A Marathon – Not a Sprint

Thirty years ago, a friend and I took our toddlers to watch the first Olympic Time Trials for the Women’s Marathon.  With babies in backpacks, we hustled to various points along the twenty-six mile course to witness the field of 238 women make history. Two-and-a-half hours after the starting gun, we cheered Joan Benoit as she crossed the finish line.  Three months later, she’d shave seven minutes off that time to win a gold-medal in the first Women’s Marathon at the Olympics in Los Angeles.

1984 - Joan Benoit

Getty Images / Tony Duffy / Allsport

At the time, I was a nursing graduate student at the University of Washington and was parenting a twin son and daughter.  Often I felt as though I was running a marathon and wasn’t sure I could maintain the pace of both of these arduous endeavors.  Like Joan Benoit at the time trials, though, I couldn’t quit. There was too much at stake.

Kate Gould, lead lobbyist on Middle East Policy for Friends Committee on National Legislation (FNCL), knows about marathons, too.  She ran her first one a year ago in Baltimore, MD as a fundraiser for FCNL's work to prevent war with Iran.  Over that 26-mile course, Kate and six other FCNL runners spread the message that successful diplomacy requires patience and perseverance—just like running a marathon. The back of their t-shirts carried the slogan, "Diplomacy—It's Not a Sprint, It's a Marathon."

In early September, as President Obama and the U.S. Senate planned military action in Syria in response to chemical weapons attacks there in August, FCNL urged people to ask their Senators to take a different approach and to adopt the motto on Kate’s t-shirt. Other peace groups around the world put out the same call, and thousands of us answered. By the second week in September, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he would postpone the first vote on the Syrian strike resolution.

A few days later, FCNL organized a conference call to update supporters.  Kate Gould and other seasoned lobbyists made comments like this about the changed U.S. strategy away from the brink of war in Syria:

Historic victory

Something to celebrate

Never seen anything like this.

Then came the reminder:

Diplomacy is a marathon, not a sprint.

As always, FCNL has tools for this work ahead, such as a tally on where lawmakers stand on Syria.  Those from my state are still undecided, so I’ve written again to my Representative, urging him to support the slow, deliberate pace of negotiators like U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.  I’m working on similar letters to my two Senators.

It’s kind of like the cheering on that my friend and kids and I did for Joan Benoit and the other women who trained for years and persevered with the hope they’d someday run at the Olympics.  That’s what friends and family did for me when I juggled parenting and studies. Unlike the marathon, though, we don’t know how long this run will take, so I continue to hold all the leaders involved in this marathon of diplomacy in the Light. There’s so much at stake.

FCNL website 

Two Places at Once

 

Despite my belief in the wisdom of being fully present to each moment, I often yearn to be in at least two, if not three, places at the same time. I started drafting this blog post waiting to board a plane in Washington, DC, headed to Seattle.  I had made a quick trip there to visit my son in combination with exhibiting at the New England Independent Booksellers Association trade show in Providence, Rhode Island.  Too hard to be that close to my son, newly moved to Arlington, VA, without seeing him. Tempting to make a quick trip, too, to see his twin sister, who runs a café in Brooklyn, but I resisted.

As the 737 sliced through a thick mat of gray clouds, I wanted to be both at my son’s cozy apartment just outside the nation’s capital and back home in my quiet, island community. And, while fantasizing the impossible, I also longed to be sipping a cappuccino at my daughter’s café.

The kids haven’t lived at home for over ten years, and I’m clear that they’re both just where they should be at this stage of their lives. I’m equally certain that I’m in the place just right for me. But those sureties don’t keep me from desiring to share more of the landscape and rhythm of our daily lives.

Now, several days later and fully engaged in my life of writing, book promotion, school nursing, Quaker responsibilities, and household care, my heart still aches that I don’t share more of that life with my children and they with me. I expected that they wouldn’t remain close to their childhood home, as much as they love it. But I didn’t expect to miss them as I do so many years after their departure from this home. Yet, here it is, a great longing that wells up, often when I least expect it, and always when I see other friends whose adult children live nearby.

This seems to be another one of those opportunities life and Spirit give me to let go of my illusions of control.  You’d think I’d have gotten it by now. Didn’t it sink in when I learned that I was pregnant with twins instead of the one baby my husband and I had expected? Or when they grew big enough and strong enough that I could no longer physically remove them from a dangerous or undesirable situation.  And then again, when they chose friends, clothes, and activities without my input.

Those earlier parenting lessons seem minor now and not fully preparatory for my role at this time. Now that they’re grown, I long to see my children happily partnered, fulfilled with their work, spiritually nourished (and if it’s not too much to ask, if not a short commute away, at least in the same time zone as me).  I know those are desires I can’t command.

So, I ground myself in this place where I’m called to be and savor the times we have together, relish the e-mails and phone conversations we share, and give thanks for our strong connections over many miles. I pray for patience, and acceptance, and faith that their journeys and mine will be Spirit-filled and Spirit-led.