The Road Less Traveled

I recently ran two half-marathons.  The first had 2 participants and the second had 4,500 participants.  I should also probably mention that I ran these two half-marathons back-to-back on the same morning.  Please allow me to explain. For the last sixteen years I have looked forward to running the Madison Marathon in Madison, Wisconsin, a race that is always run the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.  My wife, Holly, runs the half marathon and, because we both graduated from the University of Wisconsin, it provides us a great reason each year to return to a place we love.

This year I had another reason to be excited about the Madison Marathon.  I was going to be running it with my nephew, Dave.  This race would be his second marathon and I knew he had been training hard for six months to get ready.  I, on the other hand, had not put the time and miles in to my training that I usually do when training for a marathon due to an especially busy work schedule.  So my plan was to run the first few miles with Dave and then let him go on ahead as I slowed down to make sure I would be able to finish, fully expecting that I might have to walk part of the way.

Dave, who lives an hour and half south of me in Illinois, and I talked regularly over the last month as we prepared for race day.  Our plan for race day was set.  What we didn't ever consider, and therefore certainly did not plan for, was that the marathon would be cancelled 36 hours before it was due to start.  But that's exactly what happened.  Friday afternoon, the race officials announced that the full marathon would be cancelled due to a projected high temperature of 95 degrees.  The half-marathon would still be run as scheduled at 7:00 AM on Sunday morning, because the shorter race (compared to a full marathon) would allow the runners to finish before the high temperatures set in.  The two thousand runners that were scheduled to run the full marathon were encouraged to join the half-marathon runners and to be content with the shorter distance that day.

I was upset for myself about the cancellation 36 hours before the race, but I was especially upset for my nephew because he had put in so many hours and miles into training for this event.  Dave and I spoke on the phone and it wasn't long though before we came up with a plan that would allow us both to still run a full marathon, albeit in a rather unorthodox manner.

On Sunday morning Dave and I arose at 3:45 AM.  Just over an hour later the two of us departed from our hotel on the Madison capitol square, off to run our own half-marathon before the official half-marathon would begin.  The first pre-dawn miles were amazing.  We saw more deer than people as we wound our way along the Capitol City Trail.  As the sun rose we began to see and hear numerous sandhill cranes.  Given that it was Sunday morning, I turned to Dave at one point and said, “Now this is going to church!”  It was truly one of the most special, sacred running experiences I have ever enjoyed.

We arrived at the starting line of the official half-marathon two minutes before the gun went off.  The quiet and solitude of our early morning run was gone as we were now being joined by 4,500 other runners!  Dave and my wife went on to have great runs.  I struggled and had to walk much of the last several miles.  I had used up my best energy running with Dave in our first half-marathon.

Even though I walked through many of the last several miles of the race, I still had a smile on my face because I kept thinking about “going to church” earlier that morning. When I finally crossed the finish line, I knew I had completed a full marathon that I would never forget.

And did I mention that the Sunday that we ran our back to back half-marathons just happened to be Pentecost Sunday?  This day for me was a reminder that the Spirit continues to show up in ways that we can neither expect nor predict.

     My nephew Dave writes a blog and has written a great column about his experience of our non-traditional marathon--complete with photos!   I encourage you to read it--you can find his column at  http://warriordave.com/2012/plan-b

The Soul of a Veteran

Our Living Compass team recently had the chance to be a part of the National Episcopal Health Ministry's annual conference, an event which brings people from all over the United States together who are engaged in a wide range of healing and wellness programs.  The group included parish nurses, chaplains, clergy, pastoral care nurses, health ministers, addiction specialists, and others committed to a wholistic approach to health and wellness in a wide variety of contexts. Both last year, and this year, the conference included a special presentation by the Rev. John Sippola, one of the co-authors of a book entitled Welcome Them Home, Help Them Heal, an outstanding text about caring for veterans and their families.    (Learn more about the book at http://welcomethemhomebook.com/?page_id=16)  . One of the unique contributions of this book is its focus on how war impacts the soul of a veteran.  In honor of Memorial Day, I want to share with you a few things I have learned from John in hopes that it will help us all more fully appreciate the sacrifices that veterans make on our behalf.

The way any of us make sense of our lives is grounded in our faith and/or our spirituality.  Our faith and spirituality ground our sense of meaning in life as well as how we make moral and ethical decisions.  When life is going along in a “normal” and predictable manner this usually works just fine for us.  When life gets  complicated though, when trauma or loss come unexpectedly, when people around us behave in ways that are immoral and seemingly evil, then suddenly we may find that our faith and spirituality no longer “hold” our life together in the same way.  John Sippola and the other authors of Welcome Them Home, Help Them Heal, have a name that for what happens when a person's soul is afflicted by such trauma--they say that such a person has suffered a moral injury.

According to the Veteran's Administration, “events are considered morally injurious if they ‘transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.'"  (You can leam more at http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/pages/moral_injury_at_war.asp).  While moral injuries can affect anyone, clearly veterans are at a higher risk for such injuries because of the trauma to which they have been exposed.

Much has been written about caring for the physical and emotional wellness of veterans and so now it is good to see that the spiritual wellness of veterans is being take seriously, too.  And when it comes to the spiritual wellness of veterans you and I have a very important role to play--a point made very strongly by the authors of, “Welcome Them Home, Help Them Heal.”  When a person has a wounded soul and is suffering from moral injury, they will most likely isolate themselves and pull away from others out of a sense of shame and guilt.  Such a person needs us as individuals, families, neighbors, and faith communities to reach out to them, to let them know how much we appreciate their service and to give them an accepting place to talk about what they have experienced.  This reaching out is what helps veterans, or any one with a wounded soul, to heal--one conversation at a time.

Memorial Day began as a day to remember those who have given the ultimate sacrifice of their lives for our country.  Today we can also expand its meaning to include those who have given a part of their soul to serve a greater good.  It is also a good time to remember the important part we play in welcoming veterans back into our families and communities.  For when we truly welcome them home in the widest sense, we help them heal, and we continue to heal as well, making the entire community stronger as a result.

Celebrating With Our Graduates

America has always greatly valued individualism. Self-made women and men are applauded in our culture. "I Did It My Way," could well be the anthem for American individualism. As important as autonomy and individual achievement are though, true wellness and wholeness is also equally dependent on the strength of the communities that surround and support all individuals. This dynamic interplay between the role of the individual and the role of the community and how they both affect a person's wellness is seen quite clearly in the annual rituals surrounding school graduation ceremonies that many of us attend this time of year. The individual achievement of the graduate is what is being honored and celebrated first and foremost at every graduation. The graduate has spent years doing the work necessary to meet the standards required for graduation and they have rightfully earned the praise of others as they walk across the stage, one by one, to receive their diploma, the symbol of their individual achievement.

At the same time as the individual graduate's accomplishments are being celebrated at a graduation ceremony, the communal aspects of the graduate's life are also being acknowledged and celebrated. Every graduation ceremony includes at least three primary communities whose support have made the graduate's individual achievement possible. These three communities are the communities of family, friends and fellow students, and the academic community of the school itself--the teachers and administrators. As the graduate walks across the stage each of these important communities is feeling something different, but each knows that all three have played an important part in making that moment a reality. Each group can be proud of, and celebrate the vital role they have played in the life of the student. None of them could have supported the student and helped him or her to this point all on their own.

The Living Compass Wellness Initiative has a saying that captures all of this: We believe that individual wellness is an oxymoron. None of us can be fully well or whole simply by ourselves or through our own efforts. Our full wellness and wholeness must also be grounded in, and flow from, our spiritual and communal connections. No matter our age or stage of life, we are wise to nurture both the individual and communal aspects of our wellness. It's not possible to do it alone.

The reflexive relationship that is evident at graduations between individual and communal wellness is something that applies to each of our lives. Perhaps graduation ceremonies can serve as reminders for all of us that our wellness is determined by both the individual choices we make and by the communities in which we live and love. Most approaches to wellness do a wonderful job of stressing the importance of individual choices in creating wellness. We are also wise to remember, as well, the essential role that family, friends, faith communities, work communities, and neighborhoods play in nurturing and creating our wellness.

So as we pause to celebrate the individual achievements of the all the graduates this time of year, let us also remember be sure to celebrate the loving communities that have made their individual achievements possible.

Momisms

Two years ago, in honor of Mother's Day,  I wrote my Weekly Words of Wellness column about “momisms.”  This week several people asked me if I would please write about momisms again this year and several readers even sent me some of their favorite words of wisdom that they heard from their moms through the years.  I have included several of these new additions here.  My friend and author, Ann Stratton, wrote a similar column about her mom's favorite sayings, which I highly recommend.  You can find her column at http://aystratton.com. A momism is any of a wide variety of pithy, wise statements of advice and warning that all mothers seem to have stored in their collective memories, available to be pulled out and used at just the right moment.  Below you will find some of the all time favorite momisms, followed by a brief reflection on how each of these sayings offer us some insight into the deeper principles about personal and family wellness that our mothers were in fact teaching us--even if they didn't know it at the time!  The momism appears in quotes, followed by the expanded personal/family wellness principle being taught, in italics.

• “If you keep making faces like that (or crossing your eyes), one of these days they are just going to stay like that!”  Over time, the little choices we make turn into habits, which then become very hard to break or unlearn.  We create the patterns in our lives, and then the patterns create us.

• “For a friend in need, say a prayer and roast a chicken.”  Our spirituality is expressed well in our prayers, but it is expressed equally well by providing concrete, practical support for a friend in need.

• “If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all!”  Words create worlds.  Our words have the power to build up or break down the people we love.

• “Don't walk away from me when I'm talking to you!”  Stay connected to those you love, even when you disagree--or especially when you disagree.  

• “How do you know you don't like it when you haven't even tasted it?!”  Be open to trying new things, to tasting new experiences for yourself and in your relationships.  

• “If everyone else jumped off cliff, would you have to do it to?”  Be an individual who lives life from the “inside out,” aligned with your core values and beliefs, not overly influenced by the dominant culture.

• “I don't care who started it, I want it stopped, now!”  It's not about being “right” when you are in conflict with someone, it's about staying in right relationship with them.

• “Don't use that tone with me!”  Words said with a harsh tone will escalate a conflict.  The same words, said with a soft tone, will maximize our chances of resolving a conflict.  Say what you mean.  Mean what you say.  But don't say it mean.

• “I don't know is not an answer!”  Choosing to “hide” by pretending not to know what you are really thinking or feeling will always lead to more problems later on.\

• “I see everything because I have eyes in the back of my head!  (Or I hear everything because I have ‘mother hearing').  We may think we can keep secrets from those we are closest to, but we cannot.  The truth always comes out.

• “You know, money doesn't grow on trees!”  Our well being, and the well being of our relationships, must be earned over time through the day to day small choices we make.

• “No matter what you do, I will always be your Mother, and I will always love you.”  Unconditional love is the single most powerful determinant of personal and family wellness.

A special thanks to our mothers for teaching us all that we needed to know to be well!

And to all the women in our lives, who bless us with their love and guidance, Happy Mother's Day. ***Do you have a favorite momism that I left out?  Please feel free to email them to me at scott@livingcompass.org.

Heightened Awareness

I am writing this week's column from Salt Lake City, Utah.  Our daughter will be starting graduate school here at the University of Utah and my wife and I drove with her from Milwaukee this past week to help her get settled. A good old fashioned road trip is always good for the soul. Along the way, we stopped for a few days of hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park.  It was our first visit to the area and while we knew we would only be able to scratch the surface of all that it had to offer, we were excited to get a taste of this rugged, majestic park.   As it turned out though, my wife and daughter did get a nice taste of the park, while I, on the other had, got a nice taste of altitude sickness.

I did not handle this well.  I kept thinking to myself, “We will only be here for a short amount of time and I simply don't have time for this.”  This, as it turned out, was exactly the problem.  We had driven from an altitude of a few thousand feet above sea level to 9,250 feet in just a few hours. What I now have learned about altitude sickness is that it is essential to give one's body time to gradually acclimate to the lower oxygen levels of higher altitudes, it takes time.  We had made the change in altitude far too quickly for my body to adapt, and because we only had two days to spend the in the park, there was not enough time for me to adjust and to enjoy a long hike.  I did, however,  push through the severe headaches, nausea and shortness of breath caused by altitude sickness to experience a few short hikes, for which I am grateful. But, it wasn't easy.

While things didn't go exactly as planned, I did learn yet again some very important lessons about change.  First, I learned that we are all affected by change differently.  My wife and daughter were not at all affected by the change in altitude.  They had no problem going on longer hikes while I sat on the porch of our hotel room holding my aching head. Remembering that we all acclimate to change at different rates is an important lesson for relationships and for families in particular.  The same change--a move, a job loss, a child leaving home, retirement, an illness--can have a very different effect on each member within a family.  One family member may be thriving and energized by the change while another is experiencing “nausea and headaches”.

This same principle applies to changes within organizations as well.  Restructuring within an organization or a congregation, for example, will have very different effects on people.  Some people will adapt effortlessly and be energized by the change.  Others will take much longer to adapt to the change and their initial discomfort may be mistakenly judged as resistance and refusal to change.

I was just beginning to feel a little better in the high Rockies when it was time to move on.  I have no doubt that if had been able to stay longer I would have eventually become fully acclimated to the conditions.  This was again, another important lesson.  Acclimation to change happens in real time, not in the time frames we tend to create in our heads about how we wish change would occur.

Perhaps you or someone you love is dealing with a sudden change and perhaps that change is accompanied by some uncomfortable feelings.   I hope my recent discomfort due to sudden change will help you have a little more empathy and patience for them or for yourself.  Giving ourselves and the people we love the time they need to acclimate to sudden change will in the end help everyone breathe a little easier.