A Concert for One (Hundred)

It's not every day that one of the nation's best musical ensembles puts on a free lunchtime concert to celebrate the occasion of turning in your last papers to close out the semester. Then again, it's not every day that the same group offers the same gesture to the tourists who happened to notice the sign on the sidewalk in front of Boston's oldest churches, or a job candidate who just had a tough interview, or the elderly gentleman who looks like he knows his way around the sanctuary. In reality, the Handel and Haydn Society's splendid performance of works by Corelli, Handel, Pisendel, and Vivaldi wasn't prepared for us specifically, yet for 45 minutes on a finicky spring day, the hundred of us gathered in King's Chapel relished this intimate gift.

Handel and Haydn Society musicians
King's Chapel, Boston MA

As the stone walls and relatively unadorned interior of this 18th-century house of worship hushed the myriad stimuli of Boston's Financial District, the musicians filled not only the space, but also our ears, hearts, and souls, with truly delightful music. In my developing career as a practically experienced but rather unschooled connoisseur of the classical genre, I regularly encounter moving wonders in both new and familiar compositions. I can still recall the first time I noticed the swelling progression in one of my favorite sections of Beethoven's repertoire– the second movement of the seventh symphony– as it made its way through the orchestra, section by section. With only four musicians at today's concert, it was easy to see– and no less remarkable to behold– the gestures of eyes, hands, chins, even bows, that communicated the various elements of each piece. Surely there was much more that I missed.

Boston Public Garden

While having a quick lunch in the Boston Public Garden before the concert, I thought I'd have time afterwards to return and enjoy its glowing splendor of budding trees blooming tulips, and a nesting swan. But a thick bank of clouds and a cascade of tightly confined showers swept in just as the music ended, urging me to pedal my bicycle back to Boston College at a fierce clip. Apparently I had taken for granted the gift of celebrating the fruits of sacrificial discipline throughout the semester that allowed me to finish my work before the first day of finals week. The cost of procrastination suddenly struck just as I stood poised to profit from months of its opposite.

These hours reminded me that God offers me gifts such as these every day, regardless of my workload, the weather, or my knowledge of who's performing where. (Thanks, H&H, for last night's email about today's concert!) Now that the semester's academic tasks are behind me, I have fewer excuses for putting off the choices that would focus my gaze and my actions upon recognizing, receiving, and sharing the blessings that can seem sent specifically to me, but are meant to touch many lives.

Boston Marathon 2014

It's been eight days since this year's Boston Marathon, my fourth time in five years to make the adventurous trip from Hopkinton to Copley Square on the third Monday in April. Coming in the midst of a hectic semester, and just after the intense and deeply moving liturgies of the Easter Triduum, the activity of Patriots' Day seamlessly blended into the pace and emotion of the adjoining days. Yet it also stood on its own as a day of culmination, renewal, celebration, and transition.

Boston Fire Department, Boylston Street, Boston MA
Memorial banner for Boston Marathon 2013 bombing victims

After logging nearly 600 miles in fifteen weeks, I haven't run at all since I crossed the finish line eight days ago; my transition from training to recovery is almost immediate. Whether or not people were conscious of it being Easter Monday, they were well aware of the invitation to breathe new life into the marathon after recalling the anniversary of the 2013 bombings the week before. The crowds along the route were larger, more vocal, and more engaged than I can recall from any of my previous marathons here. Even the noticeable, but not overbearing, security presence suggested a sense of collective stewardship for a tradition that embraces more than the run itself, but unites volunteers, families, students, and citizens from a few medium-sized towns to the largest city in New England.

On the bus out to Hopkinton, I sat next to a pediatric medicine resident from Pittsburgh who was running his first Boston; we bumped into each other again three hours in the portajohn line just before hopping into the corrals. The athletes' village was noticeably busier and fuller with an extra 9,000 runners, but everyone was friendly and made room for one another. By the time we were lined up, there were no clouds in sight and the temperature was edging toward 50 degrees. I tried to roll a relaxed pace through the early miles, but I couldn't get myself any slower than 6:55 after I passed mile 5. My pace stayed between 6:44 and 6:49 through Wellesley (where the Scream Tunnel was longer, louder, and lovelier than ever), passing the halfway mark in 1:29. Then, just after mile 15, I felt something turn within me, and I could tell it was the heat of the sun sinking in. Later I learned that the temperature went up five degrees in about 30 minutes right around that time. By the time I hit the firehouse turn and scaled the first of the Newton Hills, my pace was a few seconds over 7:00, and I was concentrating on making it to the finish, rather than regaining negative splits. I eventually prepared myself to take 10 to 15-second brisk walking breaks each mile, which I started when I hit Beacon Street. But before that, I stopped and hugged one my old training partners (all the way from Maine, where she and others got me to run my first marathon in 2006) at the top of Heartbreak Hill, caught high fives with my parents and a bunch of friends from school on the way into Cleveland Circle, and shared two more hugs with school friends who were right where they said they would be at mile 24. My pace crept a little higher, and when I passed the mile-to-go mark in Kenmore Square at 2:57, I half-shouted "Uh Oh!" and threw all the energy I had left into the Mass Ave underpass and the final stretch down Boylston, finishing in 3:04:26, just good enough to qualify for next year.

Boston Marathon Expo, Boston MA
Can't help noticing Cristo Redentor and the Rio de Janeiro landscape

This was the year that taught me how to run a marathon for the distance and the crowds, and not for the speed. Had it been five to ten degrees cooler, or cloudier, I might have broken three hours again, or at least gotten pretty darn close. But I might not have had some surprisingly tender moments when I stopped to hug and thank people whose support got me through this marathon, as well as much of this year. And I might not have noticed how much my running meant to them, and to their grasp of what the marathon meant to this city this year. The greater size and more intense emotion of the spectators this year was palpable. And I can't imagine how wild it was when Meb turned onto Boylston Street with a twenty-yard lead... he's one fast dude, but I'm sure the crowd practically hauled him in to the finish line.

I'm grateful to everyone who took part in this year's Boston Marathon, and helped me to feel a closer connection between my running, my community of family and friends, and this fine city that I've had the privilege of calling home for the past eight months.

Reversal

In my own experience, and that of many friends, March was a long month. The swelling minutes of dusky evening glow often meant little more than some more daylight by which to work before turning on the lamp beside my desk. Freedom from classes during a week of spring break– which featured nothing but winter weather– meant long, interrupted stretches of time that I eagerly exploited to achieve serious progress on researching and writing a 20-page term paper. Once again, the stretch of my Boston Marathon training schedule with the highest mileage– including a grueling 22-miler on a chilly Saturday with some patches of black ice to dodge– fell squarely in the middle of March, and as most of the country knows all too well, a winter that just wouldn't quit. A friend in Michigan told me that March had its metaphorical lamblike departure there today; here in Boston, it managed to rain, snow, sleet, and even hail within a two-hour period. Having seen occasional glimpses of, and halting progress towards, the long-awaited spring on the horizon, it seemed we were instead sliding back down a slippery slope into late January.

On the other hand, this morning I experienced a reversal that, in contrast to the dread and anxiety with which I'd been anticipating it, turned out to be insightful and refreshing. One of my weekday running routes typically carries me westbound through the Newton Hills, then north through a residential neighborhood, and finally back east to my house along a route that features one sharp climb and two long, gently sloping downhills. On good mornings, with gravity as my aid and the fiery predawn glow beckoning on the horizon, I can roll down those hills with delusional thrill. But today, with Patriots' Day three weeks away, I finally worked up the courage to run this route the other way around, thus facing the Newton Hills in the same arrangement that I'll face on race day. I'll admit that I was also nervous about what those long drag-racing downhills would feel like in the other direction. Would it be like a slow trip up the chairlift instead of a quick run down a pristine slope?

I found some surprises in seeing this course from the other direction. For one thing, the 50-minute difference in daylight highlighted differences in streetlight coverage that I'd somehow overlooked during the long months of total darkness. Even with few cars on the roads, I felt slightly more nervous about hugging the curbs for left turns instead of right turns; even in a town with so many runners, most motorists seem genuinely surprised– or not sufficiently caffeinated– when they come across someone like me staking a claim to the shoulder and putting in some early miles before a day of work. And Heartbreak Hill proved even more mystical with a rosy hue at the top that silently heralded a glorious new day.

In this time of Lent, there's an encouragement to turn back to God. I've certainly found the past few weeks to be a welcome– and often uncomfortably prodding– motivation to discern the ways in which my prayer, habits, and relationships might have gone astray. Some of those wanderings have led rather narrowly to dead ends; the logical solution is thus to reverse course and return to the place where I abandoned the proper route for my ongoing spiritual journey. What if I reversed my prayer schedule and made sure that I did this first thing after breakfast... or even my post-run stretching? What if I rearranged my evening work schedule so that after-dinner leisure became a meaningful session of reflection and journaling at the end of the night, and I instead got to work right away instead of closing the books mere minutes before closing my eyes? In what other ways would a turnaround– however daunting and contrary to routine it may seem– be just the thing that this stretch of my lifelong training plan needs?

I can't say that I know any of these answers... only that I'm grateful to have discovered some new angles from which to seek them. And even if I wind up retracing steps I've previously taken, I'll surely see some of the surrounding terrain as if for the first time.

Snowpack

As February draws to a close, so too does the first half of the semester. After seven weeks of sustaining the demands of five courses, I'm grateful for a week free of class meetings, even though much of that freedom will be directed toward researching and drafting at least one final paper. As of my latest run to the library, I've got 18 items checked out, and I'm nearly out of space on the shelf devoted to the semester's books. I take some geeky pride in all this, but having nearly three linear feet of theological writings staring at me is a sobering reminder of how much information I'm being asked to process.

Faber Jesuit Community
Brighton MA

Fortunately, the other view staring at me is one of consoling wintry beauty. I'm well aware that many in New England are growing tired of the snow and unusual cold that have characterized the past two and a half months. I, for one, will certainly welcome days when the temperature for my morning runs isn't uncannily close to the number of miles I'm running. And there are already signs of spring's slow onset– the horizon brims with brilliant predawn light ever earlier, I hear more birds in that same tranquil time of the morning, and the steadily climbing sun is slowly picking away at the snowpack.

As I turn to my heavier writing projects, steeped in hundreds of pages of articles on everything from migration to the body, from ethics to treatises on faith and culture, I'm hoping to see the insights buried in nearly two months of reading and thinking slowly trickle out. Just as the northern forests sing with streaming snowmelt in March, the papers I'll write have the potential to stir my spirit and inspire my mind with new learning about the connections between theology, social teachings, and the concrete experiences and practical challenges faced by my neighbors near and far. Any meaningful contributions of mine may be as far off as the spring blooms that so many of us await, but the expectation of the latter is a powerful hope whose vigor, at least for me, grows with every passing day.

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.

A Year of Change

As the world welcomes a new year, I find myself doing little more than changing the calendar. The most notable changes that I experience tend to come not at the turning of the year, but in its midst, spread across days and weeks that don't attract widespread attention on their own merits. That being said, I did participate in two events that made global news this semester, though the role they played in my life was far more significant than what my presence contributed... a humbling counterpoint to my general desire to give more than I receive. In the main, I approach 2014 with the goal of maintaining and deepening the good things that have gotten underway at various points along the course of 2013.

Boston Strong display
Copley Square

Running: Eight months later, I still have a hard time talking about the Boston Marathon bombings. Even though I finished an hour beforehand, and all of my friends and family escaped harm, I'm reminded of that day every time I walk, cycle, or run through Copley Square. But it's not just the tragedy that I recall; it's the way that the city and its people displayed newfound solidarity in subsequent days and weeks. Now that I'm a proud resident of Boston, I feel part of the effort– even responsibility– to sustain that sense of community in my travels around the city.

MAGIS pilgrims
Rio de Janeiro
July 2013

Pilgrimage: It's been an interesting ten months in the Catholic Church, and for those whose attention has been captured by the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the words and actions of Pope Francis. I had the privilege of spending three weeks in Brasil with thousands of pilgrims from Jesuit colleges worldwide, and sharing in an experience of not only global Catholicism, but also the global human family. I'm happy to be maintaining contact with a few of those friends, scattered from Philadelphia to Montevideo, as we go about our lives of study, prayer, recreation, and work in the company of family and friends. Even though my hiking pack has spent much of the last five months in my closet, my ordinary walks in Brighton often remind me of the extraordinary steps I took in Brasil.

Conservation land
Weston MA

Happily, this year is ending as last year did... in the company of good Jesuit friends, sitting by a fireplace, waiting to salute the stroke of midnight. I hope to undertake the new year with renewed devotion to prayer, to community, to family and friends... building on the best moments of 2013. After a year of change– moving from Worcester to Boston, shifting from full-time work to full-time study, meeting new friends and taking on new projects– it's the fundamental and unchanging things that give me life and joy, and help me to confidently welcome everything new and unexpected that comes my way. Happy New Year, and many blessings to you in 2014!