Taking Off and Landing
It Takes A Cloud to Rain
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It’s finally humid and summer-esque in Texas, which coincides perfectly with my quest to get back into good running form. Once upon a time, I could tear off five miles without thinking too hard about it, but that was back when seminary was all I had to worry about. Now, a much more sedentary life and five years have conspired to make a comeback slightly more difficult, albeit not impossible. These things just take longer.
I think that as you get older, these kinds of thoughts slip into conversations more and more, the ones about age and health. Last night, there was a back-to-school ice cream gettogether for the department, and instead of talking with the new folks, I spent most of the time catching up with the old ones, the ones that I have been with since the word Go, the ones who remember what it was like to sweat out the first semester of graduate work and have no idea if there would be a second semester. Josh has been playing a lot of golf, as has Chris, and for the life of me, I wish I played. It’s never really had much allure for me, though as I get older, I can see why someone would take up golf: you don’t have to move real fast, and you don’t have to be remarkably co-ordinated. With running, you’re always trying to move towards faster and further; with golf, it’s always 18 holes, and the only one who cares how fast you get there is whoever’s waiting at home.
We were comparing aches and weight gains since starting school again, and it suddenly dawned on me that I don’t have much excuse for mine. I don’t have kids; I’m only 29. This is ludicrous to be this way. There’s no reason that I can’t be in as good if not better shape now than I was at 24 when I ran a full marathon. The only mitigating factor now, I suppose, is just fatigue: I’m just tired. As the semester breaks, I’m already tired. It’s been a full, pressed-down, running-over, spilling over the brim kind of summer, and I can’t complain. But it’s time to hit it one more time, and I feel this dawning sense of apathy. I found myself telling a first-semester student last night that he shouldn’t worry; in truth, I should have told him to worry, to fear for his life, but my own fatigue and vague apathy started shoving words in my mouth that were closer to my own heart than perhaps what he really needed to hear.
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How does a person get tired: that bone-weary, down-in-the-toes kind of tired? Is it from doing nothing, or from doing everything? I think that even doing the right things makes a person tired. A life cannot be judged, nor a task evaluated by the fatigue; regardless of what the Psalms say, sometimes the righteous wake up just damn exhausted. Striving after a life’s calling and wrestling with the failings of the human heart can be the most withering course of life you can take. Lord willing, when I wake, and am tired, I will not take my fatigue as a sign of faithfulness, nor as a mark of depravity, but as the mark of being alive, of breathing. This morning, I have before me 80 pages of Calvin and 120 of Von Balthasar, and by the day’s end, I will be tired: will the fatigue be a sign of faithfulness or an inane pursuit?
I do not know. If I were a Calvinist, I could say that faithful pursuits are marked by the presence and peace of the Spirit. If I were Catholic, I would say that participation in God’s gracefulness in the world marks one’s self-peace. If I believed Paul Tillich, I would say that the existential pursuit of my life goal is enough, and that trying was its own reward. As it is, I can only hope that my desires and activities and what it is to participate in God’s work in the world are lining up. I work toward that end, trusting that fatigue is not a sign of yes or of no, but of life, and that whether I am faithful or fallen, I will be tired. All else is hope.
Out of Love
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And so lost without you.
But, baby, if this is love, I gotta tell you–this ain’t much.
I mean, you been good to me. You gave me shelter from the storm; you rescued me in the winter of my discontent, and gave me a place to lay my weary bones. You defended me from the noon-day sun and the cold December moon, but lately, I have to tell you, this is getting kinda old.
You’ve fallen down on the job once too often. Your time is drawing nigh, the time when I will let you go for good, and you will play with my heartstrings, my nerves, my desire for central A/C and a shower not held up by 2×4s and drywall.
Two Minutes of Grace
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Ryan Adams is persistently the most frustrating musician who I’ll buy everything created by. Between albums of utter crap (Rock N’ Roll, 29), he puts out stunners (Cold Roses, Love is Hell, Gold). Easy Tiger, the newest offering, is mostly the latter category: back to good songwriting, and short pieces that capture epiphanies of the normal.
And so, today, lyrics from “Oh My God Whatever Etc.”, a three minute solo piece describing normal fatigue and normal weariness:
“If i could i’d fold myself away like a card table
A concertina or a murphy bed, i would
But i wasn’t made that way so you know instead
I’m open all night and the customers come to stay
And everyone tips but not enough to knock me over
And “i’m so tired” i just worked two shifts
But the light of the moon leads the way towards the morning and the sun
The sun’s well on it’s way too soon to know and
Oh, oh my god, oh my god, whatever, etc.”
That’s all I got. But it’s how I’m drifting this morning. I mean, who hasn’t wanted to just fold themselves away into a corner, out of the light and off of the floor?
Through A Pinhole
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Yesterday, I made another trip to the DFW Airport, and since an early afternoon flight meant the entire working day was killed, I headed up by 10 a.m., grabbing an early lunch in Hillsboro. When eating alone in a strange place, it’s a great excuse to people-watch, to see what life looks like thirty minutes away.
I’m here to report: not that much different. It’s still Texas. It was still hot. I sat on a window booth, and watched a couple eat along the west wall. He had the chicken pot pie; she, the salmon and salad. They talked flirtatiously; he regaled her with tales of whatever it was that he did. “Waco” was mentioned a few times. Perhaps a date? Perhaps a rekindling of a romance? Perhaps business? Both wore rings, but the way they talked was that of curious strangers, people who were intrigued by the other and not bored by their familiarity. And so I all but ruled out that they were, in fact, married to each other. You can always tell the married couples in a restaurant. They’re the ones who for the most part just eat. There’s some conversation, but mostly there’s just eating. It’s what you do when food is served. They make small talk about household things or common interests until the food shows up, and then plow in.
