Centerline Freedom

On most weekdays, there's very little traffic in my neighborhood at 5:30am. Still, a few early birds making their way from Point A to Point B require us to the road. The other morning, I caught a lucky break– I encountered only parked cars for a full mile on a straight stretch of one of my regular loops through Brighton and Newton– and shamelessly indulged it by running on the yellow centerline. It was a rare treat that represented a brief reprieve from the subtle biomechanical stress of running on crowned roads (imagine walking on a sideways-tilted surface for an hour, and you get the idea), a throwback to cross-country courses marked by a single line of chalk or paint meandering over hill and dale for five kilometers, and a deeper sense of having the pre-dawn darkness all to myself.

As I rolled through that swift and quiet mile, it felt strange to be away from my usual space on the side of the road. Though perhaps only an inch or two higher than the curbs, I imagined myself tracing a sharp ridgeline with an expansive view of the valleys on either side. The two lanes, despite their breadth of asphalt, seemed narrower than the thin space between them that my feet smoothly paced. Until a car appeared, I had no obligation– or desire– to choose a side, even while following that centerline as rigidly as any trail weaving through the woods where I raced in high school.

One of the things I've enjoyed about my theology studies thus far is the breadth of positions, perspectives, and approaches that my classmates have brought to our conversations, both in and out of the classroom. Particularly in a course on pastoral care and a seminar on ministry in congregations characterized by cultural and racial diversity, there could be a wealth of well-argued positions about everything from liturgical style to approaches to grief, from the role of a minister to the influence of family dynamics on a given individual's development. I regularly experienced the blessing of dialogues with students and professors in which we debated firm positions without taking sides; we could each maintain a clear direction while also acknowledging the signs and directions that we exchanged to keep one another on course.

As a new semester begins on Monday, and my early morning training runs continue– the Boston Marathon is 100 days away– I'll continue to enjoy as much centerline freedom as I can. The goals are clear, there's still much of that youthful cross-country runner in me to sustain and motivate a few months of hard work, and there are plenty of views to enjoy and appreciate as I press on towards the next finish line.

Narrative Encounters

"Revelation"

We make ourselves a place apart

Behind light words that tease and flout,

But oh, the agitated heart

Till someone really find us out.

'Tis pity if the case require

(Or so we say) that in the end

We speak the literal to inspire

The understanding of a friend.

But so with all, from babes that play

At hide-and-seek to Fod afar,

So all who hide too well away

Must speak and tell us where they are.

–Robert Frost

[in "The Poetry of Robert Frost," edited by Edward Connery Lathem]

Over the past few weeks– amidst Christmas travels, a Jesuit gathering, some vacation, and a return to my community in Boston– I've found the notion of narrative joining my prayer, my pleasure reading, and my encounters with those whom I haven't seen for the past few weeks or months. The liturgies of the Advent and Christmas seasons tell a remarkable story: God becomes human, the heavenly and the earthly meet, glory and humility mingle. Or, to put it more bluntly, a baby is born to young parents during a long and arduous journey, at a time when they're lucky enough to find crude shelter at the edge of a modest town surrounded by desert.

Some of the books I've read (and would recommend) over winter break have narrated events whose stark reality can't be ignored: Joan Didion writes about her husband's sudden death and daughter's near-fatal illness in The Year of Magical Thinking; Jeffrey Eugenides presents everything from a transatlantic refugee voyage to the heyday and decline of Detroit to the title character's painful self-discovery in Middlesex. Their stories are not always easy to hear or comfortable to ponder, yet I found something profoundly consoling in my sudden glimpses of the authentic person and life underlying each narrative. These books bestowed a fresh energy on my imaginations of the Gospel accounts proclaimed over the past few weeks; both named and unnamed characters appeared with faces not unlike those I saw on the bus from Boston to Philadelphia, in the airport after Christmas, or in the supermarket on the Southern Shore before a recent snowstorm.

Liberty Bell pavilion
Philadelphia PA

I noticed these ideas affecting how I swapped stories with my relatives about my community and studies in Boston while at home for Christmas, and how I've been telling my community about Christmas with my family now that I'm back home in Boston. Recounting the events, I've found it difficult to portray the full character of the people involved. Yet in the conversations, I've noticed more of my character being revealed, and a greater attentiveness to (and gratitude for) the formation that my relatives and my Jesuit brethren contribute to the daily pages and longer chapters of my life. At the same time, I've been making prayerful efforts to look beyond the social anonymity easily read in a crowd at a bus station, in line at a grocery store, or at a museum like the Liberty Bell pavilion in Philadelphia. Even the effort to imagine– however erroneously– the lives of those whom I merely pass in such settings has gently enriched my sense of the shared humanity that can be seen there.

With today's feast of the Epiphany, the Church's proclamation of the great stories of Jesus' birth will soon be completed, until the liturgical cycle begins anew at the end of November. But the call to embrace and participate in narratives of encounter, at least in my hearing, continues to build. Next week, I'll be in courses and seminars with classmates whom I'm still getting to know. By the end of the month, I'll be sharing Bible study discussions once again with Salvadorans at the parish where I serve. As I begin my training for the Boston Marathon in April, mine is one among hundreds of thousands of narratives that will converge– if only conceptually– on Patriots' Day. It's my hope that we can all welcome and encounter one another, and ourselves, more fully in the coming days, weeks, and months... one story at a time.