Roger Joslin - Running the Spiritual Path: A Runners Guide to Breathing, Meditating, and Exploring the Prayerful Dimension of the Sport

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Contents

In the spirit of gratefulness, I dedicate this book to my beloved parents, Hollis and Lillian Joslin.

acknowledgments

Above all, I would like to acknowledge my debt to Donna Egen Mata Joslin, whose labor of love was to read and edit this manuscript through its, and our, innumerable phases. I wish to especially thank two of my friends, Cass Ray and Dr. Terry Muck, whose willingness to read and comment on the book is greatly appreciated. I am thankful for the love of my children, Nate and Lillian, who continue to patiently endure their fathers eccentricities. I am indebted to my agent, Natasha Kern, who found the right home for my baby. Thanks very much to my editors at St. Martins, Diane Higgins and Nichole Argyres. Their belief in the project, along with their fine editing skills, brought the book to life. Thanks to the faculty and my fellow students at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest for their encouragement and their kindness in allowing me to talk incessantly about the book.

Stillness is what creates love. Movement is what creates life. To be still and still movingthis is everything.

DO HYUN CHOE

preface

In reading this book you are being asked to go with me on a spiritual journey taken on foot. The book started as a journal, a chronicle of my experience of seeking God while running. Please view what you read as a work in progress. Many of the ideas that I explored and found useful in the early stages of the development of the practice of running meditation are no longer part of my personal routine. I have included them because some of you, at different stages in your quest to know God, might also find them useful. The practice continues to evolve. I have stopped here only to put it into print because bookbinding is a static process and requires that the writer stop writing somewhere. My fervent prayer is that my words may assist you in the development of new ways in which you may learn to love God.

It would be extraordinarily pretentious of me to suggest to you that I have found an exclusive path to the Divine, or that the path that I will describe to you is the path that you should take. The truth that I have stumbled upon, as countless others have discovered before me, is that Gods presence can be made manifest in an infinite variety of ways. We each have a unique spiritual character, a propensity to find God readily accessible to us in widely differing circumstances. God calls to some people most directly through the expression of ancient liturgy, practiced in majestic high-church settings. I have a dear friend to whom God speaks most clearly when he is fishing for striped bass. Some know God through silence. Others experience the Transcendent most completely while working for the betterment of those most in need of Gods love. The worlds great religions provide well-trodden avenues for those seeking God within the established traditions.

My comments are aimed primarily at the runnerat those who choose to run down the spiritual path. Running the spiritual path doesnt mean that you are going to attain enlightenment in a hurry. Running is simply another means of traveling the path. The path is both circular and spiraling. There is no hurry and goals are meaningless. God exists all along the path and at all levels. Our task is to be aware of that Presence as we move along it. The true runner can see God more clearly while running. We will explore ways that enable the runner to open his eyes to the presence of the Divine while running. Those on a spiritual quest seek God among those things that we know and do not know. This is an exploration of the unknown within the familiar. You may have been running for decades and received only brief glimpses of a spiritual world that is present with every breath you breathe and every step you take. Attentive running can take you into that world.

The book is less a how-to manual than a description of a singular experience with running. I am certain that my personal experience with running is not universal. Glean from it what you may and discard the rest. Much of what I have learned may be applicable to a variety of activities in which the physical and spiritual can be linkedin walking, swimming, rowing, and cycling. The foundation for the book is a running journal I kept from 1993 until 2001. Occasionally I have retained in the book certain passages from the journal that have seemingly little or nothing to do with running. I will admit that the connection may sometimes be stretched, but it is there. My own spiritual formation was informed by my involvement with running prayer. Experiences that took place outside of my running life were processed while running. Conversely, my running experiences greatly influenced the events of my larger life. I think it may be easier for the reader to relate to my running life if some aspects of my life apart from running are understood. I have therefore left some journal entries intact, and hopefully, they will aid you in integrating your own running life into the larger context of living and being.

Most of the journal entries chosen for inclusion in the book describe peak running experiences. This may be misleading for the beginning runner. Know that for every run in which I describe a transcendent experience there were many more that were either ordinary or, from an athletes perspective, utter failures. Both spiritual and physical conditioning can be difficult processes. Accept each run for what it is, remembering that this is a spiritual practice that, like any discipline, requires persistence through episodes of success and seeming failure.

introduction

Why run? To the casual observer the reasons might seem obviousan increase in cardiovascular conditioning, a chance to be out in the fresh air and sunshine, improved concentration, a positive effect on physical appearance, or stress release. I was always aware of the benefits of running, but, in truth, for many years I ran simply because it felt good. Running offered an effective physical release from the days mental activity. When I ran I felt liberated, free from the burden of obligations, expectations, and ambitions.

This might seem reason enough. The apparent benefits of running provided sufficient reason to keep on going, and those reasons would probably still be enough to keep me running even if I hadnt realized that running had become much more than putting one foot in front of the other. To state it simply: Running became prayer. I dont mean, merely, that I began to run in a prayerful fashion. It is not that I engage in verbal prayer while I run. (Although, on occasion, I might.) It is not enough to say that I pray while I run. It is, quite literally, that running has become prayer.

I am speaking of prayer as communion with God, as an awareness of His presence, as a conscious recognition of the divine spirit that dwells in each of us. Definitions of prayer are as numerous as the paths to God. My favorite was penned by the most secular of Trappist monks, Thomas Merton, who offered the encouraging and sustaining words: Prayer is the desire to pray. It is this dynamic of intention that most clearly separates the runner who merely runs from the runner who prays. Running, at its core, is a joyful, invigorating, playful experience. Expansion beyond that, to a spiritual realm, is based on a foundation of intention. Running has become, for me, a way to communicate with God. The act of lacing up my running shoes is the beginning of a prayerful exercise aimed at divine union. A visitor once said of Dov Baer of Mezritch, a Ukranian rabbi known as the Great Preacher, I didnt travel to Mezritch to hear him teach, but to see how he tied his shoelaces.