Bringing Faith to Life
Posts tagged finishing
The Big Finish
09 months
Dear Kinesthetic Christian friends and fans,
Since July of 2012 I have been posting to this space, as a way to explore and share ideas about an embodied faith — a faith that lives and moves and has its being in and through me. Perhaps it feels so also with you. Thank you, Dear Reader, for your time in commenting, responding and encouraging me along the way.
At 835 published posts, I am drawing the Kinesthetic Christian blog to a close. But before I go… I have reorganized the Kinesthetic Christian site to feature my favorite “evergreen” posts in categories: “FAITH,” “HOPE,” and “LOVE.”
As scripture tells us, “Faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.” Surely, you’ll agree, our world needs more of all three. I hope you’ll visit the site and share what speaks faith to you with those you love.
Faithfully Yours,
Wendy Rilling LeBolt
Kinesthetic Christian
Finishing touches may not kill you
0Finishing touches will kill you. Do you want the line to go up or down? the name to be this or that? is this darker or that? Should we label it or leave it alone? describe it in the caption or put it on the figure? And really, should this be positioned before or after, vertical or horizontal? It’s a veritable maze of decisions out there. And I’m only talking about the illustrations!
But I’ve come this far; I’ve got to finish. It might be tempting just to be done with it. Let good enough be enough and go on to other things. That would be the easy thing. Frankly, it would be the practical thing. But somehow it’s not the right thing. So each day I have to stare delay in the face and tell her (yes, her) “You have no power here.”
And then she gets angry. I know this because things start going wrong. Small things. I can see her throwing a temper tantrum. I can’t get hold of someone, can’t find something, can’t use, can’t open, can’t balance. Can’t is tricky, you know. It has sneaked the “no” out of cannot thinking no one will notice. But I have – in fact I just did, as I typed that – and so I am onto you, Ms. Delay. You who gleefully sprinkle can’ts around and convince me that finishing is much too hard.
I can.
I know this because God has already placed people around me who I’m meant to call upon down the finishing stretch. Some of them are tough. Some of them are demanding. Some of them speak sweetly but are rabbid about a deadline. Some just show up at my door, in my inbox or via text. There’s a whole daggone crowd gathering. So I think that must be the finish line just ahead.
In the meantime I am humming a tune that has popped into my head. The chorus goes,
“Oh I wonder what God was thinking
When he created you.
I wonder if he
Knew everything I would need
Because he made all my dreams come true.
When God made You
He must have been thinking about me.(Here’s the rest: New Song – When God Made You Lyrics | MetroLyrics)
It’s a dream I have that my daughters would choose that song for the first dance at their weddings. (Don’t tell, but in my dreams I start singing that song, and then they take over and sing the verses to their new husbands.)
But really, can we believe that when God created, everything He put in place came from a heart that knew just what we would need and when we would need it and made it so? Already? I suspect the dress rehearsal has already taken place in the heart of God. We were there, walking it all through, and now we just have to remember the steps.
Oh my. There’s gonna be some DANCING on at that heavenly reception!
For now, move over Delay, I’ve got work to do.
If finishing is your objective, Godspeed is your pace
0I’m out on a hot soccer field with a young man who wants to make his high school team in the spring. It is September and he (with his father) has engaged my services to help him in this pursuit. At our first meeting, I run him through a few drills. About mid-way, I have him jog, then sprint. We, that means he, does this several times. I watch as he slows, his face dripping in sweat as he completes the final sprint.
I congratulate him as he comes into the shade for some water. Suddenly, he looks at his dad and says, “I don’t feel so good.” He dismisses himself to be sick.
I am sick with him, not literally but figuratively. What have I done? I am not meant to harm but to help. Not to break down but to build up. I’m in the business of preventing injury! His Dad just shakes his head. “He’s so out of shape. This will be a good wake up call.”
I imagine this happens on training fields and race courses across the country and around the world. But not MY training field. That’s a place where people play and laugh and have fun and do a little exercise. Not toss their cookies!
Well, this kid means business, and he wants a chance to make that soccer team. He knows he needs to make some changes and train hard. He comes back for another session. Same field. It’s hot and humid. I don’t know what he’s done since last week. We, that means he, begin. He is breathing hard, sweating, shaking his head in disappointment. I am doing all these same things, only on the inside.
I immediately have a mountain of respect for the personal trainers I know who do this, day in and day out. Push people past what they think they can do in pursuit of the better they have in them. But how do I know how much is just enough and not too much?
I line up the cones. At the same distance as a week ago. Some halfway. Some all the way. “Do you want me to jog and then sprint?” he asks.
“I want you to run them in a way you can finish,” I tell him. Wow. Where have I heard those words before? Thank you St. Paul for your words to the Corinthians (1 Cor 9:24) and to Timothy (2 Tim 4:7).
He nods his head and readies at the first cone. Now, the pace is up to him. Finishing is his goal. He is not performing for me. He is setting himself on course to complete the race. I can’t do this for him. I can set up the path and stand by him.
“When you’re ready, go,” I tell him. He does.
It’s excruciating to watch. He struggles, but pushes on. Bends, breathes, grimaces. Stretches, walks, then jogs again. At the last few meters, he leans forward toward the finish. And he does. He is not sick. He is not elated. He’s done. He has accomplished today’s goal. He moves to the shade and gets water.
He doesn’t know what anguish this has caused in me. I wonder if God feels this way as he watches us struggle? As we suffer through hardship and pain, even that of our own doing? He could step in, but that would negate all our work. It would remove our goal and preclude our progress. He has chosen not to defeat us. What wise words he has given us for these moments. “Run in such a way that you might win” … “Fight the good fight”… “Finish the race”… “Keep the faith”…
It’s hard to keep running when we don’t see the finish line. Sometimes we need a personal trainer to help us discover that we have what the day’s challenge demands, enough to cross the finish line.
Taking it at Godspeed, rather than full steam ahead, is what I am showing this young man he can do for himself. What we can all do for ourselves.
Doesn’t completing a project feel good?
0- Fill in the blank
- Complete the sentence
- Close the loop
- Finish that song!
We humans have a need to finish what we started. Almost as if we’re designed that way. Why does it seem like we’re always spinning our wheels? On the go. No rest for the weary. We get chastised for doing too much, being too busy, moving too fast. How can we possibly rest?
Oswald Chambers (in My Utmost for His Highest) writes… “Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest – the rest of the completion of activity in our lives that is never aware of itself.”
Is that the rest God has in mind? His rest? The rest we feel when a project is accomplished, a job completed, a project is done, an item is checked off our to-do list?
Maybe that’s why breaking big projects into manageable chunks, just like cutting my chicken breast into bite size pieces, helps me out. I’m nourished as I consume each portion, and by its provision, I embark on the next. Each completion rests and restores me.
Don’t tell me to stop and rest. There is rest for me at this finish line. I’ll take a deep breath, give a big thanks and then…start again. Refreshed.
Medal or mettle?
0Don’t mess with marathoners. Especially not Boston marathoners. Those folks are serious about their running. You have to qualify for Boston. I will never run Boston.
It’s been interesting reading some of the accounts of the runners. The ones who had “just finished” and the ones who were “about to finish” and the ones who were at mile 25.5, 7 tenths of a mile from the finish. People who run the Boston marathon take their finish line seriously. It’s how they measure themselves. How they know whether they have succeeded. Whether all this time in preparation, all the effort made to get to the race, all the pain endured throughout the race was worth it.
They are in the business of finishing. Immediately, they talked of next year, next race. Heck, why wait? A bunch of runners collected via social media connection and ran in defiance and remembrance that evening. Because there’s one thing you don’t take from a runner – her road.
I had it wrong. It wasn’t the finish; it was the road that was meant to be theirs, and theirs alone, on Monday. Their right. Their tradition. Their story. It’s been written along Boylston Street. And this horror of an un-finish is a story still in the writing. It has left unfinished business.
But not just for these. Because all across America other folks are taking to the roads in solidarity with these runners and “running for Boston” (#runforBoston). You can sign in and pledge to run a race of any distance before April 14th of next year. And, you can share your story.
Ironically, for all Michelle Obama’s efforts in the “Just Move” campaign to get a nation of people, especially kids, off the couch and out into the fresh air, this event may have surpassed it in less than 30 seconds. We are a nation that responds to faces and stories, not to causes.
There will be volumes of stories written about that day, but one touched thousands ~ woman who received a great kindness from an anonymous fellow runner. And via the miracle of Facebook the two runners have been introduced. Laura Wellington, who was the beneficiary of a great kindness from Brent Cunningham. (I’ll re-post the story below)
I just love in the comments on her page how people have said of Brent, “I’m not surprised. This sounds like him.”
Makes me wonder, if the story got out about something I’d done in a telling moment, what would it say about me? Or, if my life were taken in a flash, what would the remnants of my life speak?
Here’s Laura’s story…
As some of you know, I was 1/2 mile from the finish line when the explosion went off. I had no idea what was going on until I finally stopped and asked someone. Knowing that my family was at the finish line waiting for me, I started panicking, trying to call them. Diverted away from the finish line, I started walking down Mass Ave towards Symphony Hall still not knowing where my family was. Right before the intersection of Huntington, I was able to get in touch with Bryan and found out he was with my family and they were safe. I was just so happy to hear his voice that I sat down and started crying. Just couldn’t hold it back. At that moment, a couple walking by stopped. The woman took the space tent off her husband, who had finished the marathon, and wrapped it around me. She asked me if I was okay, if I knew where my family was. I reassured her I knew where they were and I would be ok. The man then asked me if I finished to which I nodded “no.” He then proceeded to take the medal off from around his neck and placed it around mine. He told me “you are a finisher in my eyes.” I was barely able to choke out a “thank you” between my tears.Odds are I will never see this couple again, but I’m reaching out with the slim chance that I will be able to express to them just what this gesture meant to me. I was so in need of a familiar face at that point in time. This couple reassured me that even though such a terrible thing had happened, everything was going to be ok.
Finishers medal
Closing the loop
0I don’t like open loops. Things left undone. Songs left unfinished. Jokes interrupted before the punch line. My mind keeps chewing on them. It’s that broken record that repeats and repeats the same line over and over and over. Finish already!
I’m told this a normal thing. To want to bring something to completion. Our minds crave this. In fact they do it on their own. Supposedly, it’s the remedy for that Beatles song that is stuck in your head mid-phrase. Apparently, we humans tend to add our own endings or fill in our own details – even when they’re not accurate or not offered. Even if we don’t know the words.
We need to have a complete story.
But I have been troubled recently by a trend I see. It’s the “let’s just not worry about closing the loop.” No RSVP. No return phone call. A question asked that no one answers. Okay, call me odd, but I actually feel compelled to answer. Unless prevented by an extreme circumstance, I absolutely RSVP even it’s “no thanks.” I respond to the email. I tell you if I can’t show up or just don’t want to. My friend Mary Lou taught me this very helpful phrase, “Thank you for thinking of me, but that’s not my opportunity.”
I find people appreciate this, perhaps because so many loops remain open out there. We are forced to presume it’s a “no” when people don’t respond. Maybe they are just uncomfortable saying no. I get that. Me too.
But lately I have been picturing that open loop. A wedding band not yet united, the rope not yet knotted, the thread pulled lose and not secured. Things yet to be done wait for me. They keep pestering me to finish them off. I’m not sure I ever realized just quite how much power they were exerting on me. I tried to dismiss them, put them off, or just pretend that it didn’t matter to me whether the loops were closed or not.
But it does.
Why? I think part of it is that Beatles song phenomenon. So much mental and emotional energy invested in the continuous unproductive loop. But there’s more. God wants me to decide what to do. To make a decision yay or nay. It may even be more important that I make a decision than exactly what my decision is. Because once I respond, I close that irritating loop and can move onto the next one clamoring for attention.
Yes, I hate to say no. But the freedom I feel to say yes makes it worth it. ‘No response’ has left me in limbo for such a long time. Perhaps those non-RSVPers don’t experience the limbo. Maybe they can just write it off and never give it a second thought. Not me. I’m meant to close loops.
And I say loops plural, because part of what had been hanging me up was the notion that I had been only assigned one. One story to tell but to tell it perfectly. Nope. As I put the last period on the last sentence and send it off to the editor, I am not even done with my ahhh when the next loop opens.
That God. Do you suppose He has been sitting there the whole time, tapping His foot and looking at His watch? Maybe. I am grateful for His eternal patience. My goodness, am I ever.
And I guess I should stop complaining about all the loops in my life and start giving thanks for them. What a privilege it is to be one of those people that just has to make the connection in everything. I am a storyteller after all.
And when I just don’t see the connection, I trust there is an end to the story I can’t yet see. Because the Greatest Storyteller of All brings us all to completion, from start to finish. It’s a promise.
Writing it up wraps it up
2- You make the hypothesis,
- design the experiment to test the hypothesis,
- do the experiment,
- make observations,
- record them,
- evaluate your results
- and draw conclusions.
Oh yes. Then you write it up.
And if you’re DaVinci, father of experimental design, you write it on any scrap of paper handy, forward or backward, left-handed.
Well, I am no DaVinci, but I am extremely indebted to him for recording his experimentations. Because he has allowed even us average people to follow his process. That’s the thing about writing it down: it allows you to share it, verbatim, and these days with lots and lots of people at the click of a button.
I remember hating doing write ups in science lab when I was in school. There was so much detail to be attended to. You had to have just the right format, the right dependent and independent variables, the right units on your axes. For crying out loud, why not just tell people what you did? All they wanted to know was your conclusion, anyway. Right?
Wrong. Because it isn’t the work of science to conclude. It’s the work of science to discover. And then to test the discovery to see if it can be repeated, to determine if the conclusion is valid and then can be applied to the next inquiry. Science is just a process. Writing it up allows us to share it. Until it is written, it is incomplete.
That’s what my teachers’ grade book said and I still find it so today. Whatever discovering experience I have is incomplete until I write it up. Even the interesting ones that leave me scratching my head feel completed when I write them. Often, because doing so results in discovery. I wonder if I am just living my life according to scientific process.
I guess, in this light, it’s not that unusual that a scientist has become a writer. It just seems so much more valuable to share what we find rather than keep it to ourselves.
I read this morning,
We declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”
~ 1 John 1:3
Sounds a lot like scientific process. And then,
“We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” (1 John 1:4)
Aha! The Bible writers had to do write ups too! But for them it completed the joy. Maybe that’s why I feel the need to write. It just wraps things up. Then, of course, it makes the perfect Gift.
Don’t meet deadlines: cross finish lines!
012 years
Nearly everyday I chastise myself for not finishing something. In fact, I say that it is God’s great joke that I have a business called Fit2Finish and I never finish anything. What is it about “finishing” that impedes my progress?
People tell me to “set deadlines.” And when I do, I get stuff done, almost always by the deadline. I feel compelled to do so. I hold fast to the endpoint and I scurry to put as much together as I can, knowing that once I turn it in I can check the box and be done with it. Someone else can take it from there. I can move on to the next thing.
But for some reason finishing is different. Finishing looks larger. It is completing with optimum quality. There is an accountability and a finality to finishing. When I get to the point where there is no revision needed, it is finished. This is way more than a deadline.
“Just let me know when you’re finished,” is an open-ended proposition. How really do I know when I have finished? Couldn’t it always be better? Isn’t there always more to be done? Aren’t there improvements to be made? alternatives to test or try on and discard?
Perhaps this is why I have trouble finishing: along the way, the middle of the project lengthens and the finish line pulls away. In fact the finish line seems to be moving away as fast as I approach it. It reminds me of the “world record line” gamely drawn across our screens as our Olympic swimmers chase after it. It adds tension as we watch our heroes drive toward the wall as fast as they can, while the rusty red line laughs and pulls away. Or doesn’t and gets reeled in.
As I watched, sometimes it felt like if only they saw that line taunting them they would swim a bit faster to achieve glory in the record books. But I know it isn’t so. If they looked up at the glory it would have ruined their streamline and slowed their finish. No, the only hope they had for glory was to put their heads down, drive for the wall, and swim as hard as their training had prepared them to swim. Toward the finish line. A wall they could see and could touch that would register their finishing time.
Who wants to end at a DEADline, right? I’m racing toward the Finish Line. Let’s finish this!
When will God say breathe?
0My recent excursion into the MRI tunnel still has me recalling the voice ‘from the outside’ saying..
“Hold your breath…” whhhiiiirrrrrrr, ratatatatatata…
“Breathe.”
Oh, it felt good to let go of that breath.
While I was waiting, I was totally focused on one thing: taking my next breath. Being the rule-following type, it did not occur to me to cheat or sneak in a breath while she wasn’t looking. I was gonna do it or die trying.
But this did bring to mind days gone past, (I’ve written a bit about it here) when we had a competition on the swim team for how far we could swim underwater. This was supposed to inspire us (pardon the pun) to push ourselves in training. To hold our breath a bit longer, because breathing slowed you down. The one who took the fewest breaths usually made it to the finish line first.
Well, there is a trick to this one of the older swimmers showed us. If you hyperventilate first, that is, if you take a lot of quick, shallow breaths, you can “blow off” carbon dioxide and trick your body into keeping quiet about that old breathing thing. Later, as a physiologist I learned and then taught students that this practice actually fools your brain’s internal breathing centers into thinking you don’t have to breathe yet. This is a bit of a dangerous practice. However, once you pass out, your body comes to your rescue and makes you breathe.
But today this has me wondering whether this isn’t often my approach to life. To hyperventilate, gasping the full volume of air because I can hold my breath longer. Does the force of my life silence my body’s signal to breathe? Is finishing first really worth it?
Let Nothing Stop You, but Mind the Detour Signs
0Today, I am pushing off with enough force to get me to the finish but not so much momentum I miss the sign that says, “turn here.”
That was my Facebook status yesterday. I did quite a bit of turning. Have a whole list of “DNF’s,” but the day seemed to end on a pitch-perfect note when a kid leaving the field at the end of my fitness session frowned at his mom and said, “Why do I have to leave?” I would never have considered that moment as my day’s intended finish, but it seemed fitting and I thanked God for it.
Sometimes I envy people who have those jobs where you just show up and they give you a task and you do it and then come back for the next task. I wouldn’t last long in a job like that, but I can daydream. No, I need autonomy. Freedom. Room to spread my wings.
Right. And when I have all these things, I complain that I have too much to do or don’t know which thing to do first or which I should do and which are for someone else. I can even cloak this in Christian language. I’ll say I am praying, “What is God’s will for me?” Do I really expect God to bless me with a clear picture of His perfect direction? Start to finish.
I’m not sure God works like that. In fact, I think that may be the Other guy getting the best of me while I am calling it God.
The American way – perhaps the world’s way – celebrates the self driven man or woman. The, I won’t let anything stop me, person. I see where I am headed and, come hell or high water, that’s where I am gonna finish. Well, I can celebrate that dedication and fortitude. I’m just not sure it’s all that healthy. Investing so much in trying to guarantee your own outcome. Because I don’t think God is in the stopping business. He doesn’t stand in my way when I have made up my mind to go full steam ahead.
I do think He holds up that “detour” sign. The “turn here” for fresh produce placard. And if I’m barreling ahead toward my destination, especially when I’m on a deadline or running late and in a rush, I don’t even see that sign.
God does expect maximal effort from me. of this I am certain. But I see it as more of a swim race, a highly competitive, medals will be awarded to the top finishers kind of race. I shove off the wall, full throttle, compelling the muscles in my arms, legs and torso to churn that water and force it behind me. But I’m not meant to hold my breath the whole way. In fact, if it’s a longer race, I’m meant to establish a rhythm between stroking and breathing. Effort and air. Full speed ahead but with the slightest of interruptions to refill my lungs and check my position – not with regard to my competitors – but with the wall, the flags, the lap count. Those things that define the race and my position in it. Peeking at competitors will just slow me down.
There is something about that rhythm, stroke: breathe. stroke:breathe, that seems very right. Maximal effort, race distance and finish line defined, even stroke and turn judges in place to be sure things are competed fairly by all competitors. We’re meant to train, suit up and mount the starting blocks. But the race itself is about rhythm and timing and all out effort. With our eyes open.
Which, we did in the old days, even without goggles. A little bit of chlorine will do you good.