CHRIST IN WINTER:
Reflections on Faith for the Years of Winter
GOOD LOOKING VS LOOKIN’
GOOD
As I walked this morning,
I met a young man who was running. He was striding well, had good form, smiled
and said “Hello.” I wanted to say “Lookin’ good,” to him. That is what we
called to one another, as encouragement, back when I was a long distance runner.
I wasn’t sure, however, if that is what runners still say to one another. It’s
been a long time since I was a runner, since my colon cancer surgery and year
of chemotherapy got me so out of shape that I figured I was just better off
walking.
“Lookin’ good” doesn’t
really have much to do with how good we look. Judging from TV and actors and
commercials, there is certainly an obsession with looking good these days, but
looking good is different from “Lookin’ good.”
It is okay to look good.
Indeed, it is probably preferable, if we have a choice. We feel better about
ourselves if we look good, and little children are less frightened when they
see us, if we don’t look like witches or trolls, either of which is usually a
real possibility for old people, especially before makeup and clothes have been
applied.
Some old folks go
overboard, though. I know a woman who complains that it takes her husband six
hours to get ready to go somewhere. I know him. It’s not worth it. I figure,
six hours or six minutes, I’m going to look about the same.
Come to think of it, I did
look better in my running days, and it took a lot more than six hours. There
were times when I ran for six hours in just one day, although it was usually
more like one or two hours per day.
I started running when I
was forty. That’s mid-life crisis time, when you think you are stagnating, when
everything seems like it’s recycled, when you want a new challenge. I took on
the challenge of running in a big way.
For some reason that I
can’t now recall, the alumni magazine of my theological alma mater interviewed
me during that period. I told them, with a bit too much arrogance, I’m afraid,
that I was a runner first and a minister second, that it was running that gave
meaning to my life. I thought I had seen and experienced everything ministry
had to offer. That was so not true, but when you are forty, everything looks
like it’s standing still. You want something
to be on the move.
My racing mentor and model
was Barney Hance. He was a real runner, fast and durable and
bare-chested. I wanted to run like Barney. Since I was neither fast nor
durable, my best chance at being like Barney was bare-chestededness. After one
race, I bragged to my family that I had bugs on my chest, just like Barney.
Daughter Katie said, “Yes, but the bugs on Barney’s chest are dead.” So much
for being like Barney Hance. I ran more like Barney Fife. But I loved it.
Most of the races I ran
were out-and-back courses. Go out half-way, usually 5 K, and turn around and
run back. Out and back are easier courses to manage. The folks putting on the
race can use the same race monitors [people, not TV screens] and water stations
and cardio surgeons. But that meant we live-bug runners met the dead-bug
runners coming back while we were still going out. Our custom was, when you met
another runner, in a race or just out practicing, to call out, “Lookin’ good.”
I got really good at that on those out and back courses.
We did not look
good, not very many of us. We looked tired and sweaty and dehydrated and fatigued
and miserable. But it was always great to have someone say, “Lookin’ good.”
That meant you looked tired and sweaty and dehydrated and fatigued and
miserable, the way a real runner is supposed to look.
As we were moving from
Hoopeston, IL, because the bishop was appointing me to a church in Charleston,
IL, I was standing beside the moving van when Wheeler T. Hardin, the pastor of
First Christian Church, a block down the street, came to say goodbye. He looked
good, as he always did, in a dark three-piece suit, with a gold chain across
his rather expansive lower chest. I had always been a little jealous of W.T. My
members often told me how personable he was, how he came downtown every morning
and had coffee and ate a donut with them. I never went downtown for coffee and
donut time; that was when I was trying to recover from my morning run.
I figured saying good-bye
was a good time to come clean, so I told him about my jealousy. W.T. said,
“Yes, but when I’m eating that donut with your members, they look at my middle
and say, You know, our pastor runs.”
Next time you’re busy, and
on the run, sweaty and tired and dehydrated and fatigued and miserable, so that
you have time only to glance up at the cross and see Jesus there, broken and
battered and alone, remember to call out to him, “Lookin’ good.” That’s the way
a real savior is supposed to look.
JRMcF
I tweet as yooper1721. I’m
no longer a Yooper, and probably should change my twitter handle to my name,
but I don’t know how.
No, you’re not crazy. I
did use some of this same idea in the CIW of 4-13-14.
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