When I think about it, it’s so odd that on any given day, I can scan the streets of Cambridge and the banks of the Charles and witness hundreds of people running. Students, teachers, parents, couples, older people. Different speeds, different shoes, used or brand new, being broken in.
Running: it’s heart healthy, it builds endurance, it’s a way to both release stress and gain energy.
But in the same way I can see physical runners anywhere, I can also look around Cambridge, in Massachusetts, back home in Michigan, the USA, the rest of the world, and see people running. They’re not always running to get in shape or in the physical sense of the term. They’re running in some direction, though where that is, not all know.
Some run to money and their idea of success. They run in their pressed suits, ties fluttering over their shoulders. They scatter in all directions, hoping that at the end of their race they can rest atop a pile of accreditation and renown. But what’s the point of running if no one is there for you at the end of the race or to remember you when it’s over?
Others run to a pack and spend their lives darting from group to group, shaking hands, cracking jokes, and forcing smiles that don’t quite reach their eyes. They reach out for hands to hold and for people to quench the thirst that only water can during the run. They hope that this one will be different and they pass time running in loops round and round. But what’s the point of running if at the end of the race, you are surrounded by the cheering crowds, yet you still feel alone?
I myself am confused why I find myself running sometimes (both in the physical sense and all other meanings of the word). Where am I going and why am I sprinting to get there? I’ve stumbled so many times, feet catching on a loose brick or a slick of mud. I’ve skinned my knees and I’ve found myself picking gravel out of my palms from the fall. I’ve often felt as if I’m frantically running a cross country race and I’ve found myself off of the course but still able to hear the pounding of feet on the trail above as others pass me by.
I eventually pick myself up, with or without the help of others.
It’s hard, this running thing, if we don’t know where we are going and what awaits us at the finish line. Many believe it’s just the end. There are no banners or streamers or trumpets to welcome us across the finish line, it’s simply the end. Others believe that after one race, we prepare for the next—maybe shorter, maybe longer. It’s a grab bag of competition as we strive to improve our time and our quality of running. Yet still others believe that after the finish line, there is simply a misty unknown, where we will wade in and find ourselves facing to the best of our abilities whatever lies ahead.
Sometimes I wonder why I’m running and if this is the race I’m meant to have entered—I mean, I didn’t sign up for this. I feel drained on some of the hills I have to climb, legs straining and lungs burning, struggling to draw in air. I look around on occasion and feel utterly isolated, a beautiful but lonely stretch of trail surrounding me, waiting to be explored and traversed. My run has taken me to so many astounding places and has led me to so many incredible people, people who cheer for my next steps no matter how small.
When the finish line will appear and where it will be, I am unsure. But I am confident that at the end of my race, I will be running to a place to call home and toward open arms, ready and waiting to envelop me in a tight hug and whisper, “I knew you could do it, welcome home.”
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
2 Timothy 4:7
