Run and Smile

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

My day started out rough today.

I was angrily shouted at by a guy on a crowded train this morning.  When another man intervened, the two almost came to blows right there on the T.  I was shocked.  Then, as I got out onto the street a few blocks from my workplace, I witnessed a woman angrily yelling at a construction worker who seemed stunned by the situation and was sheepishly trying to get away.  Her friends were able to get her away.  Still reeling from my encounter on the train only a few minutes earlier, I thought to myself (and probably out loud).  WHAT IS HAPPENING?

I hadn't even made it into work and everybody is going nuts.  Everybody's angry.  Everybody's on edge.  Everybody is flipping out...at strangers...on the street!  Is it a byproduct of the crazy racist events of this week?  People are having a meltdown!

It was a chore to focus once I finally made it to work.  I mulled over the crazy events of the morning and I craved a quiet space for my evening run.  Today I was scheduled to do a run-commute (about 6.5 miles) and was planning to do the same old, same old.  After this morning, however, it was hard for me to want to run through crowded Back Bay, Mass Ave, and Kendall Square.  People are nuts today and I didn't want to be around them.



I was tempted to retreat to the forest again, where I would only be bothered by a mountain-biker or two, maybe a scurrying chipmunk, and the one thousand-some-odd gnats floating around below the trees.

I was tempted but made a different plan.  Instead, I decided to stick with the city run but to explore streets just off of my normal commute-- neighborhood streets where I would see real people; tired people in need of a smile.  And, I resolved to smile at them-- any of them who looked me in the eye.  I was in a bad mood but this is what i needed to do; run and use the joy I feel that God has given me (regardless of circumstance) to bring joy to others.  So I ran and smiled and said hello.  And people smiled back and said hello.  It was hot today and the sweat was burning my eyes but the angriness of the morning felt far away.  I extend my run to 10 miles.

Harriet Tubman memorial (South End Boston).


You cannot love God and hate people.

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