Keeping Pace

“Outside, outside, come on everybody, outside!” These sing-song words of promise, uttered daily on Bubble Guppies, are music to the ears of children everywhere in the month of June, especially my favorite two-year-olds. The charming Henry Kyle and the sweet Emma Belle love to be outside. Emma brings me her rain boots to put on (hint, hint), while Henry stands longingly at the front window, jumping up and down to send me the message: “I want to go outside.”

 

When they get outside, the difference in their personalities is striking. Henry wants to run – down the hill, or to the swing, the backyard or the door of the car. Beyond his parents’ back, I’ve started whispering, ‘Run Forrest Run.’ He ran down the hill at a playground we were visiting and discovered a wide trail, and he ran at least a half mile on the trail before I turned him around – and ran back out as well.

 

Emma is much more interested in exploring her surroundings. She is content picking up sticks to carry around, or playing with stones, putting them in a pile and then spreading them out in a pattern. She watched her dad mow the lawn this week, walking from one end of the porch to the other so she could see him when he came around the corner. Instead of seeing the porch as a place of confinement, she settled in and enjoyed the view, picking up a stick or two in the process.

 

These two little ones remind me about pace, especially as we are (keeping my fingers crossed) turning the corner from the worst of the pandemic. Except for my ill-advised track and field experiment in tenth grade, I have seldom been an actual runner, but the pace I kept up as a mom of three with a full-time ministry and years of graduate school was often grueling. I prided myself at being an expert at shifting gears, but all too often, frantic was a better descriptor than proficient.

 

Even in retirement, even in a pandemic, old habits are hard to break. The challenges of part-time work, baby-sitting the grandkids, a weekly column deadline, midwifing the literary efforts of others, while still writing books of my own – run, Forrest, run! Yet I’ve also heard the echo of the words of Jesus as recorded in The Message, Eugene Peterson’s paraphrased scripture readings first composed for his own congregation. From Matthew 11: “Are you tired? Worn out? . . . Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” 

 

What I’m recognizing about these life rhythms is this: they are unique for each of us. As portrayed in the film Chariots of Fire, Scottish athlete Eric Liddell understood that rhythm in his running. “God made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure.” For others, that pleasure-filled rhythm is best discovered in the garden, on the campaign trail, or holding the hand of a toddler. The words of Henry David Thoreau resonate still. “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” 

 

The traditional fable of the Hare and the Tortoise begins with the swift hare making fun of the slower tortoise. “Do you ever get anywhere?” asked the hare with a mocking laugh. In the first words of Aesop’s tale, the hare speaks the message of our culture, that arriving at a destination as quickly as possible is the most important part of the journey. Yet it wasn’t the speed of the hare that was the problem. No, it was his arrogance that his way was the best way, the only way.

 

As Emma and Henry innately understand, we can embrace a rhythm that gives us life without denying another’s choice. Measured or far away, the music beckons.