Staring out a windshield into the distant vanishing point of painted lines, pavement, black trees and cloudy sky allows me to be productive and daydream at the same time. Sequoia leans her head against my shoulder, Linnea holds my arm, and I crack the window because the car smells like methane (blame the dog).
Thoughts are on a constant spin cycle…the future, the past. Funny stories from years ago, painful memories like burying pets, questions about why some people have so much, why some people’s bellies roll over their belts while others sleep in a bed of hunger, thoughts and questions stirred as the miles roll by and Dave Matthews blasts my ear drums.
Ideas for the future, for business, for ministries excite my synapses and spur me on, my foot steadily increasing pressure on the gas pedal with the intensity of my thoughts…and my foot jumps to the brake when I recognize a speed trap. A few minutes of praying and hoping that I was not going to fast is always followed by wondering what the speed limit is and then relaxing and daydreaming again.
I daydream about if I am ever going to write a book, and in the background the negative voice mocks me, I hear that I am just a dreamer, I am all talk. Then I think about what I would want to write about, which leads to ideas for fitness for the world race. A book on fitness for the world race…training while on the road…some ideas sound cool, some sound so stoopit.
The challenge is to develop a culture of health and fitness in all facets of life, and that the world race is a great tool to develop these skills in the racers. But how do we do it? How do we go from talk, from knowing it is needed to actually instilling this as an expectation? How do we develop the disciplines? How do we regulate ourselves in community? How do we avoid the ‘lowest common denominator’ effect? Do we write up some ideas for the April training for the June (July?) 2008 racers?
My mind jumps to the thought that there are three couples on that race. What would we share with them to help them have a successful race? How do we help their marriages to strengthen through the strain instead of break? There will be strain, and there will be choices, how do we strengthen our marriage, ever, in life?
And then I am on our marriage. How are we doing? We have been together almost 24/7 for more than a year now, is my wife now just like my arm or another body part that I take for granted when she is around but can’t live without her? Do we get jobs in the same place when we get home? Or separate locations?
Then to home…where are we going to live? Keep living with my parents for a little while? Pay off the rest of our school loans? Live in such a way that we can continue to be flexible or do we put down our roots, buy a house, start a family, a career. God, what do you want? Am I listening?
