Miracles happen. Water turns to wine. A basket of fish and bread becomes a feast for a crowd. The dead are raised with a two-word command. A glob of mud and the blind see. A hemorrhage ceases with a touch to a garment’s edge. Miracles happen, and everything changes in the blink of an eye, but most of the time change takes time and toil mixed with prayer and faith.
Four days. Four days ago I offered you the idea that we are who we are and that we love who we love, because it’s by God’s design and for God’s purpose. Being GLBTQ is our divine calling. This is the very way in which God wants us to live in the world and engage with the world, to be queer folks living out the Good News of Christ in wholeness and truth. I encouraged you to lay aside the other voices inside your head and give yourself permission for four days to believe that it’s not by mistake or by sin that you’re gay, but by the will of God for God’s good pleasure.
The four days are over. As much as I believe in the possibility of miracles, I didn’t expect all doubt would be erased and all the old messages silenced with a few words and a few days. Four days isn’t a holy number and the words of affirmation aren’t a magical mantra. But maybe, just maybe, during the last four days you had a little window of time in those 96 hours where everything but God’s assurance and love faded away into the distance. Did you have a moment like that? Were you able to breathe a little deeper while it lasted? Did the weight of self-doubt feel a little lighter? Whatever experience you had remember it, and when you remember it take the time to imagine walking in that assurance and freedom every moment of every day of your life, because whatever that time was like for you dear sister or brother, it’s only a taste of all that God has in store for you.
My schedule is a little weird while I’m still out of town but my intention is to spend a few more posts on transforming the old messages before moving into the unique gifts we bring to the church and world as GLBTQ Christians.
I was lurching through an eleven mile training walk yesterday when this song began playing on my iPod, and I knew I had to share it with you. It says far more than all my words above combined. Listen and know.
When I wrote the other day that I believe we are who we are and we love who we love because it’s by God’s design and for God’s purpose that we’re GLBTQ people; when I called being gay a divine calling, a holy vocation and for the sake of the Gospel, I was saying I believe all that today but I haven’t always.
I didn’t believe being gay was a gift when after 15 years of full-time ministry as a children’s pastor the senior pastor called me into his office and said “For your remaining two weeks as the children’s pastor at the church, I need to ask that you not be alone with any of the children; that you do what you can to avoid being with them at all.”
I had no confidence that being queer was a divine calling when the Christian publishing company called to inform me that while they still wanted to purchase my Christian Education program for national distribution it could only be under the condition that my name not appear as the author because they couldn’t risk having their evangelical market discover the material had been written by a homosexual.
I couldn’t have imagined it was God’s plan I was a lesbian when a Christian educator’s organization passed along word to me that despite having been one of their most popular workshop presenters over the previous six years, they were putting me on notice that they knew I was gay and therefore never again would be asked to speak at their annual conference or participate in any manner whatsoever.
I didn’t dare believe my sexuality was for the sake of the Gospel when it came time to receive the annual application to renew my denominational ministerial license in the mail and my mailbox remained empty; when a loved one who had supported my ministry from the beginning coldly said I should never have entered the ministry at all; or when I closed the door for a final time on an emptied church office where I’d counseled with parents and loved on their children through the main part of my adult years.
For all these reasons and for others held too close to my heart to openly share, I know that calling our sexuality a divine gift, a holy calling, God’s plan, and our purpose can be a challenge when the internal messages and external circumstances seem to reflect a different reality. I really do get it which is all the more reason why I admire you for taking on the challenge to believe something different if only for four days or for two.
All that I mentioned above came about in the first two months following my own coming out as a lesbian. While I had already come to peace concerning being a Christian and a lesbian, I understood my sexuality at that time as something more akin to a burden than a blessing, an oops of God rather than a gift of God. After all, it was coming at such a high price and then there was all that had been lost around my ministry. I had loved the ministry and that my greatest responsibility in my call had been to simply love people and tell of God’s even greater love for them. I couldn’t help wonder if the most meaningful and rewarding years of ministry were behind me.
Haman had tricked King Xeres into issuing a decree that would lead to the destruction of all the Jews. When Mordacai learned of Haman’s plot he sent a messenger to Queen Esther his niece, a closeted Jew, that she should petition her husband the king for the salvation of the Jews. When fear caused Esther to resist the idea, the message Mordacai sent back to her was this:
Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)
Uncle Mordacai dares to suggest that the reason Esther had ever become queen, gaining privilege and renown might well have been for this very moment by placing her into a position where she could save her people, bringing relief and deliverance to the oppressed.
I read this passage one evening during my personal devotional time and something about it grabbed hold of me. Several weeks later I went to a GLBTQ Christian gathering where Marsha Stevens was the keynote speaker. Marsha told of her early years in Christian music when the Jesus Movement exploded and we (the currently middle-aged we) were all listening to Christian groups like Love Song, Second Chapter of Acts, and Children of the Day. She’d written the song, “For Those Tears I Died” while still in her teens, a song that was part of my own youth, playing it over and over again on my clunky 8-Track, strumming it’s simple chords on my acoustic guitar, and carrying the alto line in the church youth choir. Marsha recounted how after coming out as a lesbian she began to receive packages in the mail from churches around the country, filled with copies of her song torn from church hymnals and song books in angry protest upon learning the song writer was gay. In the midst of what must have been a devastating time in her life, Marsha turned to the story of Esther and the words “For such a time as this” rattled inside her, and rather than grieving the past success in ministry she’s once experienced, Marsha continued on to sing and proclaim the Gospel message as an out lesbian Christian and to establish a ministry that’s taken her around the world, healing and blessing the lives of countless GLBTQ and straight people. Marsha believed that all her past successes and accomplishments had been to prepare her for such a time as this.
For such a time as this. The phrase bounced around in my heart for days and then months and when it came to finally rest the idea that being gay was the purposeful intention of God for my life replaced the sense that my sexual orientation was merely a fluke or a flaw. I could never have imagined doing anything in ministry more rewarding or meaningful than all those years of pastoring children and their families, but then I could have never imagined the utter joy of the opportunities I’ve been given in recent years to proclaim God’s unconditional love to GLBTQ people or to anyone for that matter who needs to hear the message of the love of God, the message of the Gospel.
So many doors closed years ago but even more have been opening ever since. I’m an ordained clergywoman. I officiate at the table. There have been opportunities to preach in church and lead workshops designed for GLBTQ Christians. Every Sunday morning, I scrunch down onto a small carpet circle in the front of the church and gather another generation children around me to tell them how precious they are to God and how great is God’s love for them. And then there’s this online ministry. How would have thought this up but God? I could never have imagined or thought to ask to be part of anything like this nor can I ever tell the joy I feel when even one woman writes to say that something here has helped her draw a little closer to God. It makes my knees weak every time. In the end I lost nothing in coming out that wasn’t given back to me in extravagant abundance.
Everyone is called by God and we spend our lives seeking to live into that calling; to discover our way of being the presence of Christ in the world. The calling doesn’t stop the day we come out. The voice of God isn’t silenced even in the closet. God’s hand is on you. God’s spirit within you. God’s anointing upon you. Who you are is the very person God needs for you to be in this world. You have a way of speaking and living God’s love that will touch someone in a way that my life and others lives simply couldn’t do. Your life reflects a particular angle of God’s character and being that’s the exact angle someone else needs desperately to see. These might sound like sentimental words but they’re also very real. Nothing in your life is unusable to God. Nothing is less than a gift when devoted to God’s glory.
Whatever you’ve done in the past, wherever the present finds you, God has called you…for such a time as this.
I’d intended to have another blog entry up by today but mid-day I took a flight to the Pacific Northwest to spend a few days with my mom and so most of the day has been spent packing, departing, flying, arriving, and loving on mom. I pulled my laptop from my messenger bag only a few minutes ago and was so delighted and incredibly moved by the comments waiting to be added to the last few posts. To all those who’ve added a comment over the past 24 hours, or for that matter any time since day one of SisterFriends, I want to say thank you.
Thank you for the generosity of your words toward me and this ministry. They humble me, you humble me more than words can say.
Thank you for bringing the best of yourself here, sharing pieces of your life and faith, offering words of encouragement and care to another.
And I want to tell you how much I admire you.
To those who are struggling to reconcile their faith and sexuality I admire your courage and tenacity.
To those who’ve already passed down that road, I admire your boldness in coming out and claiming your wholeness.
To those who are straight allies and friends to GLBTQ people I admire your commitment to the heart of the Gospel that’s woven out of love and justice and and mercy.
To all of you without exception; gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, straight and affirming, straight and uncertain, straight and opposing, I admire your devotion to the faith and to the God who is God of all.
You all amaze me. You truly do, and were I to make an audio version of this little post, you’d know how real the words I’ve just written are because you’d hear my voice crack with the emotion of the deepest of gratitude for you and for the God of Jesus who is solely responsible for anything of grace and love and hope and joy that happens here.
For more than ten years there’s been a growing community of Christian Lesbians that have been active members in the e-mail groups that grew out of SisterFriends-Together (formerly christianlesbians.com). Last week, the home of one of our long-time active members was destroyed by a house fire. While the women in our community are incredibly grateful that Tresa and her wife Shelly and several other loved ones escaped to safety, nearly all their possessions along with eight cats were lost.
If you would be interested in contributing to assist Tresa and Shelly in replacing those items destroyed by the fire that can be replaced, you may send a check to:
Grace Unfolding Ministries
P.O. Box 131
Danville, CA 94526
Please write “Fire Donation” in the memo line of the check. Be aware that SisterFriends-Together does not yet have 501c non-profit status, so donations may not be listed as tax-exempt on your tax filing.
If you visit this site often and have found any of our resources helpful, I’d ask that rather than contributing financially to support this ministry , you’d direct a small or large gift toward this special giving opportunity. Whether you’re able to donate or not, your prayers for Tresa and Shelly would be greatly appreciated, especially in this time as they hold both gratitude and grieving side by side in their hearts.
I’m being tested by God to see if I’ll remain obedient and faithful.
I’m being tempted by the enemy who wants to destroy me.
I was born with a defect in my personality or a genetic flaw.
Something happened to me in my childhood.
I gave into sin because I was spiritually weak.
I was just born gay.
I’m not really gay. I only fell in love with a woman.
Depending on where you are in the reconciliation process your answer to the question might be different today than it was last week or last month, and different than it might be a year from now. At some point early on in my own experience I tried them all on for size, sometimes all at once which made for some really crazy and confusing thinking and if these uncertain answers shared any common thread it was this, that the bottom line reason for why I was gay came down to being my fault. It was my choice, my weakness, my genetic makeup, my quirky predisposition, my sin.
In time I came to understand and accept that just as there exists indisputable diversity among our physical bodies, our emotional responses and our intellectual processes, it would then only reason that there are variances in human sexuality and how that sexuality was expressed from person to person. Homosexuality, heterosexuality, and bisexuality were then just separate points on the sexuality continuum. Simply put, God could have made all flowers on earth roses, but instead for no reason other than for the sake of beauty and for His enjoyment and glory, God splashed creation with a variety of flowers that number in the millions. And trees and birds and fish and fruit and on and on and on, so that it was no longer such a stretch to see that I was gay for no reason other than God’s an artistic genius and I’m one of God’s one-of-a-kind creations. As you are, perhaps for no more or less reason than for the sake of beauty and for God’s enjoyment and glory. Oh how God enjoys and glories in you!
So then, we’re gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered not by mistake or by sin, but this is who we are because we represent little pieces in the unique diversity of God’s creation, and for a season in my life that was my answer to the question, but I’ve come to another explanation. I want to suggest it goes further that God’s diversity of creation. Much further. And this is what I truly, absolutely, without hesitation or question believe.
I believe we are who we are and that we love who we love, because it’s by God’s design and for God’s purpose we’re the gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people of God. This is our divine calling; a holy vocation. This is the very way in which God wants us to live in the world and engage with the world, to be queer folks living out the Good News of Christ in wholeness and truth.
When we can receive our sexual orientation or gender identity as God’s calling, it changes everything. No longer is this just my burden to carry through my life but this is a gift that’s been entrusted to me, a gift I’m called to share with the world. It’s no longer just about me and oh, how I love everything to be about me. My being gay is for the sake of the Gospel, as is the lovely voice of the gospel singer, the eloquent sermon of the pastor, and for anyone who’s gifted to do anything that brings hope and healing to the world in God’s name.
As GLBTQ Christians we have a unique ministry in the middle. We stand with one foot in the GLBTQ community and the other in the church and by our very lives we say to both that one doesn’t exclude the other. To the GLBTQ community we bring the reality of God’s grace to those who have experienced personally and collectively rejection and abuse in God’s name, and to the church we bring the constant reminder that the Gospel of Jesus, rather than dogma or doctrine, lays at the center of the Christian faith. In our very lives we’ve brought Christian and queer together. We’ve found a way to resolve the conflict, to reconcile these two pieces of our very identity and so if we can bridge that space within our own hearts, we bring hope that the same can unfold among GLBTQ people and the Church. There’s a place for Christ in the GLBTQ community. There’s a place for GLBTQ people in the church. We know this because there’s room in our lives for both to simply be.
I’d like to believe that some of you are on the same page with me and as you read along you’re nodding your head and saying “That’s right Girlfriend. Preach it!” but others I suspect struggle with the idea. You want it desperately to be true but it seems impossible especially when you consider all that you’re facing and all that you’ve lost. If that’s where you’re at I’m going to suggest you take on a little project. Here it is. For the next four days imagine that what I’ve just written is true; that you have the sexual orientation or the gender identity you have because God has given you a special calling and ministry. If four days is too long then just do it for two days. Just two. For the next two days when you pray, thank God for the gift He’s entrusted to your care and ask for guidance in living out your call in the day before you. When you rise from your prayers and move into your day, do so with the confidence and humility that your life is a living epistle read by all of the grace and love and awesome wonder that is God in Christ Jesus. Being queer is your spiritual gift and your ministry to the world. It’s not a mistake. It’s not sin. It’s not temptation or a test. It’s by God’s good pleasure that you are who you are and for the next four days or even only two, walk and talk and pray and breathe and move like it’s absolutely, undeniably, certifiably true. Forget the voices outside or inside your head that tell you you’re gay for other reasons and listen a while to this voice of calling and purpose, and see how it sits inside your heart.
In the next post, I’d like to briefly, she said with a smirk, look at the lives of Esther and Jeremiah, two people of God who wished at times for anything but the gift and the call they’d been given by God.
I believe in giving credit where credit is due and for that reason, I want to encourage any of you who haven’t yet read it to consider reading Gifted By Otherness: Gays and Lesbian Christians in the Church., which provides some direction for future posts in this series. Whenever I take something directly from the book, I’ll be sure to note it as such.
I know. When pigs fly. But imagine just for the next four paragraphs that bacon has wings.
It’s five years in the future and the issue of homosexuality has been settled once and for all. Clergy, theologians and scholars from every denomination and faith tradition have come together agreeing without exception that there exists no biblical prohibition against homosexuality, but that in God’s creation there is a diversity within human sexuality. In response to their conclusions, they call all faith communities worldwide to a season of repentance and to begin the reconciliation process with their GLBTQ brothers and sisters. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson hold a joint news conference that opens with the words “We were wrong,” and a televised live feed from the Vatican shows a contrite and tearful Pope nodding in affirmation.
Change happens quickly. There are no longer any GLBTQ denominational organizations or congregations proclaiming themselves to be gay-affirming because all denominations and every church is now fully welcoming to the lives, ministries, and relationships of GLBTQ people. Focus on the Family has finally begun to focus their ministry and resources on equipping and supporting all families. Pastors that had been publicly removed from their positions because of their sexuality return to the pulpit. Families once torn apart by the conflict over erroneous religious teaching and sexual orientation are restored in forgiveness and grace. The church begins as never before in history to live out the kingdom of God on earth where all people are fully loved, received, and cared for as God’s own beloved.
As other sectors of life and society witness the transformation unfolding among people of faith, policies and attitudes around the world change. Legal marriage and adoption are opened to same-sex couples. Gays wishing to serve in the military do so, responding to the Armed Forces new slogan, “Ask or tell, it’s no big deal.” GLBTQ people are represented positively in movies, print, and on TV. It’s finally revealed in a delightful one-hour special on the Disney Channel that Goofy and Pluto have been together for years and are the chosen godparents to Donald’s nephews Hewy, Dewy, and Lewy. National Coming Out Day is officially discontinued because all the closets have long since been emptied.
Your mom calls. “When is my favorite daughter and daughter-in-law coming over for a visit? We haven’t seen you two since your wedding day and we’d like to have a little get-together with our church friends and neighbors so they can meet the happy new couple! Oh, and your uncle Bob and his partner will be making their yummy guacamole!”
Imagine that was all true and that it all happened tomorrow. You stumble out of bed and drink your morning coffee in a brand new world where gay, straight, bisexual, and transgendered are all held as equal. Nice to think about huh? But here’s what I wonder. I wonder if that, all of that, would be enough to settle the question for you once and for all? Could you then stop doubting that God loves you as you are? Could you let go of that nagging question that makes you ask of God or yourself, “Am I okay? Is this alright? Am I wrong? What if I’m wrong?”
You know what? I don’t think so for the same reasons I sometimes question my own worth or why I’m truly surprised sometimes to look in the mirror and not see the 325 pound version of me as I wrote about yesterday. As a heavy child, a big teenager, and a morbidly obese adult in this world I took a lot of messages into my mind that didn’t automatically fall away with the lost weight. The name calling, the attempts and the failures at weight loss, the guilt and shame of people looking at me and believing they were judging me based on my body. Some of you might totally relate to the weight experience and for others it might be something completely different but for all of us, to one extent or another we deal regularly or rarely with the old messages that play in our minds and our hearts around our sexuality.
Up to the day we realized we were gay most of us heard little but negative messages around homosexuality from our families and in our churches. There was no question the Bible explicitly condemned homosexuality and for some of us, the church taught homosexuality was more than a sin but among the worst of all sins. We’ve heard our share of gay jokes and under-the-breath comments like “Look at that guy over there. What a fairy.” or “Geeze, is that a man or a woman?! What a queer!” The media is littered daily with stories on banning gays from the military, protecting the institution of marriage (and civilization as we know it) from homosexuals, or of another hate crime against a queer or transgendered youth. On TV Christian organizations raise millions by instilling fear in their Christian viewers with false stereotypes of gays and the threat of our non-existent gay agenda. All those messages have found their way, and continue to find their way into us, so that even if everything in the world changed tomorrow, all that clutter would still be there. That’s why it’s in our hearts and minds that the real change needs to come, to learn to separate the sound of old messages from the voice of God and to renew our minds so that the old messages are replaced with new ones that bring assurance instead of doubt.
What I’d like to do over the next few entries is look at alternate ways of understanding ourselves and our sexuality that goes against the voices that occasionally chatter in our heads, and that we begin by putting aside any messages that suggest our sexuality is sin or happenstance and that we receive it instead as a holy and unique calling of God; allowing ourselves to believe that being gay isn’t simply okay with God but that it’s by God’s design and for God’s purpose we’re GLBTQ people.
And yes, I promise. I’ll make every effort in the world to be more brief in my writing. I realize I’m breaking all the rules around good blogging with these ridiculously long posts so I’ll work on shorter ones. You’re being so patient with me!
I remember seeing the words “morbidly obese” on my medical chart for the first time when I was in the sixth grade. Though I didn’t fully understand what the words meant I pieced together it wasn’t good. No one had ever called me “obese” before, but as the biggest girl in all my elementary school classes I was familiar with “Fatso”, “Lard Butt”, and “Fatty Fatty Two By Four” and I felt reasonably sure “morbidly obese” was somehow connected. I was the slowest in gym class and the last to be chosen for any team sports. Except dodge ball. I was a demon in dodge ball. I went home in tears from Campfire Girls one afternoon because the safety pin that held my Campfire Girl skirt together had popped open and I was so embarrassed someone might see the gap at the top of my skirt I left the jabbing pin in my waist until after the meeting.
High school wasn’t any better, only now the kids who teased me were bigger and meaner and by my teens I’d outgrown youth sizes and had to resort to buying clothes at maternity stores. I don’t know about your high school but cotton jumpers decorated with little ducks were never in fashion at mine. As an adult my weight continued to climb which made me feel increasingly bad about myself, which sent me to the food to feel better or feel nothing at all, which caused me to gain more weight and so the cycle continued until at the age of 43 when I found myself on the upside of 325 pounds.
No matter how many wonderful things were going on in my life or the number of remarkable people who surrounded me, I was conscious of my size every minute of the day. Children would point at the fat lady. Adult strangers would scowl at me in disgust. Clothing continued to be impossible to find and climbing a single flight of stairs left me sweaty and painfully gasping for air. I had heart pain and high blood pressure. I had the added humiliation of not fitting through store turnstiles, of requiring an extension belt on airplanes, and being reminded every time I turned on the TV or opened a magazine or simply went out into the world and mixed with the general population that I wasn’t like everyone else. I know there are large-sized men and rubenesque women with a healthy self-esteem and body image. I wish I could have been one of them but I wasn’t. Instead I was miserable and not at all fond of myself.
At the age of 43 I joined a support group, worked a spiritual program, ate healthy and moderately one day at a time, and lost 140 pounds by the grace of God and a break between meals. For the past eight years I’ve had no problem buying clothes. I no longer worry about whether I’ll fit behind a restaurant booth or in an airplane seat or through a turnstile. At the first of the year my doctor reported that after looking over all the test results from my physical exam I was in remarkable health. Children no longer point and shout “Mommy! Look at that big lady!” and when I’m out in the world strangers return my smile with one of their own. I work out at the gym, I ride my bike, and I walk for miles at a time and feel great. The self-loathing is gone. I’m grateful for my life and my health and most days when I look in the mirror I feel really comfortable with who I’m seeing looking back at me.
But not all the time. There are still those times, rare though they might be, when I go into a new setting and wonder if people there are thinking about how big I am. I obsess that the clerk at the clothing store thinks I don’t belong in her store even though the clothes I’m carrying to the dressing room are the same size as the clothes in my closet at home that happen to fit me with ease. There are still those times when I feel fat. Why?
I had nearly 43 years of being conditioned to relate to the world and to myself as a “morbidly obese” person and that doesn’t change overnight. For 43 years children pointed and people starred. For 43 years I stood out in a crowd for no other reason than because of my weight and that made me feel different. I was identified in the world as a fat person and if that were just a neutral observation then that would be one thing but in our culture fat comes burdened down with an arsenal of groundless value judgments, and those damaging messages driven into anyone over a lifetime are bound to occasionally and randomly rewind and play again. When that happens, there’s a choice as to how to respond; listen to the old messages and let them determine how I see myself or when the old messages start up stop and remind myself that’s what they are, old messages that aren’t any more true of me today than they were when I walked in the world as a 325 pound woman. Just because I feel a certain way doesn’t mean those feelings reflect what’s actually true and so it’s important I find ways to come back to the center of what is true when the minions in my head start kicking up the dust.
So this is a little story from my life but I share it with you for a very different reason other than just spilling my personal beans. It’s kind of a quirky little way of leading into a bigger conversation on the old messages that keep bubbling up to the surface for some of us as we walk the Christian journey as GLBTQ people. I know the correlation probably seems beyond obscure at the moment which was confirmed for me by the puzzled “Huh?” look D had when she read it but come back tomorrow and give me another chance. I promise to not be so vague or metaphor-ish.
I’ve only entered two other races in my short “athletic” career. I completed a half-marathon a couple summers ago which turned out to be a miserable experience due to ridiculously hot weather that slowed me to a pace considered competitive only among potato bugs. By the time I crossed the finish line there were four cheering spectators remaining consisting of D and three friends while the majority of the other competitors and hoards of former spectators were already stationed in an air-conditioned restaurant somewhere chugging down glasses of ice water and munching on chips and salsa.
Several months later I entered a full-marathon in Portland, Oregon, but due to an ankle injury which I’d like to report was from a failed parachute landing rather than an unsuccessful curb step up, I was forced to drop out at mile 12. The pain was making me whimper like a little puppy, the sight and sound of which was depressing the spectators and putting a royal damper on the whole affair.
That’s my long and checkered athletic racing career which led up to Sunday’s 9 miler at Big Sur, and I’m happy to report that not only did I finish the race 238th in a pack of 500 (so what if I had to trip a few to pass them), I had a great time every mile of the way. The weather was amazing and with the course running along the shore of the Pacific Ocean the scenery was eye-popping stunning.
The day’s events included not only the 26.2 mile marathon open to individuals and relay teams and the 9-mile walk/run, but there was also a 5K run and a 10.6 walk/run. The races all had different starting lines; the full marathon and 10.6 mile walk/run were point to point races, meaning they started 26.2 and 10.6 miles out from where the finish line was located; while the 5K and the 9-miler were loop races so that the starting lines ending up morphing into the finishing lines. While all the races had staggered start times, at some point in the morning we were all out on our respective courses at the same time which is quite an amazing feeling to know you’re out on the same road at the same time with the gazelles.
I hadn’t thought all this through before the race since I was just focused on my little part, and in the minutes prior to the race my entire thinking capacity revolved exclusively around calculating when would be the last possible second I could squeeze in one final trip to the porta-potty, gadging whether my shoe laces were too loose or too tight, and scanning the other participants to see if there was anyone who looked like they might possibly be slower than me. It wasn’t until I was less than a half mile from the finish line that what was about to happen dawned on me.
Even before I could see the finish line with its huge inflated vinyl finisher’s arch, I could hear the music and crowds of people cheering just over the rise of the approaching hill and with every step closer more spectators began to gather, waving and applauding and shouting “Good job! You look great! Keep going, you’re almost there!” As we neared the finish line people were standing three rows deep on either side, held back by bright blue waist-high crowd control barriers, and the collective noise of the crowds, a band playing live music, and the announcer on the public sound system was overwhelming and thrilling at the same time. And that’s when I got it. Everyone out on the course that day had run different distances and started at different times but we were all going to be crossing the same finish line…together.
And sure enough, the timing was such that at the very moment I ran under the finisher’s gate, the first few elite marathon runners were crossing over it too. The crowds were cheering like crazy for these incredible athletes who’d just finished running 26.2 in nearly the same time it had taken me to hobble through 9 miles, and because I knew it was for them and not for me I instinctively put my head down and began to shuffle off to the side. The weird thing, no, the amazing thing, was even though the color of my runner’s bib designated me as a competitor in the 9-mile event, when I looked up at the crowds, there were strangers looking right at me, smiling and cheering and saying “Good for you, congratulations!” and the volunteers in their neon green teeshirts at the finisher’s line patted me on the back as they cheered and pointed me toward the row of young people who were there to slip the finisher’s medals around our necks. It didn’t matter what race we’d run or whether we came in first or last; everyone who had entered a race and finished was cheered across the finish line, everyone was greeted with the same enthusiasm by the teams of volunteers, and everyone had a medal slipped around their neck, no medal larger or grander than the other.
On the course that day were a thousand stories. There were athletes who train all their lives for these events and who set personal bests nearly every time their feet strike the asphalt. For some people this marathon was nothing more than an event to keep them loose and ready for the next major marathon they’re planning to run. For others this was their first time to ever enter a race in their lives and they cared more about just crossing the finishing line than how long it would take them to get there. Hansi, a 65 year old woman I’ve known for the past several years completed the full marathon in 3:52 minutes, taking first place in her age division; an achievement she repeats over and over again at the various marathons she participates in around the world every year. Brandon, my 33 year old best male friend in this or any other universe, walked the 9-miler with me despite two blown out knees and chronic pain. There was a man walking with his arm secured in a sling following a recent rotator cuff operation. There was a blind person, a severely overweight woman, a 92 year old man. Everyone that came to the race that day had a different story and a different reason for being there, but we all did our best and were all rewarded when our race was done.
The metaphor here is a no-brainer. Obvious but all the same brought to life for me as I walked the course on Sunday on a brilliantly gorgeous coastal day. The race isn’t the same for everyone. God calls each of us to a plan and a course designed just for our life. You might curve to the right, while I loop around to the left. You might run miles more than I will ever walk, but in the end we’ll find ourselves crossing the same finish line to receive an equal reward from a God who is waiting to welcome us all with the very same joy, pride, and boundless delight.
Yes, I believe that. I gave up the notion of a God of retribution and reward a long time ago for a God who responds not to human merit, sacrifice or works, but acts out of divine mercy and grace originating within and flowing out of the very being of God. Since the same thing awaits us all at the finish line does that mean all reason to do our best is gone? Not at all. On Sunday I did my best despite knowing others would run circles around me and that I’d cross a finish line and get a medal and a finisher’s shirt too. Those had already been promised to me. Just as life everlasting has already been promised through the gift of God given through Christ. No, on Sunday I gave it my best because it was too wonderful of a day to not have done so, to have not honored the race by giving it all I had to give it that day.
I want to walk with Christ each day committed to doing my very best in every moment and of giving my all, not driven to secure a greater reward but compelled by the gratitude of knowing that what awaits is freely given because so great is God’s love, so marvelous is Christ’s gift. It’s grace that makes me want to do my best. To know that whatever my best, your best, in today is enough and is all that God would ever ask of us. A part of the race is behind us.There’s nothing that can be done to change it and so we do what Paul suggests in Philippians 3. We look forward, keeping our eyes focused on what lies ahead. All we have is the next foot fall, the next step on the course that leads to someplace and to something more than we could ever imagine or dream. Today is the day. The race is before us, and I’m honored to be sharing the journey with you!
I just want to do my best in this life. Today I want to love and follow God with all that I am, giving Him my best
Whether others accomplish more (which begs the question who determines what accomplishments
This weekend I’m in Monterey Bay for the Big Sur International Marathon and no, I’m not putting 26.2 miles on these precious piddy-pats of mine, particularly since the route follows Hwy 101 along the coast between Big Sur and Carmel making for one ridiculously hilly course. Instead I’m going to be sashaying my sweet little self on the 9-miler walk/run which is more than enough for me, thank you very much. Even so, I still need to be at the starting line by 7:45 a.m. I was hoping for a start time of 10 or 11 but for some reason these wacked-out sporty-type people think being competitive means getting up before dawn and standing in the cold with a mess of other adrenalin-amped knuckleheads who are hopping up and down and draped in plastic garbage bags in a pathetic attempt to stave off frostbite. If it weren’t for the bright and shiny bling they hand out at the finish line and that I get to spend the race accompanied by my most awesome friend Brandon, I’d be waking up just in time to clear the hotel before check-out time.
But as it is, I’m here and admittedly having a most excellent time. The weather is California spring perfect; warm weather, cool breeze, blue skies. It was so beautimous this morning that I went out for a one mile wog (that’s what I do…kind of walk kind of jog kind of look like a clumsy oaf) followed by a 20 mile bike ride.
I didn’t rent the bike intending to ride 20 miles (my rear end was rather startled by the distance too) but the wonder of the day kept wooing me to just go a little further to see what was up around the next bend and so I did, bend after bend after bend and I was never disappointed. The colony of seals barking as they lazily rolled from blubbery side to blubbery side on the sun-warmed rock jetty, the bright fushia ground cover of lampranthus set against the background of the blue ocean, children wading in tide pools scooped out of the rock formations lining the shoreline, a working lighthouse, an old woman dressed in a soiled painter’s coat capturing the watery landscape with brushes of paint and a tightly stretched canvas, and people everywhere; kayaking along the shore, biking, walking, running, strolling, climbing on beach rocks, everyone just as wooed by the day as I had been. We were collectively enchanted by the visual beauty, won over by the sounds of squawking seagulls and barking seals, and smitten by the thick sweet smell of the budding ice plant mixed with the salty freshness of the ocean. It was all so spectacular that with every spin of the bike wheels I heard myself saying out loud because I simply couldn’t keep it in, “oh amazing look at that good job God oh my goodness I can’t believe how beautiful this is all too perfect I’ve never seen a blossom that red in my life oh wow oh wow oh my.” I was hungry. I was tired. I knew I should turn around before I went out too far and wore myself out before the big (or not so big) race, but I just couldn’t bare the thought that there might be something more just a little further down the road and so for a little more than two hours I wove from the dunes of Sand City into the tourist-filled Monterey Bay with Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and Fisherman’s Wharf, along the floral-lined coastal trail of Pacific Grove, rounding the bend at Lover’s Point before coasting into Asilomar. It was only when I realized I needed to get back to the hotel in time to meet Brandon and his sweet Rachel that I was able to turn the bike around for the return ride.
This is when I take the sublimely ordinary events of the morning and leap with abandon into a metaphor. A quirky little habit of mine.
Here’s the metaphor. The Christian journey as seen through this morning’s bike ride. I keep moving forward in my walk with God because I don’t want to risk the chance of missing out on the next surprise that’s bound to be waiting just around the approaching bend. How do I know there’s something up there? Because there always has been something around every bend I’ve ever gone around and I’ve never been disappointed by what I’ve found there. That’s not to say the road hasn’t been bumpy at times or the wind hasn’t blown against me or the glare hasn’t hampered my vision but never have I moved a little further along and wished I could go back to where I once was. I mean, it was great back there; there was plenty of God-graced wonder on the road behind me but that was for then and not for now. I remember the road behind and give thanks for it, but it’s always about keeping my eyes looking ahead toward the horizon. God’s up ahead. Waiting to dazzle me. Plotting and planning and making ready. “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Always good. Always. People and circumstance might have other plans but God? Oh, those plans are a sure thing.
And here we are today, living in the middle of those plans. This is it. Look around. Look close, especially if the road seems bumpy or it feels like the wind is blowing against you or you’re getting worn and weary from the ride. Somewhere in the middle of all the craziness and mess God’s plans are unfolding before you. Plans for good. Plans intent on your future. Plans laced with hope. Keep on riding because there’s something else just around the next bend and you won’t want to miss it. Trust me on this. No. That’s not right. Trust God on this. Yeh, that’s much better.
May 9, 2008 
Posted in Audio/Video, Gifted by Otherness, Special Series 
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