Stumbling Toward Ecstasy

Memorial Day 2008.

Several of the RH Staff annually run the Bolder- Boulder 10K. It’s a huge rite of Spring where 53,000 people and 26 Elvis’s run through the streets of Boulder Colorado. This was my inaugural.

Julie J. a Boulder native and Sue an Ohio import led the blitz… gazelles in motion, fluid poetry. Following them was my Lovely…Lori; sporting the new Lululemon line; a natural beauty firing on all cylinders. Soon thereafter, the always fleet of foot, the unfatigue-able and graceful one: Polly. At a notably reduced pace from previous years were long time runners Julie & PJ… (one of my life long memories will be of Julie in her seventh month of pregnancy, the most pregnant of the 53,026 tapping into her well stored reserves to “sprint” the final 75 yards into University of Colorado’s football stadium… with PJ, the Team’s designated Sherpa carrying sundry sweat shirts, change of clothes, sunglasses, a beach chair, half a carnitas burrito and a block of ice at her side). Rounding out Team Ransomed Heart were some dear friends and family and of course… me; just a guy out for a run.

So… as I’m “running” I’m taking in all the regalia… the bands playing along the way (some of which were good and some not-so-good); one half-of-a-mile into the race there’s a wannabe comedian on the corner with a mega-phone cracking jokes that we’re “Almost there”; on the next corner were the unabashed belly dancers. Spider man passes me and I pass a guy in a cheap suit with an accordion. There’s a banana, a pine apple and a couple of M&M’s running. There are sombrero’s, short shorts, glitter, somebody’s favorite funky uncle… active duty soldiers. There was every shade of body paint, every age size and dimension, someone wearing a Nixon mask. The frat houses are hosing down runners; families cheering us on and offering free cookies. A woman twice my age passes me wearing a bridal dress…; the volunteers handing out Gatorade/water and doing traffic control…., a Hulk Hogan type, a few scoundrels, 16,000 hard-bodied fit runners, six gladiators, five Uncle Sam’s, four rainbow wigs, three frogs a hoping and a colonel Sanders in a pine tree. I pass a nut in a Steelers outfit (it wasn’t Morgan), a stoner on a unicycle playing a kazoo zips by… and everyone’s favorite, Big Bird,is running backwards… and did I say ever age size and dimension?

So many different stories in motion.

I couldn't’t help but wonder what is every one running from or to? I found myself laughing, crying, at times disturbed and mostly trying to remember the deep breathing techniques I coached Lori with at our first child’s birth 29 years ago.

We all finished the 6.2 mile course, quickly downed the legal limit of Advil with our complimentary Power Bar, Potato chips and vitamin water and then hung out together watching others cross the finish line. We swapped stories and purely enjoyed one another and the ecstasy of finishing well. It was one of those moments. A moment you wish you had more of, a, as my French friends say, Jae ne sais quoi… that elusive quality… an unspeakable time of community, life, freedom, grace, joy… we are people who work together well and were now having fun with one another… together.

I wasn’t expecting what happened next… the organizers squeezed a ceremony between the 10 K the masses run and the 10 k a few elite athletes run. In the middle of the stadium was a platform and podium… a politician/big-shot welcomes us and introduces a Medal of Honor recipient from the Vietnam War, Major-General Patrick Brady, to a standing ovation. With the crowd on its feet the Thunder-birds fly over, we sing the National Anthem and General Brady shares reflections about the supreme sacrifice that so many have made for our freedom… and I’m in tears… it’s all fresh again… my father’s death in combat, his loss, my loss… how I wish I knew him… how very much he, my mom and I missed out on...how I look forward to being with him… his life.. a Larger Story… courage… life… my God and Father… hope, heaven… and a governing desire: I want to live, heroically, to live well.

I am frequently without words for all that’s swirling about within me… but in that moment I loved God, others… life… and want so much more… another all to small of a taste of the Eden we were designed for. - Craig

New Kid in Town

There's a new kid in town...

Alex is new to the Ransomed Heart team working with us on events.

Do you remember your first few days at a new job?  What went through your mind, filled your heart? What were those first impressions of those you were now working with; those you'll be sitting next to at office Christmas party; having lunch with? Didn't you wonder who in the sea of new faces you'd connect with/enjoy... who would be the pain-in-the-butt; who you'd confide in or avoid at all costs? Who's the Christian, the clown, sour puss, self absorbed talker, sage?

Those first impressions are so often right... and oh how they linger!

I wonder what he's thinking as he leaves our Outpost these first days?

As Alex sizes us up, so we have our first impressions as well. Here's mine of Alex:

Good choice! Thank you Christ!

Immediately likable; vulnerable... he's jumping all in; he's a strong man with a large heart... for God and others. He strikes me as thoughtful; he's present/engaged; a guy I'd enjoy driving across Kansas with. He's skilled, has lived a good bit of life; the word "integrity" seems to fit.

Alex has a sense of humor that will find freer expression once the 90 day probationary period ends. He's solid, wears funky shoes... sports a scabrous goatee. His office is looped with pictures of the wild (the Maroon Bells, streams and radical looking cliffs are prominent).

Close to his desk are the tender photos of his bride and little ones. There's a botta bag, a ceramic grizzly and a bottle of some kinda Polish elixir... a couple of arrows on the window sill. There's a stapler, a full trash can and a few premature stacks of papers (clearly an attempt to look busier than any newbie ever is).  You can tell Alex is a good man... a man with a story we'll look forward to hearing. A man we're grateful to have with us as we write the story of Ransomed Heart. I hope you get to meet Alex... he's the one with the capacious goatee. - Craig McConnell

Teeth Cleaning

“What is shame? Shame is, quite simply, the feeling that there is something wrong with you. In more extreme cases, it is the feeling that there is something TERRIBLY, IRREVOCABLY, DEEPLY, FUNDAMENTALLY, wrong with you…Anyone who likes you or sees value in you just isn't looking closely enough to really see the "real" you.” – Bill Harris

Self contempt, shame, condemnation have been companions of mine for much too long. They' always seem to be lurking about... hounding me in some of the most innocuous affairs of everyday living… like having my teeth cleaned at the Dentist office. (A journal entry I recently read from a couple of years ago)

Okay, so it’s been 2 years… rounded off (actually, as the dental tech refers to my records she corrects me stating that it has actually been 2 years 4 months) since my last cleaning.

She’s a great dental tech, always chipper, warm, very enjoyable and relational. So we quickly get caught up on our lives as I semi recline into the chair and get my bib fitted. The small talk masks the anxiety of The vulnerable moment approaching… that moment when I have to… open my mouth.

You know… you open your mouth and then there’s the pregnant silence of waiting for her reaction/analysis of your mouth/character/life. It’s never just about your teeth… it’s about you as a person. There you lay, mouth open, exposed. She’ll know everything about you… somehow my oral history speaks volumes about me… procrastinator, irresponsible, sloth, pig-mouth… pig-man, a sure and certain toothless wonder in about 5 years…

… and so it’s That Moment… it’s silent beyond the comfort level, way beyond the comfort level. She’s doing the preliminary scaling with plaque-clods flying out of my mouth.

“Ummm… you’ve got a rain forest in here”

I’m immediately picturing my mouth as a Petri bowl brimming with every know periodontal bacteria, mutans and flora and several unnamed/new opportunistic strains.*

Despite her two hands, a mirror and scraper filling my mouth I break the silence with a muttered guttural ”thaaaat baaada ehhhh?” To which she adds the final nail, “yeah you’ve got barnacles hanging here.”

I’m a failure as a man. He who is faithful in little will be given much… if I’m not faithful in flossing my freaking teeth do I really think God would entrust anything to me. CHESSECAKE!!! I’m so finished, my life’s a charade, poser, pig-mouth… pig-man.

I see it. I’m fighting it. – Craig

*      Porphyromonas gingivalis and Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans, are two of the most aggressive offenders in periodontal disease, the leading cause of adult tooth loss.