Company Along the Way

This past Saturday, I traveled to Martha's Vineyard to compete in a 20-mile race. Why rise before the sun for a 90-minute drive, then a 45-minute ferry trip, followed by just over two hours of running around an island off the southeast coast of Massachusetts in the middle of winter? Practically, because it's a great way to test my fitness and the fruits of the past six weeks of my training, with the Boston Marathon still eight weeks away. Personally, because it's much more fun to run that distance with 400 other people than it is to do so alone. Spiritually, because there's some great adventure involved in the entire expedition, and the opportunity to meet some wonderful, friendly people whose passion and enthusiasm about life is rarely limited to running.

This year, the one nemesis in the event was the wind– a steady and invisible hand pushing across the whole of New England at 30 miles an hour. As a tailwind, it was pretty sweet. As a headwind, it was brutal. And although dueling with the same air whose maritime pungency I savored robbed me of some good finishing speed late in the race, I was happiest when sharing the swiftness and the toil of a blustery and blistering pace with a number of other runners, alternately blocking the wind for each other, one mile at a time. As my legs tired, I saw Martha's less as a race and more as a communal celebration of running, the caprices of a New England winter, and the desire to train bodies, strengthen minds, and gladden souls. When I reached the finish, weary and fatigued, two seconds faster than last year, I was grateful as much for the company I kept along the course as the time in which I navigated it. And once again, the signature item at the postrace spread– a retired Coast Guard officer's homemade clam chowder– was the best bowl of the stuff I've had all winter!

A Jesuit friend made the trip with me; he toured the island by bus while I ran. The time we shared on the boat and in the car gave us the opportunity to speak with animation and at great length about everything from family and friends to vocation stories to the joys and challenges we've encountered in Jesuit life. I was once again struck by a blessing that I so often encounter among my brothers– we come from an incredible variety of backgrounds, contribute a diverse range of gifts and talents, and shoulder a degree and assemblage of burdens and suffering that is unique to each of us, yet often reveals a strong resonance between us. I consider myself extremely blessed to have been given such a splendid community of brothers as an invaluable support for, and integral component of, the life to which I have dedicated myself in response to a call that I first started to hear nearly a decade ago.

My next adventure: spending February break in Chicago. Why lose my familiarity with winter?