One Hundred Pyramids

Scripture: Hebrews 12:1: “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.”

Dr. George Sheehan was a cardiologist from New Jersey, a devoted husband, and the father of twelve. Like many people, in his mid-forties he became restless and began to reexamine his life and its meaning. But, unlike many people, he didn’t look for answers in self-indulgence; he didn’t try to shake his ennui by getting a flashy new suit or a flashy new car or a flashy new spouse. In fact, he did just the opposite. He embarked on a lifelong program of testing and challenging himself – a program of self-denial and self-discovery. And he did this by returning to an activity he’d pursued in college: running. Five years later, he set the then-world-record for the mile for a fifty-year-old.

Along the way, Dr. Sheehan wrote a book that I view as one of the masterpieces of contemporary spiritual literature: a book called Running and Being. It is a book about running in the same sense that Moby Dick is a book about fishing. Running and Being is actually an eighteen-part fugue on the human condition; this is reflected in the titles of his chapters: living, discovering, understanding, beginning, becoming, playing, learning, healing, winning, losing, suffering, meditating, growing, seeing.

The book has much to say about many things, some of which I’ll return to later. But one of the book’s central themes is that through activities like running we build and reveal our character. Sheehan quotes an observation John Berryman once made to his fellow poet James Dickey: “The trouble with this country is that a man can live his entire life without knowing whether or not he is a coward.” Sheehan embraces running because he sees it as a way to know, a way to find out who we are, a way to demonstrate our capacity to have courage and to persevere. Peter Maher, the Irish-Canadian marathon runner, put it more bluntly and less poetically when he said: “Running is a big question mark that’s there each and every day. It asks you, ‘Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong?’”

Our text from Hebrews similarly associates the image of running with the idea of perseverance: “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” And, indeed, the scriptures repeatedly urge us to be strong, to have courage, and to go the distance. The book of Matthew tells us that “He who endures to the end shall be saved.” (Matt. 10:22) In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul urges us to “be people of courage” and to “be strong.” (I Cor. 16:13) This message dominates Paul’s second letter to Timothy, which includes a passage particularly appropriate for today: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Tim. 4:7)

I think, however, there is something else going on in the passage from Hebrews – something extraordinarily subtle and easy to miss. And I think that this something else is reflected in the phrase “the race that is set before us.” But let me make my point a little differently: you’ll notice that that the text does not say “Let us run with perseverance the race that we have chosen.” In my view, the phrasing of the text from Hebrews embodies a profound insight into the nature of life: we often find ourselves running in a race for which we do not remember filling out an entry form. Sometimes we run the race we planned. But more commonly we run the race “that is set before us.”

In the end, many of our plans count for nothing. A proverb says “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” Indeed, we do not plan for many of the bad things that happen to us. We do not plan to lose a job, to go through a divorce, to suffer a stroke, or to endure the death of a child. Nor do we plan for many of the glorious things that happen to us. We do not plan to laugh – it must come spontaneously; we do not plan for the new friends we encounter or for the children who come into our lives in all the various ways that happens; we do not plan to hear God’s whispers to us; we do not plan to fall in love. These things, too, are part of the race that is set before us.

It turns out that in an exercise of infinite wisdom God made life unpredictable and thereby made life complicated and thereby made life beautiful. A scene from Somerset Maugham’s novel Of Human Bondage conveys this perfectly. Toward the beginning of the book, the protagonist, Philip, is given a piece of oriental cloth by an older man, who explains that the meaning of life lies within it. Philip does not understand what this means but for many years carries the cloth with him out of fondness for his mentor. Philip’s story goes on to include many struggles and false starts: he tries to become an artist but lacks the necessary talent; he enters medical school but has no sense of purpose; he becomes infatuated with a lovely woman but she has no feelings for him. Toward the end of the novel, however, Philip comes to appreciate what the older man was trying to say and what the oriental cloth signifies; he realizes that the cloth is beautiful precisely because its design includes countless unanticipated twists and turns; and he recognizes that it is this same unpredictability and complexity that gives life its richness and beauty.

The poet Miroslav Holub conveys the same idea in these lines:

A hundred miles from wall to wall.
An eternity and a half of vigils blanker than snow.
Tons of words old as the tracks of a platypus in the sand.
A hundred books we didn’t write.
A hundred pyramids we didn’t build.
Sweepings.
Dust.
Bitter as the beginning of the world.
Believe me when I say
it was beautiful.

We try to plan our lives; our plans do not materialize. We dream of the one hundred pyramids we’ll build along the way; we never lay so much as a cornerstone. We set out running one race; we find ourselves in an altogether different one. And this lack of control and abundance of unpredictability may leave us with a deep sense of loss, of futility, even of failure.

But, as the book of Hebrews tells us, this misses the point completely. Life is not about planning the race we want to run and then running our race diligently. Life is about running the race that is set before us with perseverance. And it is about persevering in our effort to run that race with the sort of faith and love and strength and commitment that fills the Lord’s heart with delight. Any race run, any life lived, in this way is a triumph. Any race run, any life lived, in this way is beautiful. The knowledge of this fills us with hope and reassurance. And the knowledge of this saves us from despair ... just as it saved the author of Ecclesiastes.

George Sheehan recognizes this when he writes as follows: "Everything is vanity and chasing the wind, said Ecclesiastes. Driving race cars, running governments, amassing wealth, building cities: all this is vanity and chasing the wind. But, said Ecclesiastes in an about-face, whatever you put your hand to, do it with all your might. He answers to life: It is not the inconsequential things that you do but how you do them that magnifies the Lord."

Or, to use the words of another great runner, the Olympian Billy Mills: “My life is a gift to me from my Creator. What I do with my life is my gift back to the Creator.” Hebrews tells us that this gift has much less to do with what we have done than how we have done it.

Toward the end of his book, George Sheehan says this: “When you race, you are under oath. When you race, you are testifying as to who you are.” This may well be true of running. But surely it is more broadly true of life itself. We live our lives under oath. Through our lives, we testify to who we are. In our every action, we testify to whose we are.

Several years ago, I ran – or, more accurately, struggled through – the Honolulu marathon. This marathon is somewhat unusual in that the officials do not turn off the clock and close the course until the last participant has crossed the finish line. This makes the marathon a favorite among slow runners and those who will need to walk some or all of the race.

The Honolulu course follows a large loop and on the return leg you run right past the road where you started out. As I approached that part of the loop I could see in the distance the shape of someone who was still in the process of beginning. When I got closer I could make out the figure of a young man wearing a race number, his movements severely restricted by acute cerebral palsy, his legs barely pushing him along the twenty-six-point-two mile course that lay in front of him. And when I got closer still I saw something even more amazing: he was smiling gleefully.

He was running with perseverance the race that was set before him. He was testifying to who he was. He was showing that the meaning of life lies not in where you finish but in how you run. He was magnifying the Lord. And I can tell you that it was more inspiring, more moving, and more beautiful than the glory and the grandeur of one hundred pyramids.

May we go forth and run likewise.

Amen.