I think the experience taught me some lessons too. It was a study in patience and has been for some time. It was far too easy to run the first few miles fast without consideration of mile 8. Mile 8, btw, on this race totally sucked; it was a tedious long run through a park. My temptation to stop up until that point was really burdened by the fact that mile 8 was waiting for me. Mile 8 also brought with it the realization that I had 5 more beyond that.

I spent the majority of the time meditating on Hebrews 12:1. In Hebrews 11, there is a long list of people who were heroes of the faith; people who did some incredible things and 12:1 turns the corner and says ‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles and run with perseverance the race that is set before us.’ Earlier that morning before I ran a few dear friends sent their well wishes for a good race on facebook. I spent alot time thinking about the people who were encouraging to me; friends from the adoption community, people at church who’ve run, heroes of the faith for me, my wife who was waiting at the end of the race and meditating on their influence pushing me forward to the goal.

I also spent a good deal of time thinking about ‘perseverance’ and how that race was such a model of life. I saw a shirt on the way, one of several that struck me, that said ‘begin with the end in mind’. But you know what? There were a few times I thought about the end of the race and the drama of running into Memorial Stadium and what I would do but I spent more time thinking about running and the moment. I’ve found I loved long distance running because of this. Instead of thinking of the experience as ‘a race’, it was a meditation on patience. It was far too easy to succumb to despair at mile 8 in the park if I thought about the next five and how long it would take and how much my legs hurt. So yeah, I guess I ran without the end in mind and more of making sure my legs were moving for the duration. It was more a game of patience and it’s hard to describe just how challenging and fun that was. I gravitated quite a bit to the ‘run with perseverance’ segment of Hebrews 12.

My favorite moments of the half marathon began at the start. At the gun, I started my playlist for the run – ‘The gospel brings tidings’ by Red Mountain Church and ‘I am the Highway’ by Audioslave; both are slower thoughtful songs. The third track was ‘Remember the name’ by Fort Minor. Yes, it’s a ‘Jock Jam’ and kind of cheesy, but as Mike Shinoda belts out ‘You ready??? Let’s go…’ and the beat kicks in I was moving my feet across the starting line. Another favorite music moment was ‘There’s a louder shout to come’ from the Urbana 2000 worship CD finishing off the playlist as I ran past the assembly hall and into memorial stadium. It was a beautiful picture of the heaven and the end of our run because we will have the freedom to stop and to enjoy the rest God gave us. Seeing people running into the stadium was a lesson in that too; some ran hard in, some crawled in with the realization that their race was finished, some looked victorious and some just looked beat up but everybody that crossed the finish line was amazing to watch. I bet I could have watched that all day.

So, Tuesday I’m planning on getting out for a mile or two just to take it easy and then I’ll build back up from there to 4-5 miles again. Definitely going to do another one.

Flash forward thirty years and we’re beginning to hit that same stage; we’ve been fortunate to not have night terrors up until now with Aidan; I’ve heard horror stories about 3 and 4 year olds being unconsolable and keeping their parents up for most of the night. Now that we’re in the new house, Aidan’s bad dreams have begun to kick in in force. There’s been about 3 or 4 nights in the past week that he’s been up for at least an hour and a half (sometimes longer) complaining; to the point where he’d prefer the door be completely open.

I’ve got to admit, I’ve not been the best at 3 a.m. (I’m sure my mom wasn’t either, but she hid it better). There’s been a couple of times where I’ve complained to Melissa and grumbled while walking into the room that I’d ‘needed to get up in 30 minutes to exercise’ or ‘I’ve not gotten any sleep that night’.

Today I remembered what an occasional awful dad I am. Peter Gabriel did a CD in the early nineties called ‘Us’, dealing with his break up with his wife and subsequent mental breakdown and stay in a psychiatric ward for a while during a depression. It’s a compelling, intimate CD that is so emotive at points that you’d think your heart would burst open for him. One particular song, ‘Come talk to me’ was covered recently by Bon Iver and is breathtakingly beautiful. I ran to it this morning as my opening song of the run and as God lit the day and the brush strokes of clouds gathered around the sun welcoming it to the sky again, this verse came up:

“The wretched desert takes it’s form, The Jackal proud and tight
In search of you I feel my way through the slowest heaving night
Whatever fear invents, I swear it makes no sense
I reach out through the border fence
Come down, come talk to me
In the swirling, curling storm of desire unuttered words hold fast
With reptile tongue, lightning lashes towers built to last
Darkness creeps in like a thief and offers no relief
why are you shaking like a leaf?
come on, come talk to me

Please talk to me
won’t you please talk to me?
We can unlock this misery
Come on, come talk to me
I did not come to steal
This all is so unreal
Can’t you show me how you feel now?
Come on, come talk to me”

I could go on, but watching the beauty that God had laid out in front of me, I realized how patient He is with me when I complain or murmur or am fearful of change (I could go on about that one). I realized what a privilege that I squander on my own selfishness it is to be the voice Aidan cries out out for at night. That I have the access at this point in his life to ask ‘Why are you shaking like a leaf? Come talk to me’ and know that he will. That I can call his dreams out for being the unreal phantoms that they are. He’ll still have them, I know, brain development is such that his little toddler/baby/boy brain is beginning it’s long march to adulthood now. It will blossom, sometimes painfully, into a thoughtful man’s brain. I’m just praying for patience to care for that seed carefully now.

By the way, the Bon Iver cover of that song really is exceptionally beautiful; you would do well for yourself to hear the original and then hear Bon Iver’s cover.

So, I took up running. I have to say it’s been fabulous so far. Melissa and I are training for a half-marathon in May and it’s getting to be crunch time with that.

It’s been beneficial for me on a few levels to run. First, health. I’ve found that I can blow through about 400-1000 calories per run (est.). Dealing with my late 30’s it’s important, no critical to exercise and I’m loving the hour investment returns.

Spiritually, the benefits have been there as well. The particular music I listen to lends itself to worship or meditation on the truths of God and being out for an hour pushing myself to not stop  is a strong allegory and can help me think through how God sees me, the benefits of being patient and the long game that God plays. It’s too easy for me to get impatient and to look for an answer to a prayer or to being in a situation and running has helped negate that because the benefits to being out aren’t immediate, but the pain is.

Technically, I have to say I love running in 39 degree weather the best. The geek in me has loved figuring out layering and details related to a long run. The clothing technology and how your body overheats a bit has really been interesting to. Being out for a short run and getting into it and not paying attention to the cold is really fun.

Finally, music. I’m a fan. Can’t say much more, so putting together a running playlist over the past 5 months has been a blast. Figuring out which songs do well where and what they communicate is awesome. It’s given me an excuse to listen to a few genre’s of music (rap, I’m looking at you) that work well for running.

So this week for me is big for a few reasons, least of which is the longest run I’ve ever done is Saturday – 7 miles. It’s going to be nuts.

Yes, it was a generation ago, yes it was the stoic, career obsessed Boomers purposefully ignoring their gen-x kiddies but it really has haunted me as a parent, even so in the morass of the thirties. What frustrates me is that the song sets up a false choice; career or family. What’s even more frustrating and lie filed is those who have chosen a career closer to family are penalized when work beckons them during a particular season.

So I’m declaring war on lies; lies of guilt when you have to work, lies that fail to separate longing for a friend with a perception of lack of care and promoting the freedom to just spend time with your kids and enjoy the amazing people that they are.

So, in brief, where we’re at in March of 2010:

Melissa and I are running a half marathon in May: I’m finding I adore running. There are a ton of lessons to be learned while moving your body 6 miles (currently) down a road. I’m learning to be patient, enjoy the moment, trust in the process that God is taking me on and to really eat better. The way it’s working right now is that my training has me doing a mid range run twice a week and an increasingly longer run on Saturdays. This week was a 6 mile run.

We’re moving: in roughly two weeks, we’re upgrading our house. It’s that weird ‘mid career/bigger family’ move. God was really gracious in getting our place sold incredibly quickly. The intentions of this move are pretty transparent for us. Our current place will be getting increasingly awkward to live in over the next few years for size (we only have 1 bathroom), and we’d like to adopt more. Growing our family will be easier with a slightly larger house and we’ve been burdened to host people. All through our married life, we’ve loved having people spend the night at our place and this house will bring that back into our reality.

Kids are wonderful: Back a while ago Nicholas Cage stared in a movie called ‘family man’ and it really made me cringe a bit. The buried lie there is that somehow being a ‘family man’ isn’t a good thing and I’m finding the truth is very different. Aidan is wonderful, just wonderful; he’s an intellectual 25 year old trapped in a 6 year old’s body; at least when he’s not tired or freaky about something. Iona is  a gem. She’s such a true girl in how she interacts and loves her family; she’s so compassionate (when she wants to be ). Lord willing, we’re starting up the adoption process again sometime this summer. Details, TBA.

So, what’s to come? Back to general banter, a peek into Pete’s life and our life as the Juvinall’s. Glad to be back.

As a small part of Orphan Sunday (http://www.orphansunday.org) this weekend we watched Meet the Robinsons. I love this movie because it really is a superbly positive movie about adoption that promotes the idea of family and also individuality along with it. Well, we started it up and found Iona was obsessed with the first part of the movie:

As she watched it, we just found ourselves moved to tears at the despair of the situation presented; of the mom whose option that made sense to her was to give up her son, at the culture that fostered this, at the boy whose life was changed and our daughter now watching this unfold. It was just a empathetic moment.

The other end of this, of course, is his eventual adoption into a family who loves him and who is really different in their personalities but their common love and respect for each other tightens the family bond. It’s such a good metaphor for families, but the larger church community. That God maybe did know what he was talking about when he made this comparison to us as adopted sons. Imperfect, silly, but really beautiful when we all come together.

Click on Aidan to go to our site!

This last week was a notably bad week for me. This time of semester is usually horrendous for my schedule at work and there are usually a number of things that slip through the cracks regardless of how well organized I am. Running through and endless gambit of chasing my tail, I met my mortality head on this week as I was told I need to lose some weight, cut caffeine out my life and generally get a little bit more healthy and start eating like a 37 year old and not a 17 year old.

In the middle of all this I’ve renewed my love and passion for my wife. You know, we’re getting to the point in our relationship where we’re not ‘newly married’ and that’s not to say we don’t feel like it. But yet there is a beauty to the road that we’ve traveled so far. We’re getting to the length of time of our relationship where we’ve experienced some stuff of life. We’ve gotten a taste of the sickness and health as well as good times and bad, and you know what? It’s a beautiful thing to hold a hand of a woman I’ve done so far 11 years as her husband.

I don’t say this lightly because every step of our journey has been unique and beautiful in different ways but there’s something to length and battling together that really has made her that much more beautiful than our wedding day. The truth is that your wife does get more beautiful and there’s something mystical and cool to know someone for this long.

Things I’ve learned so far. Melissa offers wonderful advice, she has my blind spot and she’s a wonderful, compassionate person who is just a joy to be around. She’s my partner, my best friend, and I’m so thankful I’m married to her.

Well, I thought I’d write Kelloggs consumer affairs department with a ‘gosh, am I the only one with a scared kid? Maybe fear isn’t a good idea for marketing.’ Following is the ever so generic response. Hopefully, “Let’s scare the snot out of kids so they’ll buy our non popular cereal” isn’t a sentence that gets uttered by their marketing department but somehow I think it might be.

Mr. Juvinall,

Thank you for contacting our company regarding the advertising for Kellogg’s® Corn Pops® cereal. We sincerely appreciate your interest.

We are sorry to hear that the commercial gave your child nightmares. Viewer reaction, such as yours, is helpful to us and taken into consideration when developing future advertisements.  Your concerns have been forwarded to the appropriate company officials and we hope future ads for this and our other products will be more acceptable to you.

Again, thank you for sharing your views and interest in our company.

Sincerely,

Consumer Affairs Department