Henry and eight miles

When I was in the Missouri Theater on Monday morning reporting on author Andy Crouch’s discussion on culture, I started to cry. Then I cried quite a lot.

I’m pretty sure I was the only person of the hundreds gathered who was crying. Crouch’s talk made sense, but it wasn’t exactly heart wrenching. And why I was crying had nothing to do with what he was saying.

Or maybe it had a little to do with it. He was talking about culture, and how it makes things possible, and impossible.

Fortunately, I don’t think anyone saw me crying. It was pretty dark in there. I was setting down front, everyone else was sitting behind me. It was 11 degrees outside, and about 45 degrees in the Missouri Theater. If anyone noticed me going for tissues in my brief case, they probably just thought I had a cold.

I was crying because I had just realized why my son Henry wants to be able to run eight miles.

The other day my wife and I were asking our children if they had any goals, resolutions, or a bucket list so to speak. They both want to go to New York City. Oliver wants to go camping in the wilderness.

Henry said he would like to be able to run eight miles.

I told him if he works at it, that’s definitely obtainable.

I thought to myself that it was an odd distance to choose. He recently ran a 5K, his first race. I could see him aspiring to a faster 5K, or maybe a 10K, or a half marathon or marathon. But in our amateur sports world of many races, there is no such thing as an eight mile race.

Three days later, will taking notes at Missouri Theater, it came to me out of the blue. I’m in a running group that runs twice a week. The distance I run varies from 7 to 8 miles. Henry knows this because he’s heard me talk about my morning runs. I realized that this is where Henry’s odd 8 mile goal comes from. Either

a.       He wants to be able to run with me, and someday be part of the group I am so found of, or

b.      He thinks eight miles is all he’ll ever be able to do, because I never run further than that.

Either answer shakes my foundation, and causes me to become emotional with love, guilt, responsibility…

What I allow my kids to do or not do, how a discipline them, helping them study, signing them up for sports, what they eat, their manners, how they are with sharing, everything I try to teach them in my role as a parent… it matters… but

Who I am, what I do when I’m not working, not parenting, when I’m just on my own at 5:30 a.m. running down a dark trail with friends joking around, that matters, too.

It gives my son goals… and sets the limits of what he thinks he can do.

Maybe this is what matters the most.

1. 1 John 3:18

Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.

God help me.