Running and the Art of Storytelling

Now that spring looks like it might take off its coat and stay awhile around here, I've started running again. There's a really nice trail just around the corner from our house with an almost-5k loop through some trees and down along a duck pond that I try to run every other morning. I stopped running this winter when mornings were pitch black and 30 below, but now that the world's come to life again, I'm trying to get back at it (though did I mention it snowed last week? *sigh*).

I'm not really that much of a runner, but I like the half-hour of real loneliness it gives me. And I like the world all misty and gilded at sunrise. And I like the feeling of aliveness that lingers in your chest for the rest of the morning.

And I like the way it reminds me of the power of storytelling.

See, usually at some point in the run my brain starts telling me to quit-- turn back, cut it short, walk it off-- give it up kind of talk. And (true confessions) often at that point when the give-it-up-talk is strongest, that's when I start telling myself a story. The details vary, but in this story I'm the hero in some dramatic struggle, and--and here's the thing-- it all depends on me finishing this run on time.

Sometimes I pretend I'm Phidippides, running the 26 miles from Marathon to Athens to warn the Greeks of the coming Persian attack-- knowing that all Greece will be overrun if I don't make it.

Sometimes I pretend I'm Strider, running after the band of Uruk-Hai that kidnapped Pippin and Merry-- knowing that my friends will be tormented in Sauron's stronghold if I give up the chase.

If the quit-talk is especially loud, I pretend I'm Frodo running with the One Ring, in that scene near the end of his journey when he was disguised and running with a band of orcs across Mordor-- knowing that the whole world will go up in a spout of darkness and horror if I stop running.

But here's the thing: as silly as they make me feel, these little story-telling exercises really work. They push me. They get me to the end of the path. They help me feel that it's not just me puffing along alone in a Moose Jaw park at 6 in the morning, but I'm caught up in a bigger, richer (albeit in this case, imaginary) plot that gives it all meaning.

I need these running reminders about the power of story. Because I think in a way we're all looking for a story like that for life, too. A dramatic, many-layered story that lets us know that it's not just us, puffing along through the hills and valleys of life, but that we're caught up in a bigger, richer (albeit in this case, more true than true) plot that gives it all meaning. A story that calls us put down the next step, and the next, even when our hearts and brains are screaming at us to quit.

This is the story, maybe, that Jesus came to tell, and live for us, in his life and death and resurrection. This is the story, maybe, that he invites us to join him in living by the power of the Holy Spirit. And what races would we run if we let that story get us to the end of the path?