Runalong

He's expected to announce his candidacy this month (May). But can a presidential candidate really get away with saying stuff like this?!

Meet the new non-conformists...

At three minutes and four seconds after 2 am next Sunday morning it will be.

From Sunday's LA Times:

Just as Jews, during some traditional Passover feasts, ask God to bring down his wrath on the Gentiles who "don't know him," and many Christians believe that hell awaits those who don't subscribe to their faith, Muslims are led to believe that killing the enemies of Islam can be justified.

"Just as"? The Bible says, "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone... Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay', says the Lord... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 13:14-21).

Leaving justice against evil-doers to God's ultimate judgment is not "just as" taking vengeance into one's own hands. Not even close.

Click on the pic:

These two studies say "yes"- you'll live longer and it's good for kids. I have mixed feelings about studies like these. On the one hand, the Bible teaches that most religions are NOT good for you. So there's that. And on the other hand, telling people today that something is good for them is practically synonymous with "eat your tofu" or "spend twenty minutes every day on the stair-stepper" - anything good for me must be boring or tasteless or worse, right? There's no JOY nowadays in things that are "good for you". Make yourself miserable, you'll live longer: If I'm miserable why would I want to?

Of course I believe that you can enjoy eating and exercise and other things that are truly good for you; including a lifestyle that follows Jesus passionately. But it seems like American marketers and promoters divide everything in two camps: Stuff you'll enjoy and Stuff that's good for you.

Actually, Stuff That's Good For You, is usually stuff that isn't pleasurable at first, but becomes more and more satisfying with time. And Stuff That's Bad For You is often stuff that offers immediate but shallow gratification with unpleasant and long-ranging side-effects.

If you live the way your Creator intends for you to live, things will go better for you than if you don't. But all religions are not created equal. And a spiffy life on earth is not the ultimate focus of Jesus' teaching.

How's this?

Barbara was complaining that she couldn't read my new blog because it showed up as black on blue on her computer. So I'm trying a different look. This program makes it easy to change looks so maybe I should just publish a different look each week. OK, maybe not. Anyway did anyone else have that problem? I changed programs to resuscitate commenting but there hasn't been much commenting on the new blog. Is it because you're all black and blue? Is this any better? They all look fine on both my Macs.

Now if I could just figure out how to get the sidebar to look the way I want it...

Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world," and "Render unto Caesar..." He never got involved in political battles and warned his disciples that "those who live by the sword will die by the sword." His final words in Matthew's Gospel are: "Go into all the world, making disciples... baptizing... teaching..."

Mohammed lead his followers in rogue military raids against other tribes; began slaughtering Jews almost as soon as he became a prophet; and encouraged his followers to be (literal) warriors for Allah. In his farewell address he said, "I was ordered to fight all men until they say 'There is no god but Allah'."

I think it would make a not insignificant difference if someone converted from following Mohammed to following Jesus, or vice versa.

When you go running with a friend, you never know what you'll end up talking about...

Here's a collection of er, non-standard vehicles. For example...

When I was kid I thought all dogs were boys and all cats were girls. Someone actually wrote that as their contribution to this site. Thing is, I still habitually call our dog (female) "he" and our cats (both males) "she". Anyway, check it out, it'll bring back some memories and prompt a few chuckles.

Example: i used to believe, that at funerals, the priest said,"In the name of the Father, the Son and into the hole he goes".

Reality pop quiz: When rational people can dispassionately discuss whether it's better to dismember or collapse the skull of a pre-born baby, are they still allowed to call themselves rational?

The whole article is well-worth reading.

If you're looking for job satisfaction, become a pastor! According to a recent study, clergy reported the highest degree of job satisfaction of any profession at 87% (I told my staff it would have been 100% if they hadn't included the youth pastors!). Seriously, 87% sounds about right. My work is very satisfying about 7/8 of the time and very frustrating the other 1/8. If God doesn't call you into full-time ministry, that 1/8 will drive you out in a hurry, though I expect the stress is a lot less for assistant pastors than for senior pastors. We're responsible for everything, we get credited for everything and we get blamed for everything and 90% of everything is completely out of our control!

Teachers also rated near the top which explains why my wife and I live in a state of uninterrupted bliss.

Well, not quite, but about as close as can be had in a sinful world. Of course for Christians happiness is another stewardship- a gift given to us for a time to share with others. Other studies have shown that gratitude and altruism increase happiness. It's a circle, but not a vicious one.

Having spent many years in college classrooms, both as professor & professee (?), this is hilarious...

Well, the big day came. I trained as well as I could, pushing the red-line without crossing it (the endless quest to train as hard as possible without breaking) and went out to see if I could beat my old 50 mile personal best of 9:03 (set four years ago) with a sub-9 finish. I was confident enough to begin to wonder not just IF I could break 9:00, but BY HOW MUCH?

Despite the predictions of occasional showers totalling all of 0.10 inches for the day Saturday morning arrived wet and it kept raining pretty much all day long. By early afternoon the horse trails that make up the last 20 miles of the course were getting pretty sloppy and slick. The temp never got above 55 so it was a tough day for crews and volunteers - the real heroes of the day. For runners it wasn't too bad. Not perfect, but cool is always better than warm when you are running.

I followed my plan of running 7/8 of a mile at about 8:20 pace followed by 1/8 mile of walking: lather, rinse and repeat 30 times until you reach the horse trails and things get more vertical and technical. I covered the first 30 miles this way by 10:38 AM - right on schedule. I worried if this faster than normal pace would burn me out (I was red-lining it again) but, though it was tough I was able to keep up the same level of intensity almost to the end. My pace got slower, as did everyone's on the steep and rocky and muddy trails, but I kept pushing- walking any significant uphill sections and running everything else. Some of the downhills were so technical that they weren't any faster than the uphills.

I realized for the first time (my fifth trip to American River) how many long sections of flat runnable trail there were mixed in with the steep technical stuff. Usually I haven't been fond of flat portions late in a race. Uphills I could walk, downhills I could run but propelling myself over the flat sections of miles 30-50 has always been tough. Yesterday, thanks to my training, I looked forward to these flat sections (some quite long) as opportunities to make up time.

I stayed on schedule and began aiming for a finish around 8:30, which I figured at this point was the best I could do if I really pushed. My calves began to tighten up because I was running faster than usual, thus pushing harder off on each step than usual and my body wasn't used to it. I was passing people consistently the entire race.

By the time I got to the last big hill (1000' climb in 4 miles) I was pretty much spent. Two guys passed me as I tried to move up the early steep portion; only the second and third person to pass me in the final 40 miles of the race. I realized 8:30 was just out of reach and pushed to make at least 8:38- which would be exactly one hour faster than last year. I got to the finish line in 8:35, beating my old PB by 28 minutes (more than 0:30 seconds per mile) and last year by an hour. I finished 92nd out of 500 starters; 9th out of 96 finishers in the men's 50-59 division. (Results here).

(Update: Whoops, the joke's on me, I guess. I just looked up last year's results and my memory deceived me. Last year's time was 9:33).

And when I got to the finish, I was finished. I had nothing left.

My three friends from church all finished as well, despite battling some huge impediments (injuries, sickness, lack of time to train, etc). My daughter, who began running last August and has barely been able to finish 50 kilometer races within the allotted times was concerned that she wouldn't be able to make the cut-offs at AR. I knew she could do the distance, but...

She made the first cut-off (mile 31.5) with 6 minutes to spare and finished with 12 minutes to spare. HOORAY!

I plan to let this time of 8:35 stand. Training that hard and running that hard were satisfying, but took a lot out of me. I'd rather have longevity in my running career than worry about moving up from the top 20% to the top 10% of my age group. Besides, if I can keep at this long enough, it will keep getting easier and easier to be at the top of my age group; maybe even take first place (there was only one 70+ finisher in each of the men's and women's divisions this year)!

Thanks to all for prayers and encouragements. Now back to more important matters.

I've only found one so far and that was plenty. Most cases seem to happen on Law & Order but hey, everyone on that show finds dead bodies. I have found a couple of stolen cars though, as recently as last week. But most of the bodies I've come across have been alive and well.

Anyway, you can read all about this horrific trend here.

... but I'll step right into it anyway. Since I know you are all atwitter with excitement over the 2008 presidential election now that it is a mere 20 months away, here are my fearlessly bold predictions, counter (as is my wont) to the prevailing wisdom of our esteemed professional pundits.

Drum roll, please...

Dems: Hillary and Barak will take each other out and Bill Richardson will become everyone's alternate choice. Hillary has too much baggage and too little like-ability and Obama is already proving that he isn't ready for prime time - he shoulda waited. Plus, the Clinton team will hit him hard with everything they've got. Edwards won't be able to raise enough money as potential donors will be too concerned about his wife's cancer prognosis. Anyway, despite his flaws, Richardson is probably the strongest candidate the Dems have.

Pubs: McCain and Guilani may not take each other out but there are parallels to the Dem side with McCain playing the Hillary-role of heir apparent who isn't well-liked by much of the primary-activist base and Guilani playing the Barak-role of "everyone loves his image but he lacks experience in a campaign of this sort and will probably self-implode" (with lots of help from his rivals). Romney, Gingrich, Huckabee, et al? Fuhgeddaboutit - none of them are going anywhere. The Republican nominee, in a landslide, will be Fred Thompson.

For the record, I could live with any of the Pubs as Prez, though I don't really trust Rudy or Mitt. Huckabee is probably closest to me (hey, he was even a pastor!) but I don't think the country is ready for a former pastor as president right now. I don't have the problems with McCain that others seem to have- he'd be fine with me. My first pick, though he's wise not to be running this time, would be Jeb Bush. Maybe in '12 or '16. He's my man!

Of course not. I wouldn't recognize his voice if I heard it. All I know about him prior to this week is that he's reportedly a very crude but funny and insightful guy. If you can't be funny and/or insightful without being consistently crude, I'm not interested.

This week he got fired for referring to some black college basketball players as "nappy-headed ho's". Many conservatives appear to be appalled by this, apparently because:
A. Black rap musicians use terms like this frequently, including last year's Academy Award winning "Best Original Song".
B. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton wanted Imus fired, therefore he shouldn't be.
C. There's a lot of hypocrisy in what kinds of "hate" speech our culture does and doesn't allow.

Christians, like myself, tend to favor freedom of speech both on moral grounds and because there's a lot of people out there who would love to shut us up. Call that self-interest if you will, but a Christian believes that everyone NEEDS to hear the Gospel - for their own self-interest.

OTOH, we are disturbed by the increasing acceptance and promotion of "filthy talk" in all its manifestations- throughout the media and entertainment industries at all levels and throughout daily speech. And it isn't just a matter of taste or preference (though for people who generally avoid such language, it is that also, especially when it comes to excrement), it's also a belief that human beings should aspire to what is good and beautiful and uplifting and that to call other people graphic names is demeaning and unloving and also because crude sexual terminology de-sacralizes something God intends to be held sacred and beautiful and private.

So Christians often have sought, by various means, to get the media to clean up its act. Thus we should be at least somewhat happy to see the likes of Imus get their due, right?

Yes, right. Whether or not such restrictions are applied perfectly (they never will be), at least there is an acknowledgment that we should try to maintain a certain civility in our public discourse. Hey, that's something! The problem with Imus' speech isn't it's content (it appears, like many similar instances, to have been simply a spontaneous attempt at humor that fell flat) but the manner.

Personally, I'm not all that bothered by scatological humor or terms. To be honest, as a card-carrying guy I frequently find it quite funny (though, as a pastor I am careful to suppress my laughter in public). De-frock me if you will but I still believe that if Jesus were teaching his twelve in a small room and, at a crucial moment, one of them "tootled vigorously" - that Jesus His Own Self would have burst into laughter with all the rest.

Much sexual humor and crude sexual terminology is demeaning and de-sacralizing and is thus seriously harmful. Taking the Lord's name in vain, telling people to be damned or go to hell, are sins that trivialize the most serious and holy truths that God has revealed to us. The oft-mocked question, "Is nothing sacred?" is really a serious inquiry that deserves a serious answer from people whose main concern is not an adolescent desire to offend or amuse but a deep concern for what is best for humanity in general and specific humans in particular.

If the Imus firing leads others to get in touch with their inner censors and be a little more careful about HOW they express themselves, we will all benefit.

We leave tomorrow! Steve and I will be shooting for under nine hours. Mark hasn't had much time to train so he'll just be shooting for the finish line. Likewise Lorelei, who has trained but this is her first 50 miler and she finished her three 50K's near the very back of the pack. Ted is just hoping to make it to the starting line (ITB problems). We'll be joining 500 others. Sound hard? Helen Klein finished the race in 2004 in about 12 1/2 hours (the cut-off is 13 hours). She set a record for her age group. Of course, at 82, she WAS her age group.

The weather is expected to be cool and slightly damp. I'm getting antsy...

The world needs more dults!

Seriously, kids(!), how "adult" are you?

This test has the usual flaws (many questions don't can be interpreted variously) but it would be a good learning tool if you are mentoring (or parenting) a young person (or immature "adult").

How adult are you?

Hey cool! I learned how to embed YouTube videos into my RW blog!

Anyway, this is the only H2CU that anyone ever called the church and complained about. Can't say that I was too surprised, I sort of pushed the envelope in this one...

This is how I answered the last time I was asked that question:

The evangelical view of salvation, which is basically what the Reformation was all about (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, et al seeking to return to the earlier views of Augustine, Paul, et al after the medeival RCC made salvation works-based in order to control people): is that salvation is entirely a work of God, received by sinners as a free gift of God's grace and cannot be earned or deserved in any way.  Jesus paid for our sins on the cross (the atonement) and salvation is free to all who trust in His person and His work.   Once we are justified (a once-for-all-time event), i.e., our debt incurred by our sins against God is declared paid by Jesus, we cannot lose our salvation.  

To reiterate what I wrote before: our life as Christians is not meant to be a worrisome, "I wonder if I'm being good enough and doing enough to please God enough to let me in" (which presumably would be followed - after death- by "Hey look, we made it, we're the good people", resulting in a heaven full of at least semi-self-righteous people); but rather- "I don't and didn't deserve salvation any more than anyone else but Jesus paid for my sins and I've been adopted into God's family by grace and nothing I can do will ever cause me to be rejected"  This security leads to a life of gratitude, peace, joy and growing freedom from self-interest (no longer having to obsess over our own eternal prospects we can focus on serving others).   If you never quite know if God has accepted you there will also be a hesitancy to be grateful (hard to be grateful for something you don't know if you have), and a certain lack of peace and joy for the same reason.

And, as I hinted earlier, the whole theology is wonderfully spelled out in the hymn "Amazing Grace" by former slave-trader John Newton.

Scriptures which encourage believers to rest in the security of knowing they are fully and eternally accepted by God include (among many others):

(click here for references)

In that last reference the Greek word translated "know" (oida) refers to a settled, certain knowledge.

Well I went ahead and bought RW, I hope it was a good choice. In many ways iBlog was more convenient. It was easier to set up the sidebar, I could use little logos for my categories, and other things were more intuitive or were only a click away. But Rapid Weaver seems to have better support and a brighter future and hopefully it will keep getting better. I haven't decided on a theme yet (the overall look), there are two or three supplied themes, including this current one, that I like but I might shell out a few bucks and buy this one as I like the wood look and I'd like something with variable widths and a little more adaptability. RW has a steeper learning curve so maybe that will help me keep Altzheimer's at bay for a few more years.

Yet ANOTHER article on the mental and emotional benefits of aerobic exercise. A word of advice to any of you in mental health professions (especially if you work with troubled youth!): get ahead of the crowds on this one and do yourself and your clients a favor- soon exercise will be a standard prescription for mental health patients and juvenile delinquents- might as well lead the way!

Don't veggie, be happy.

More good news from the dietary front:

The drop in blood pressure among participants who consumed cocoa products for at least two weeks was in the same range as achieved by someone taking drugs commonly prescribed to control high blood pressure.

I've been limiting myself to about 1/2 ounce of dark chocolate a day (high fat content). I think I'll up that to an ounce. Have to be a good boy and take my meds!

From an article on hot new car colors...

Right now, orange is going strong and should last. "Orange sales are increasing in popularity," he said. "I've developed orange products right up to 2010."

Once again, I'm quite the trendsetter!

Here we go again. Mrs. Runalong made out a shopping list for the grocery store and then left it on the bed. She does something like that several times a month. (So do I, but that really isn't relevant here, so why are you even bringing it up?).

What was I saying?

Oh yeah. Anyway, she called me from the store to see if she had missed anything on the list while shopping from memory (haha!).

She hadn't. All 25 items present and accounted for.

My wife has an amazing memory!

When she remembers to use it.

we are weaving rapidly.

I apologize for the lack of blogging, I spent about 5 hours Friday and Monday evening trying to troubleshoot and fix Runalong but, as you can see, to no avail. I even downloaded and tried the iBlog beta update version 2.0 and it had the same problem. I've played with rebuilding my blog and with iDisk and everything I could think of and am pretty much out of ideas. And the "support" at iBlog doesn't answer my emails. I don't think iWeb is going to work for me and I'm not crazy about switching to Blogger but I'm running out of ideas and patience.

Anyway, today is the first non-Sunday in 5 weeks that I haven't gone for a run. My legs appreciate it. Last week I finished most of my runs with one mile at about 7:15 (hard enough to be hard, but not too hard). Yesterday I finished my short 7 mile run with two one-mile runs of 7:15 and 6:54. They're getting easier. I'll only run about 30 miles this week but I'll do about eight of these fast one-milers to keep my aerobic conditioning up. In the American River 50 Mile Race (4/14) I plan to do the first 29 miles (paved and mostly flat) at about a 9 minute mile pace. Studies have shown that in long races a 5 to 1 running to walking ratio is best for most runners so I'll be running 7/8 of a mile at about an 8:20 minute per mile pace, followed by 1/8 mile walking at about a 12:30 pace (90 seconds) to get my 9:00 average (6.67 miles per hour).

The last 21 miles of the course are hilly (over 3000 feet of climbing and equal descent), technical and possibly muddy so I'll be shooting for an 11-12 minute pace there to meet my goal of a sub-nine hour finish. My previous four finishes have all been under 10 hours with the fastest several years ago at 9:03. I'm a little older now (so they tell me) but I'm better trained this year so if it isn't too hot on race day I think my odds of meeting my goal are pretty good. We have five of us going from our congregation (counting my daughter) which just may be the most people from one congregation ever to run in any one ultramarathon!