I put my shoes on to run today and I was surprised by how quickly they have become dirty. This is not veiled bragging, don’t worry. I bought the shoes a little more than a month ago when I was in St. Louis. Stephanie was spending the day with her mom, so I convinced Laura to go shoe shopping (it didn’t take much convincing).

Steph always laughs when I buy new running shoes, because it normally means simply that I no longer like my current running shoes. I make all of these promises that I will only use the shoes for running, and that I am going to really dedicate myself this time. My philosophy with running shoes is like Mitch’s philosophy with pens: “I bought a seven dollar pen because I always lose pens, and I was got sick of not caring.” So I figure if I spend more, I’ll be sure to use them more. This time it will work out, I say.

But the fact is that once I get the cool new shoes that are comfortable and don’t yet smell like dead animals, I begin wearing them everywhere, and soon enough I forget about running altogether. That’s why Stephanie laughs—because I am truly ridiculous.

This time I bought white running shoes that tend more toward the dorky end of the design spectrum, and I did well at only using them for running. About three weeks ago I was running my favorite trail at the Rose Bowl while praying and thinking about Hebrews 11 and 12—that so many have run before, and that it was my turn to run this race with perseverance. When I got back up the hill and began walking to the car, I thanked God for the ability to run and had a strange thought come into my head: You are still running; you still need perseverance. I thought perhaps I knew what it meant.

Less than three days later my baby died and I caught my wife before she fell unconscious to the floor. In the hospital we had an ultrasound that confirmed nothing was left in the womb. Our first and second ultrasounds were bookends of promise and disappointment—parentheses marking a mere interruption to a way of life that would not change, actually.

When we got home several hours later and Stephanie fell asleep, I took a quiet, warm shower. After I got dressed in fresh clothes I stood barefoot at the opening of my closet and stared at my running shoes. You are still running; you still need perseverance. So I put them on.

Stephanie asked later that day about the shoes, but I was embarrassed and didn’t give much of an answer. The next day I wore them again, and at the OB-GYN Steph again asked me about them. I was embarrassed again and nearly cried. She pulled me aside later and told me that she wasn’t trying to make fun of me, but just wanted to know. So I told her how it was to remind me that I was running a race.

I wore them exclusively for a week and on the following Monday, seven days later, renewed my summer goal of getting used to flip flops. Stephanie asked me about the shoes. I was embarrassed. I didn’t want the running shoes to become an overused and undervalued symbol of spiritual struggle, but I also worried that I was giving up the race.

From reading the book of Hebrews, I always thought that faith was founded upon the faithfulness of God, which was clearly displayed in a divine cycle of promise and fulfillment spanning generations. Matt P. (not Matt the boss), who always sat in the second row with me in our class on Hebrews in seminary, said that his impression was almost exactly the opposite. He said that Hebrews—and especially my precious chapter 11—was about faith in the absence of fulfillment. The many who have run and not received a reward are those we now follow.

I have been aware that this running I do is part choice, but choice driven by impulse. Running is just something I do. When trials come, you strap on the shoes and run. When the promises are farthest away, you run the hardest. In the absence of a fulfillment of hope, or maybe even more in the presence of a contradiction to hope, all you have left is this running.

Abraham ran without knowing where he was going and, therefore, without knowing if he was even getting anywhere. And Abraham’s children run because that’s what our father did and generations of brothers and sisters can’t be wrong. We are a people who run and struggle in the silence because a voice long ago told us to. And we have this testimony from the cloud of witnesses: We ran, we died, we did not receive the promise. Yet I find myself lacing up the running shoes to follow in their footsteps.

I must be crazy.

Plain View #73 - July 1, 2007

I'm not sure what happened to the previous episode. It seems to be gone. I found one episodes with a few minutes of dead air that was labeled 72 but seems to be a messed up version of 73. I present a cleaned up version of 73 here, but frankly, I don't have time to figure all this out. I'll keep my eye out for it. If anyone downloaded #72 and the show actually matches the notes. I'd like to have a copy of that file. Thanks.

Bufe

summer school - OVA!

visit from Maly

Ordinary People

Goodbye Studio 60

our new comedy holiday

Heroes

Mare's epiphany

Will's 102 situps

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I realize that this blog is littered with movie reviews, so here's an update on what we've been up to this week.

Monday I changed our address info in a bunch of different places and ordered cable installation. We ate at Panera and went to Best Buy to buy a modem so that we wouldn't have to rent one from the cable company. Guess who was in the returns line? Rob! We haven't seen him in about a year and a half, which is out of pure laziness on both ends, since he only lives 5 miles away from us. We caught up with him and Dee for a while an determined that we must hang out soon. Ric and I then hurried home to pack more things and ended up running into our neighbors, Brad and Jenny. We ended up talking for a long time. I like them. They're the only thing left at the apartment complex that we regret leaving.

Tuesday Ric got home late from work, so we packed up the cars (Minis hold a lot more than you'd think, by the way) and grabbed plain sandwiches from Arby's on the way up to the new place. We unpacked and I taped up the rest of the bedroom while Ric went to get another load of stuff. We painted another wall and then I was pretty much out of energy. Pathetic back.

Wednesday Ric had a craving for Ruby's. I thought our goal was to be minimal in caloric intake while eating out this week, but I guess that's gone to pot and I will resume my healthy eating later on. We even had shakes. I have been eating so well that I now feel extreme guilt when eating stuff like that, so of course, today I have goals to do much better. We loaded up both cars again and painted another bedroom wall, and then Ric was out of energy. I don't blame him. Lugging around my boxes of books is quite a feat! I'd just like to remind everyone out there that Ric rocks. He works so much harder than I do at a job that is so much worse than mine, spends 4-5 times more time in his car per day than I do, and still manages to come home and lift all of the heavy stuff that my back can't handle.

Tonight, we hope to go yell at/beg from the U-Haul by our house to produce something we can use on Saturday or Sunday, since I tried to make a reservation on the internet and they scheduled me to pick up something in Pico Rivera, which is basically adding tons of mileage (and .99 per mile) to our expenses. After that, I really want to finish off the bedroom painting, which is looking pretty darn cool if I say so myself. It's a light brown, or dark beige, whichever you want to call it. I picked it from Martha Stewart's color palette. One coat does it all, and no primer. Sweet.

This weekend we'll be moving all the big items, and probably switch over to staying at the new place. After that I'll be coming back to the old place to clean so I can get my deposits back. Yep, he has a few hundred in security and a couple in pet deposits, so I want to clean well so I get a lot of that back.

Meanwhile, I'm almost done listening to the Hobbit, and Ric and I have been watching Lost episodes while we rest on the couches and groan about our backs after all the hard work of the day. By the way: we have so much stuff.

I was messing around with one of TiVo's cool features, the Universal Swivel Search (yet another reason why dish/cable DVRs will never compare), and was searching with Liv Ullman, of all people, and found a listing for A Bridge Too Far. The name seemed vaguely familiar, and then I saw the cast (alphabetical): James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford, Maximilian Schell, and Liv Ullman. All they had to say was "Hopkins" and I was in, but add all of these other amazing actors, and we've got a darn good cast in a somewhat epic movie. Their roles: mostly military men involved in a late WWII attempt to take on Germany via Holland, capturing several bridges along the way, in a an operation called Market-Garden.

I had not heard of this operation, but apparently, director Richard Attenborough and the rest of the movie's makers went all out in capturing historic accuracy in facts as well as use of costume and machinery. And let me tell you, it certainly is detailed. In fact, there are so many characters and locations that it's easy to get bogged down and lose track of who's trying to accomplish what. In some ways I think of that as a negative about the film, but in others, I think it's somewhat reflective of how the situation must have felt for all of the people involved.

The movie begins at a calm pace, and feels organized, just as the men about to go on this mission feel. And, as quickly as their individual tasks go awry and confusion sets in, the movie itself becomes harder to follow. I was able to figure out, for the most part, what each group of people was trying to accomplish, but as I read on another review, the geography was a bit hazy in my mind. I was never quite sure who was closest to the final bridge, or where the Germans were in relation to them (with the exceptions of close combat scenes).

Nevertheless, this movie is massive in terms of scope. The firepower, the locations, the men, the details, the direction, and the script are great. Speaking of script, the screenplay by William Goldman is loaded with scrumptious wit and English class. I love the banter between some of the men. It adds just enough relief from the otherwise stressful situations.

I like how the movie appears to be of that traditional soft look of the 70s at the start. The mood is calm and the directing moves at an appropriate pace, then shocks us with quick edits of ammunition being fired off one by one. Looking up Attenborough, I see now that he directed The Remains of the Day. No wonder this movie had that familiar feeling.

The story itself is an interesting one to take on. I'm not sure how familiar other people are with it, but it was new to me, thus I had no idea in which direction the movie would go. The title gives a hint towards where things will end up, but I had no idea what I was in for, and it was pretty interesting to hear about all of the mishaps, mistakes, judgment lapses, and senses of overconfidence that happened in those few days.

A Bridge Too Far is interesting, confusing, detailed, and impressive. I can't say that I absolutely loved it, but I appreciated many aspects of it. As far as war movies go, I definitely have other favorites, but the particular style this one took was unique and interesting, so I'm glad I watched it.

I know this may sound a bit weird, but I'm kind of creeped out while walking around campus this week. You see, we're hosting a major conference for Christian teens. That's a good thing. They're all having a great time here. Actually, it's nice to see happy kids running around in the afternoons. But at lunch time, it gets creepy. I'm assuming they have a scheduled time for prayer and meditation, and that they're told to do that wherever they like on campus. Wherever they like has turned out to be all over the steps outside our office, on benches lining the walkway from our office, and in multiple places around the library. Basically, there's a whole trail of them from my office to my car. And they all look depressed. I'm sure they're not. They're probably just having a heartfelt moment with God, but to the casual observer, it looks like the campus has been littered with depressed teens. Silent, depressed teens. Do you know how weird it is to see that many teens yet hear absolutely nothing when surrounded by them? It's basically like experiencing a scene from The Birds (without the occasional cooing). I step out of the door, and see that I'm surrounded, and make my way quietly past all the silent, depressed-looking teens. And it feels like that last scene of the movie, where they try to make their escape to the car, which is exactly what I'm trying to do. And it's just plain creepy.

And how terrible am I for being weirded out by a moment that probably means so much to so many of them?!

I just got back from playing poker at Kevin Smith's house. It was a blast, as always. I came ahead this time, thanks to the full house I got on the second to the last hand of the evening. I had played with most of the folks before, but there were a couple newbies who were cool, including Joe Reitman, who was really nice. Thanks again to Kevin, Jen, and the rest of the clan for their hospitality. Now it's back to my normal life of sitting around and watching movies, waiting to hear back from jobs and such. I had a big interview on Tuesday that I think went well, so keep those fingers crossed folks. Have a good one.