February 1

So I am thinking about doing something that may surprise you.

It surprises me, on a number of levels.

But I am still thinking about it and I just might do it and I feel like this is the space to work it out.

So-- I might be running a marathon.  As a spiritual pilgrimage.

Yeah.

A few levels of surprise there.

The marathon part probably not so much.  I mean, I'm signed up to run a half in May.  I finished 10 miles on Saturday.  I seem to be doing this distance-running thing, and a marathon seems to be the logical end-point to aim for.  Despite my scoffing about the "crazy people" who run marathons, it stands to reason that I might be one of them someday.  Maybe this fall, maybe not this fall, but someday.

The spiritual part might be a bit more surprising to many of you.  Not quite so much if you've known me since middle school.  Bible bowl champion, right here.  I was, for quite a few of my formative years, a pretty spiritual person.  Not just a regular church-goer and staple of my youth group, but a soul-searcher, a woods-wanderer, a dreamer and a true believer in that way that only a 12 year old girl can be.  I made crosses out of pieces of wood and placed them in sunny corners of the Wind River forests.  I talked to god and wrote in prayer and my spirituality was not tied to any theology and so it sustained me with ease.

Then I went through catechism, and encountered the concept of the Trinity and started questioning more than believing, struggling to justify a faith that no longer seemed to make sense.  Then I went to college and questioned even more.  Then I dated, and later married, a religious studies major and our questioning and skepticism became a way of life, a defining reality.  And my woods wandering became just a photograph in the archives of my childhood.

But of course, she's still in there, the seeker and the dreamer, the little girl who saw divinity in a beam of mountain sunlight.  And I miss her sometimes and wonder if I might find her again.

I don't get to the mountains too often these days, though.  Or even out of the house before 10am to go to a church.   So in the absence of these things, I've been reading blogs.  Cruising the intertron for entertainment and inspiration, like everyone else.  Photo blogs, mommy blogs, interior decorating blogs.  Turns out there's a lot of Jesus in the blogging world.  Perhaps having Jesus in your heart gives you more time on your hands?  Or just more to talk about...

I find myself reading these accounts of the godly life with the sort of curiosity usually reserved for car crashes or etymological research.  I am interested in these women, in their certainty, in the lives they present-- actions aligned with values, adversity faced with unshakable faith.  I envy them their sureness.

But that faith is not for me.  I have too many questions in my heart to turn it over to an unseen entity.  I have too much antipathy for the god of the old testament to think about living my life by his rules.

Then I found this guy.  Happened on a post of his on parenting that was going around facebook-- and spent the next 45 minutes engrossed in the rest of the blog.  It took me at least five posts to realize that this excellent dad-blogger, a fine writer whose humor and philosophy echo my own, actually is a pastor too.  A pastor who writes about spirituality with the same humor and gentle irreverence I found in the parenting posts.  I've been  following him for a while now and somehow the posts on this blog line up in just the way I need them to, from lists of ways to cope with snow days to musings on the purpose-driven life.

Last week, he invited readers to join him in training for a marathon, as a spiritual pilgrimage.  And like usual, the post spoke to me in that just-right way.  Seeking. Pilgrimage.  It fits.   I've no need for that old testament god at the end of the path, no need to install scriptures in my heart.  But I know I am still looking for something.  And maybe, putting one foot in front of the other, I can find out what it is.

Or maybe I'll just run a marathon.

Either way, that's something, isn't it?