic stuff that can lead to bigger questions. what is the right balance of food production? how do you eat healthy and locally and maximize your impact on the local economy and food production with your limited budget (i assume none of my few loyal readers are extremely wealthy, and if you are i want to talk to you about other things!)? what are the ethical and moral impacts of these choices? it is more complicated than you probably think. and how should we go about getting our food?

let's explore food together.

still looking

i am still looking for a job.

that is a somewhat depressing sentence to write. i have tried to fill my time each day with constructive activities, i.e. actually looking for said elusive job that is supposedly out there (at least that is what all the media outlets say about ATX), reading books i have come across, working on projects for a non-profit i am on the board of directors for, doing chores around the house, and running on some days. this is all great in theory, but these things become repetitive at best and teetering on boredom at worst. i am not sure it is a universal feeling (probably not, having at least some insight into human motivation from pastoral care work i have done), but any time that i am not looking for a job i get a twinge of guilt. i rationalize this to myself on almost a daily basis that you surely can't look for a job 24/7 or even 8/5.

what i do know is that this extended time seems to have slowly sucked the creativeness out of me. i have found that reading helps to provoke ideas in my head and running helps refresh my mind and soul for both motivation and the beauty of endorphin release. so, i try to be more disciplined about these things as the days pass.

update finished. on to a new idea:

i want to write about food. not only the importance of sustenance and what that means, but the connections to a life lived spiritually and how food plays a role in and impacts that life. but i want this to be communal. so what questions, ideas, quandaries, comments do you have? with questions i will do my best to answer. with ideas, quandaries, comments, i will do my best to respond. use the comment space below to participate.

sharing is fun; my mother taught me that. so share in this idea and exploration with me.

vive le tour!

it is arguably my favorite time of year. as the july heat is ratcheted up in the lone star state, so the summer in france sizzles with excitement. it is time for the tour de france, or simply le tour.

as they hurl toward the prologue, riders from 22 teams will each take their turn to churn out 8.9km as fast as they can in an atmosphere of exhibition on saturday. to be sure this will be the beginning of a gut wrenching covering of 3,642km over 20 stages with a couple of rest days sprinkled in between. there will be big names who crash, big names who fail to live up to expectation, and big names who are disgraced - only adding to the blight and shadow that doping casts over the sport. but there will also be big names and unheralded names who conquer both mountain and flats to rise victorious, even if only for a day. and they will succeed on the backs of their teams as they pull them through stage after stage and only one man is left atop the podium donning the yellow jersey that is known the cycling world over.

dirty racing is something that we unfortunately come to expect in the cycling world. we wonder if humans are really capable of achieving the feats they seem to accomplish in the days leading up to failed tests. we know that it will be present this year, but we hope that it will be lessened in each of the successive races. whole teams are beginning to make efforts to clean up the sport (see team garmin-transitions). riders are tested more often, especially if your initials are la (just follow @lancearmstrong to find out just how often that is). as a devoted cycling fan i can only hope that this year will be cleaner than last and the next even more so.

despite all the dark publicity brought to the sport every year in doping scandals, i find myself excited and ready to watch the 22 teams begin a quest to accomplish their goals both as individuals and as cooperatives. it is compelling to think that no man can succeed in winning the tour on his own, he is constantly in debt and dependent upon the team whose colors he pulls on each morning. the cooperative nature of this type of sport reminds me time and time again that we are not alone. that in our greatest successes and failures there are others who celebrate and agonize with us. vive le tour!

qualities of a job search

patience and silence.

my wife can attest to the fact that i am phenomenal (probably to a fault at times) at the latter and not so phenomenal at the former. these are traits that i have known about myself for a long time in my short life. i appreciate running alone in the rain, left to my own thoughts of solitude. i struggle though to occupy myself for more than a couple of days and find boredom sets in when i know i would rather be working. my patience being tested while driving frequently results in high levels of in-car tension. but when my wife falls asleep in minute 21 of driving, i don't mind driving the rest of the 4 hours in complete silence to myself.

these are qualities and characteristics of a job search. it has only taken three days of unemployment for me to figure out which parts are going to be difficult for me to withstand and which will be un-affecting to me.

some years back i spent 7 weeks in costa rica studying sustainable development. while there one of the professors spent free time indulging the hobby of bird watching. it was something that i had never participated in, but having lugged my binoculars all the way to costa rica, i wanted to get some good use out of them, and this was a great opportunity. i wasn't sure what to expect of the bird watching experience. i am not even sure i can remember having any expectations. but on the first morning we traipsed out into the jungle i was hooked. we caught glimpses of three wattled bellbirds and the resplendent quetzal. it was majestic to wait, listen, locate, and see birds that are indigenous to that part of the world and are beautiful in their natural setting.

and so i was sitting on my back porch, sipping my morning coffee, and watching the bird feeder as it occurred to me that job searching is like bird watching. you have to combine and hone the skills of patience and silence. waiting and listening for birds requires a measure of patience for which i was tested at times. you can sit for agonizing minutes at a time hearing and seeing nothing. once you hear a bird, searching for, locating, and actually seeing that bird without them flying off is a fete of accomplishment at times and requires a desire to persist even when it isn't easy. and the first rule of bird watching is not that there is no bird watching, but that silence is prized only below seeing a new species of bird previously unlocated through the glass refraction of your binoculars.

job searching mimics this practice. you have to exhibit patience in waiting for and locating the jobs that you are qualified to apply for. once you apply you have to find comfort in waiting patiently and absorbing the silence of days passed and emails and calls unreceived. i can imagine that moment of ending the run of employment as breathtaking in its own rite, just as you skip a breath the first time you see a rare bird or hear its distinctive call in your ears.

and so i have come to the conclusion that i must continue refining the skills of patience and silence -- it will probably pay off in the long run, just like seeing the beauty of the birds.

ready go: open-source church

a phrase you have heard a lot lately is open-source. open-source is the opposition of closed-source. and mostly it is something you hear about in the tech world, where software and programming development is paid for at a premium. there are those out there, though, that see an intrisic value in developing software and programs such that others have a say in it, can change or modify it, or use it freely.

google and apple tend to be the two examples used in this argument. but an interesting thing is happening as we inch toward a post-christian society in america. people are beginning to talk about open-source church. there are ideas percolating that people hope will revitalize the church in a new and fresh way. i have been thinking about this idea a lot and am curious what other think when they hear open-source church.

ready go: open-source church...your thoughts, comments, questions, etc. are all welcome.

vitality of the church

i recently participated in a survey about the structure and design of my denominational church. one of the questions in the survey asked the respondents to comment on what it meant for the church to be vital. below is my response to that question.

"Vitality within the church looks like diverse populations interacting to bring about authentic worship and participating in life giving, loving, and dignifying mission, community building, education, growth, and evangelism. I would be remiss not to also mention that vitality in part is driven by a desire to seek deeper communion with fellow members of the community through communal interaction both within and without the church. Most importantly, however, a vital church is one that is not defined by the actions of Sunday, rather the robust actions of the members throughout the week in their diverse settings. "

what did i miss? where did i err? what are you thoughts about what makes a church vital?

why food matters

something a lot of people don't know about me is that i have a secret passion for food. i love to cook. i love to go to the grocery store. i love to indulge in the beauty and depth of flavor that is a well cooked and fashioned meal. mostly i love the chemical and visual transformation that comes with cooking your own food.

last week i posted about jamie oliver's crusade to change the way public schools, specifically, and the general population eat. i would still encourage you to take the 20 mins. to watch the TED talk he gave. he has seen proven results through his initiatives. he brings an unmistakable passion and excitement to the issue.

indulge me in an aside for a moment. when my wife and i spent the week of easter in wales and england two years ago we stayed with some of her relatives who were living in wales at the time. while we were there, we decided to have a meal that featured a recipe by jamie oliver. the centerpiece of deliciousness was a leg of lamb. being in wales, we went down to the local butcher shop in the town, pictured below, and asked said butcher for a leg of spring lamb. this is an important distinction because you can get meat from different kinds of lambs by asking for a specific type of lamb.

in any event the conversation turned to our obviously non-welsh/english accents and the third generation butcher had some, well let's say strong opinions. he first told us how much he loved the united states. in fact, he told us, he would move there given the opportunity and financial assurance that he would be o.k. once he hopped the pond. in course of conversation he asked what we were doing with said leg of lamb and he was told that jamie oliver had a great recipe for leg of lamb...MISTAKE. so started the 5 min. rant on the cooking misery that is jamie oliver to this fine welsh butcher. the zenith of his argument was the statement, "jamie oliver's a bloody englishman. all you are going to do is ruin this leg of lamb." this was then followed with the explanation of how the welsh disdain the english like americans do canadians. imagine a bloodied and gruff welsh butcher showing his highest level of exasperation and you have the complete picture. we cheerfully accepted his two cents and set off to cook. for the record, the lamb was magnificent. and i don't think jamie oliver is all that bad.

back to the main point: our food culture in the united states is killing us. literally. we have traded in true beauty and the wonder of watching the hidden chemical reactions of cooking for fast food convenience and poor health effects. study after study has shown that our current food and eating habits have resulted in off-the-charts levels of diseases that are killing us at alarming and early rates. add to this that children are suffering astounding levels of diseases directly related to food consumption and epidemic is probably not too strong of a word to describe the situation.

so why care? i eat healthy most of the time. i exercise and i care for myself. i get 7+ hours of sleep a night.

i believe this is more than a compartmentalized issue. i believe this is in part a religious issue. we are mandated to care for our bodies as though they were temples. this is more than filling it with trash and allowing it to devolve into disrepair. caring for our neighbors and loving others is not shown is putting the small farmer out of business in the interest of big agriculture and genetically modified foods. ethically, the issues are deeper than most of us will ever grasp. but more than anything i have found that the more i care about where my food comes from, the more i find myself in relationship with the people and places my food comes from.

in the process of losing the magic of cooking we are sacrificing relationships that can prove transformative and significant, all the while killing ourselves. this seems more costly than even the smallest sacrifice of convenience, processed food, and wasteful stewardship. here's to reclaiming the magic of the culinary arts.