Boston Recovery

Ordinarily, I'd follow my running of the Boston Marathon with some reflections on the day of the race, a week or so off from running, and a more or less routine approach to the physical recovery process. Yet last week saw no ordinary Boston Marathon, and the coming days, weeks, and months necessitate a very different recovery process.

Boston Marathon Finish Line
Copley Square, Boston MA
14 April 2013

Marathoners, by virtue of their hundreds of miles of running over several months, do some intentional and measured harm to their bodies. Training is really about strengthening bone and flesh, as well as mind and nerves, to survive (and eventually thrive) under ever-increasing exertions. Running 26.2 miles on Patriots Day is an emphatic exclamation point, but the sentence it concludes is far more personal, hidden from throngs of cheering spectators, but known to family, friends, and running partners. The motivations, details, and adventures of getting to the starting line are the stories that animate the athletes' village in Hopkinton, where friends are made with the person who sat next to you on the shuttle bus, the runner who's next to you in the portajohn line, and the person who notices a common detail on the apparel that you might soon donate to charity. ("Do you work at Boston Children's?" "No, but my friend was a resident there, and she gave me this hoodie.")

Ever since the actions of two young men started Boston's people down an arduous course they never expected nor wanted to run, my prayers have been focused on those whose lives were cruelly ended or forever altered. The rising rhetoric of "Boston strong," and the courage with which over a million of us ran through the toughest first days of this new course, points me toward my faith in Christ who restores all things, heals all wounds, and companions us throughout the long, gradual, yet unstoppable progress towards these glorious ends. Thoughtless and impersonal harm was done to us, and we've been responding to the task of recovery with truly inspiring and deeply personal generosity and solidarity. It will take a long time; after my first marathon, it took nearly three months for me to again feel the same level of physical fitness and stamina that blessed me at that marathon's starting line. Whatever time and mileage my physical recovery requires this year, it will be no less than what my psychological and emotional recovery will require. In talking to fellow runners and Boston-area friends, I've heard the same sentiments.

Prudential Center, Boston MA
14 April 2013

A week ago, no one anticipated how relevant Adidas' "all in for Boston" slogan might suddenly become. We've been blessed with the resolution of the manhunt, and a weeklong (and welcome) surge of solidarity and support that raised up a stunned city and gave great hope to the fallen and the surviving. It's my hope that we're mustering that energy not for a sprint, but for a marathon, not only in Boston, but also in all of our neighborhoods, towns, and cities. I hope that we, as a nation of communities, will go "all in" for the training that will achieve lasting peace, harmony, and justice that remains to be gained and secured for all people. That goal's exclamation point is still a long way off, but we can all start writing our sentences in that story today, and every day. Recovery, just like training, is one day at a time.