Over the last five years, I have walked just about every day: for 35-60 minutes, in places as varied as Moscow and Vienna, Beirut and Berlin. Why all this walking? Because since my illness some years ago I have not been able to run: my doctor told me so, my body did, and I did so myself. So I resorted to walking; a few months ago I even bought myself a pedometer, and now know that I walk between 5000 and 8000 steps a day. The other day I was off again: a beautiful June Michigan day, not too hot, and the birds humming all around Island Lake Road. Two minutes into my walk, I broke into a run, I don’t know why. So there I was, huffing and puffing, but running for the first time in five years. At the mile marker I was sure I was dreaming, and by the time I reached the finish line after 2.5 miles I felt like Abebe Bikila when he won the 1960 Olympic marathon: I was on cloud nine.
So what happened? I don’t know. Somehow I felt confident to try something I had not done in years. And it worked- I have tried it a number of times since. But before last Saturday, I was not ready to go there: I had tried to run again once, and found myself on the ground exhausted after a mile. So I resigned myself to never run anymore, and this became like the electric fence I was not ever going to touch again. And the longer I thought about it, the firmer this prophecy engrained itself in my mind. But somehow a few days ago something egged me on, and I realized the fence was not there anymore.. A classic “out of the box” experience! I don’t know how far my running exploits will lead; maybe I break down in a week with a pulled muscle and resort to walking again, this time with crutches. But that is not the point: the lesson which stuck was that there are fences, limits, boxes which can easily become so strong, so immovable, that we don’t even dream of thinking or operating outside of them. And it takes some calling on, some unusual event, in order break out of that shell.
What is your box, what is the fence hemming you in, what is the prophecy about yourself that you believe? Is it that you will never be able to learn the guitar? Or that you cannot forgive a particular person? Or that you are no good at being a parent? It does not matter: if we hear it often enough, we start believing it and acting accordingly. So like an animal we find ourselves hemmed in, because we got stung once by that electric fence. We believe a certain lie about ourselves and remain boxed in, convinced that this is where we have to live for the rest of our lives. But not so…it is possible, with the encouragement of others to change. As Timberland Company says “Forget the box, think outside!”
John of the Cross, the Spanish mystic, once said: “To come to what you are not you must go by a way where you are not.” In other words, to change we need to change. It is obvious, but hard to do. When the apostle Peter heard Jesus call him from the sea shore he was in a boat; so how could he get to his master, across the water? Humans can’t walk on water, surely! Or can they? He obeyed the call, and the rest is history. So maybe it’s time for you to get your running shoes on…and see where they take you.
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