Bull City Track Club: Hope Valley Family Marathon

Bull City Track Club: Hope Valley Family Marathon: One of our many community outreach events, the Hope Valley Family Marathon . Pictured below are two BCTC members, David Tallon and Kim Page...

Worship on the First of Advent--11/27/11

We gathered at 10:00am, a grassy plot along the American Tobacco Trail near Southpoint Crossing Shopping Center.

•  Coffee, Juice, Bagles
• Advent Liturgy to begin formally (first children led us in Johnny Appleseed)
• Reading of Isaiah 64:1-9
• Hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
• Preaching, Wombs and Warning Signs
• Common Prayer and Clay Molding
• Eucharist
• Sending Forth

Wombs and Warning Signs

The last four weeks have had my words and prayers in the space of Trust. Susannah's steadfast trust, Psalm 9, Psalm 37...

Isaiah says to us in the voice of the Father, I am the potter and you are the clay.

We are the clay, you are the potter;
   we are all the work of your hand (Isaiah 64:8)

Just on a glance, during a square dance, and walking under the New Lodge, This summer at Eagle's Nest Camp, I saw a master potter working the wheel. Children were gathered around asking about the process, probably distracting his work, but he let it be a teaching moment. He let them watch him shape the sides of what looked like the makings of an intricate vase or drinking pitcher. One who knows pottery, knows that what seems almost done, good enough, and already in the image of the completed project is often 30 minutes or more from completion, or about to be scrapped and re-sculpted. Clay doesn't go anywhere from the perspective of matter, but there is a cataclysmic metamorphosis. Some of us are vastly different mounds of clay then we were 40 years ago or yesterday. For all I know, someone is about to be molded beyond recognition today.

Talking about the poems

I'm working diligently on a book of poetry. My mother and I attended a conference and it inspired me to attempt a self-published book of poetry.  I wrote and taped to the front cover of this red notebook filled with verses: 

 March 9, 2011
2011--goal.  One poem for each week of the year.  52.  I'm at 19 poems and I am in the 10th week of the year.

 

I have 40 poems that I would be willing to put in a book and have other people read, love, make fun of, whatever. I need 12 more by December 31.  That means I have a great deal of work to complete in the next and last five weeks of the year.  Here is one of the poems that is in progress and process of becoming one of the 52.

(Note: I considered reading 10/10/03, but opted for the following rougher set of verses:

Fourteener along the Boyne

Outside Slane 

from Rossnaree

we clopped and clipped

in and out of weather

sideways rain

then sun rays

All the while Boyne flowed

in the valley

Lush is the order of the hour

Wind blows hard in

this tenth month

announcing a shift

Yet here in Ireland green persists

Cattle graze

lean into gusts

on flowing emerald slopes

just as they have

for generations

Panes shake at Rossnaree

as I scribe and soak in 

the county Meath

Wind whips over the grass

Picking up speed

as the ground drops

out from underneath the gust

The force of air

loses its' surface

the vector keeps it straight

in mid-air

NOW

and it seeks another structure

to engage

Tops of foliage down the hillside

receive a glancing blow

but the big back stop

is Spruce

He's braced and ready

has received a thousand blows

and will not fall

Now here comes the rain

And the temperature drops

or so it looks

from inside mortar and windows

it's cold in here

but not like out there

Come down rain 

and wet this Earth

whet my pen

At home the wind

eases back in the rain

but hardly here

the two know each 

other all too well

and collaborate and 

equate to October

harshness

____

So much of the work done for these poems has been accomplished away from them.  One note to myself in the red notebook: 

-Check old Journals
-Find/Check old Notebooks
-Scour my writing

Now with what seems like absent minded notes like these, it means I did a lot of partial work on verses and then had to get away, get some perspective, go running, burp a baby, eat.  I didn't forget them.  I just seems like I forgot them.  Often the words appeared when I was away from the medium of writing and I would hurry back and scribe as best I could.

Talking about the womb

Moving to a subject further outside my expertise than poetry, but stay with me and hold together the image of the clay and the potter, the poetic process, and enter the womb.  

I know about half as much about the womb as many of you. I've lived in one. Nine, better ten months, if you ask most mothers. That big circle in a Venn Diagram includes each of us, we all spent a season in a womb. But many of you have double, triple, and exponential experience with the womb. For you've baked more than bread there, unless you take seriously that bread is body.  A person has grown in many of you.

Carlyle Marney takes the image to our gathering and says, “The church is the womb within which persons happen and recognize one another” (from the Preface in Recovery of the Person).

But, think on that womb time. Ask mothers. It's an odd time. At times the two are so closely connected, and as one, that no one else can get into that relationship. Much ink has spilled over this affect for the rest of life on all parties—moms, babies, daddies, mommies mommies. Think in your own family—the womb changes everything. When we left the hospital I had the most protective, and hypothetically threatened sensation of my life. If anyone tries to hurt this trio, I'll kill 'em. I was overwhelmed by the power of the womb.

But at times, mothers feel distant from the child that grows inside. Oh, mother walks around with the child, but wants to go back to work and not nap for four hours in the middle of the day. Or, she feels so good, almost forgets the protrusion 15 inches South upon a simple glance.

God does this too, like a mother with so much acreage under her wings. God doesn't forget, but seemingly turns to other projects and leaves the womb for a bit to check on and tend to other plots. 

But inside the womb, that seemingly forgotten incubator, is still where persons happen and recognize one another. Whether God seems hovered over or off to other chores, we still have the blood and the nutrients and the ability within that womb to recognize one another in our fullness. To truly be human. Think of an excerpt from our Acts reading when receiving new members: “All the believers were together and had everything in common.” When we grow in the womb, all the body parts are in a symphony sharing and distributing resources. 

Talking about the potter and the clay

A friend said of a shambled life, Has God forgotten to show mercy? Did God forget me?

No, your Father got up from the wheel and is at work as ever, though it is so tough to see and touch right now. The vessel he's crafting in you, that is you, is God's most special work. He can't rush it. When you were born, it only seemed like you were done, that you had been brought to completion.

No, he's still molding you. For God to spin the wheel and lay hands on you will take as much time away from the wheel, maybe much more time away from it, then it will with hands on directly as the clay moves in time and space.

What's the first Advent message?  That your God, the one who promised Emmanuel, is about to sit down at the wheel.

Amen.

Turn Your Face: I love the colors of Fall. Someone said to me on...

Turn Your Face:

I love the colors of Fall. Someone said to me on...: I love the colors of Fall. Someone said to me once he didn’t because everything was dying. I don’t think so and wrote a poem about it. ...

The OK Runner: Newburyport Half Marathon

The OK Runner: Newburyport Half Marathon: Time: 113:42 Distance: 28.81k W/u : 28:38 for 5.49k Race: 71:45 for 5th place C/d : 13:19 for 2.32k I ran a half marathon today. I ne...


My buddies, Jordan and Megan, have moved from Charlotte to Boston. Bummer. We usually got to run every couple of months together, but work pulled them to New England. Megan is setting up for a great effort and the US Marathon trials at www.houston2012.com/
on January 14, 2012. Jordan is making the return from injuries and trying to get training rolling again. Read his recent post above.

Bull City Track Club: Great American XC, Carrboro 10K, and XC Nats

This post begins with a race report from Alex Varner, photos are by Kim Page, and final thoughts are from me, George Linney.

Bull City Track Club: Great American XC, Carrboro 10K, and XC Nats: Alex and Adam rolling past 2K by Alex Varner (written 10/1/11) I headed over to Cary with some other Bull City open men to take on the ...

Want to join the Bull City Track Club? Come see us at the store, www.bullcityrunning.com. We have a lot of fun.

proper fitting shoes

I continue to love running. This piece of paper was not only designed to be my race mantra, but it indicates a few goals during the Utah Valley Marathon (6/10/11). I had a few more notes to share on the race, even now, four months later.

39:10 for 10K 6:18pace. Good running, but then a bathroom break.

1:24:44 6:27 pace. Pace really slowed from mile 6 to mile 13. This was not a strong part of the race. I let things slip too much and it cost me 2:49.

Mile 15 – 6:15

16 – 634

17 – 616

18 – 609

19 – 630

20 – 620

21 – 635

22 – 627

23 – 646

24 – 717

25 – 700

26 – 644

I ran 1:24.43 for the first half. I ran 1:26.16 for the second half. I finished in 16th place overall, 3rd in my age group.

Where I slipped up...for the 6.9 miles from the 10K to Half Marathon it took me 45:34. That's a 6:36 pace. That was too slow for those early/middle miles. Granted, I stopped to use the restroom during those miles and that cost me. I should have hydrated a little less, but that happens with a point to point course, waking up at 2am and starting the race at 6am.

Some of my pre-race comments:

"Reading notes from friends and starting to fuel. 3.5 hrs to race time. Great day for a 26.2 mile fun run at utahvalleymarathon.com

Never knew how many folks resonate with Eric Liddell and Chariots of Fire. Don't forget the drive of Harold Abrams. And the coaching of Sam Massubini. The hymn Jerusalem, a blessing upon the land on which you reside. Here's to you Durham."

I ran 2:50 @ Utah Valley Marathon. 

Even now with a great deal left on the table from back in June, I love running.  I am pointing long term towards, 4/16/12 and the Boston Marathon.  I would like to take a shot at 2:40.  I believe I can run closer to a six minute pace for 26.2 miles.

This week I will hopefully complete 80 miles of training with two workouts, one on the track and one hill work out.  I'm sore and achy, but everything is manageable.  There are those who doubt my training methods, but I had good success with high mileage in the Spring and I can feel my body growing stronger just as it did before.  I rested well in June and July before this slow build.  A lot of work has to be endured for small bits of improvement.  I am still achieving my fastest times, but the preparation takes careful calculation and some risk.

I am thankful for proper fitting shoes.  I feel like the one being spoken about in Ephesians and I do feel peaceful and ready--I have the right equipment.  Running helps show me the way in the rest of my life.  My job as a pastor is to help equip others for ministry.  This happens in many different ways--unique to each individual's gifts.  We often make blunders before finding the right relationships and plots to serve.  I am practicing greater and greater patience.  Wait for God to show the clear way.  It happens that way with running as well.  Long seasons of preparation before small improvements.  They are not the prettiest feet, but they work.

10/10/03

In 48 my boy will be 8

how can that be

2003 and he was born

while I was on holiday

from Stanley's Christian Ethics

We studied war no more

contraception

marriage and fidelity

worship habits

practices of prayer

But mid-way through holiday,

by this evening, the 8^th, a Wednesday,

Kristen was breathing heavy and sleepless

I rested and turns out I'd need it

We'd take it where we could get it

48 hours later he came to the world healthy

affirming much of what I was purposed for

fatherhood

and a few other chores

and calls

He was long like Usain @ 9 lbs 2 ounces

A special boy with a keen eye for the world

soaking it all in always taking in all the stimuli

At seven almost eight, the world is his oyster

He can do it all

Musician, runner, mathematician,

and why not

why not seek them all

Capture this season and ride it out until the next one

comes to you in a flurry