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Good morning, friends, and much love and light to your hearts —
If all goes according to hopes and plans, one week from today, I will run the Boston Marathon. The last time I ran the Boston Marathon was eleven years ago. It was April 15, 2013, my 28th birthday, when two pressure-cooker bombs detonated and changed marathons forever.
I remember running my very first marathon in 2009 alongside my dad — the one who first got me into running decades before as a gangly middle-school kid. We ran the Twin Cities Marathon for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society, crossing the finish line holding hands. My dad was there when I ran Boston in 2013, and I can still picture him standing on the sideline with his white ball-cap and big sunglasses, clapping and cheering as I prepared to crest the mile-seventeen hill. Little did we know he would die just one year later from a relapse of his cancer.
I didn’t know if I would get to run Boston again. Or want to. When I ran my first marathon in 2022 since those bombs, lacing up my shoes to run the Chicago marathon for my mom who had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, I crossed the finish line with a qualifying time for Boston 2024. Which, it turns out, is on my birthday again. I’ll be 39 this time. 💛
My brother, Matt, and sister-in-law, Caitlin, plan to run it with me the whole way. Ten years since my dad died, I will get to cross the finish line holding hands once again.
Following the Boston 2013 marathon, I wrote a piece for Presbyterians Today not just about my experience of the race, but about the healing power of community and the goodness of God in humanity. It’s what is carrying me forward to next Monday — a day I’ve been holding in my heart for years.
This is so long, friends, so feel completely free to skip, but I want to share it here as a form of witness to what God has done, and continues to do…
From “Running Toward Resurrection” in Presbyterians Today, full link here
Running the Boston Marathon 2013 was not at all what I’d long anticipated. What started as a dream come true turned into a nightmare. There was no jubilation, no pride, no laughter at our walking down the stairs backward in the airport the next morning. Runners’ first question to one another was, “Did you finish?
There will always be a difference between the Boston Marathon and the Boston Marathon 2013. When I wear a Boston Marathon shirt, the question I’m asked probably won’t be, ‘Wow, you ran Boston?’ but ‘Did you run the year the finish line got bombed?’
As a fresh seminary graduate and very green pastor, I began ministry in Fort Wayne, IN a little over a year before the marathon. Though a minister and writer who continually mines words, the Boston marathon was a day and experience that left me none. Sometimes, there just aren’t words. Certain events strip our lives into silence. The ache comes from a place too deep, or the questions are really big, or the hurt is so real. We crave words to express what’s inside, but the words lie buried —sometimes beneath an elated speechlessness, at other times, submerged in the rubble of some explosive life-upheaval. Have we the energy to sift and dig, we may still find the words hidden. April 15, 2013 left me with none.
On that day, I boarded buses with friends and headed to Athlete’s Village where we ate power bars, waited in extensively long port-a-potty lines, and anticipated together the race of a lifetime.
Yes, there sometimes just aren’t words. There aren’t words to describe the complete exhilaration I felt as the gun went off, the race began, and with thousands before and behind me, I made my way to the starting line. Crowds lined the street calling cheers or holding signs, saying, “You’re not sweating, you’re sparkling,” “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” and, especially in Wellesley, “Kiss me.” Children’s tiny, outstretched hands offered orange slices, volunteers extended cup after cup of Gatorade, and the Divine breath gently pushed me through each step.
At one point in the race, I came alongside Team Hoyt. In addition to numerous triathlons, the father-son duo has completed the Boston Marathon 31 times. Dick pushes his physically disabled son, Rick, in a wheelchair the entire way. I felt such inspiration as I turned and saw them to my side. Turning my head the other way, I saw a runner waddling along in a plush hot-dog costume.
Again, there sometimes just aren’t words.
The 26.2 mile course with its cresting hills and steep downturns proved a very different terrain than the Indiana pancake on which I’d trained. At mile nineteen and a half, during the third of four major hills, I experienced what every runner fears more than anything – I hit the wall. My legs became deadweight. Even vigorous arm pumping could not force my legs to follow suit. A focused, determined man strutted past me, swinging his arms, chanting to himself, “I-FEEL-GREAT! I-FEEL-GREAT! I-FEEL-GREAT!” and then “I-WANT-MORE! I-WANT-MORE!” It was like hearing a foreign language.
Somehow, someway, that Divine breath continued to blow, carrying with its grace-filled wind my aching legs. Though it felt like my pace slowed to a crawl, I eventually turned that final corner to see a finish line I will never forget.
I about collapsed when I crossed it. An angelic race volunteer wearing a white jacket clasped my arm and helped steady me as I made my way further down the chute to receive my medal. I gingerly shuffled my way to the busses loaded with all our gear bags. With teeth chattering and legs stiff as a board, I pulled my cell phone out of the bag to text my husband and parents who were somewhere near the finish line.
“I’m still alive…barely.”
I hobbled my way over to the Family Meeting Area, a couple of blocks from the finish line. There they were, arms open, smiles beaming. We’d just taken a picture together when we heard an extraordinarily loud, “Boom.” We turned to one another in confusion. My brother-in-law commented it was maybe a dump truck. But then, seconds later, another sky-cracking boom. There was a hush, and then sirens. So many sirens. Ambulances, police cars, fire trucks, golf carts with race volunteers, and SWAT teams all rushed by. It was then I overheard a race official nearby say, “bomb.”
We didn’t know what to do. Bewildered officials directed people to walk toward safety, but no one knew where safety was. We stepped into a building lined by multiple TVs. With other runners and families, we watched in shock. We now saw a visual image accompanying the explosions we’d heard. Limbs. Blood. Trauma. Fear.
Not sure how we would make it back to the hotel, we stepped back outside into confusion and chaos, hoping to locate a train that was still operating. People stared, half-dazed, as they shuffled between the crowded streets and sidewalks.
My husband and I both struggled with our cell phones, trying to reach family and friends amidst the spotty coverage. Lines were shut down in case cell phones were used to detonate the bombs.
It was then, in the fear and the panic, God’s grace broke in with shafts of light. People offered blankets and food to strangers. I saw McDonalds place a sign in their window, saying, “Pay if you can.” Hotel lobbies embraced bedraggled runners and spectators; they could charge cell phones and stay warm. Amidst the horror stood the healing community.
When you’re a runner, you have instant family. Everybody on the course was 100% for everybody else, as was the familial crowd surrounding us. All of us ran toward the finish line that day. The most heroic were those who courageously ran into fear, blood, and tangled limbs. Overriding their fear was the desire to be human in the thickness of inhumanity. In the darkness and the chaos and the pain of that unforgettable afternoon, the community ran. The broken picked up the broken, and carried one another to healing. Though two men’s actions sought to destroy community that day, the community arose even stronger.
This kind of action—the carrying of sisters and brothers to healing—is one of the most hope-filled, grace-gushing gifts of Scripture. Before Boston, I’d been reflecting on the book of Acts in preparation for preaching. The text I had planned to use, Acts 9:36-43, could not have resonated more powerfully with my soul in the days following the marathon.
The rising of Tabitha, or Dorcas as she’s named in Greek, sings the story of a healing, hope-filled community – a community that believed in resurrection. We learn that when this female disciple died, the community sent word right away to Peter.
Dorcas, whose name means “gazelle” in Aramaic, was a runner as well. Though she ran without a bib number, her race to follow Christ and offer compassion to those along the course of life held many more hills, walls, and speechless moments than mine. When she found herself crossing the faint line where life and death embrace, the community arose on her behalf.
This story in Acts revealed to me the vulnerability and openness needed for healing – how healing is not achieved, but received, and I was not going to find it on my own. Communal healing would require me to hurdle privacy and a temptation to withdraw. In Dorcas’ case, or at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, healing came through God’s community. I was going to have to open myself to the hands that would carry me forward.
I didn’t know if I could do it.
Vulnerability can be difficult for a pastor. As a 28-year-old in her first call, it surely was for me. Though I tell myself vulnerability is the seed of a transformed life, my norm is often holding the vulnerability of others. I am used to being one of the “carriers,” not the carried; the prayerful, not the prayed for.
It was in my woundedness that an incredible and humbling transformation happened. The congregation – the people who’d entrusted me with their vulnerability – reached out to hold mine. Their overwhelming love in the days before the marathon, in the unreal day of, and in the days afterward has carried me – is carrying me – to healing.
Prior to the marathon, numerous church members organized a sponsorship drive for “Be the Match” to honor my father (a bone-marrow transplant patient), my training, and my dream. On Marathon Monday, members gathered together for a “marathon party” to send me forth on a course runners have journeyed for more than 100 years. When explosions detonated, the congregation, like the disciples around Dorcas, rallied in prayer and resurrection hope. They called, texted, and emailed us and one another to connect us in the splintering of stability.
As my husband and I arrived home at the airport in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a group from church had gathered to surprise us—arms open, tears flowing.
Sometimes, there just aren’t words.
The following Sunday, I ascended the long, narrow staircase that towers above the sanctuary floor. Trembling in hands and spirit, I placed the pages of my sermon down.
I breathed, opened my mouth, paused, and wept. As I struggled to articulate the words I’d dug so deeply to uncover – words that would came as tears – I was embraced by a grace and a love in the pews before me, holding my brokenness. After finishing my sermon, I turned to descend the staircase. Like in the airport just a few days before, I came down the stairs to a community embracing me with grace and love. My eyes were downcast as I crossed the marble chancel when I heard the sound of applause. I turned around to see my church family standing. The community was not standing for me, but for God’s promises of healing, hope, resurrection— that these are what have the final say.
This community I’d only known for a year-and-a-half received my vulnerability and carried me forward. It was beyond humbling and more than freeing. It was God and God’s community that would bring the gift I could not give myself.
In the death, or the fear, or the shock, or the ache, we sometimes gird ourselves against the very source that brings us life. It is when our reserves are low and the stream of new life flows into us that healing buoys us forward –and that current flows in many directions.
God calls the church to be the healing community – the people that wade into one another’s lives with balm extended as, together, we bring God’s peace and resurrection promise to each and every corner. Dorcas’ healing and rising reminded me the world is not tethered to what it’s been before, but blown on the freeing winds of God’s promise, all is made new. It was in my vulnerability that this promise ignited to fresh flame.
And so I still run, thankful for God’s faithfulness, for gracious healing, and for a community that carries me forward, whether or not I have my words.
A Prayer
From my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life, Second Edition…
When I need to remember I’m an overcomer
Strong and Loving God,
In you,
through you,
because of you,
I am an overcomer.
Thank you for helping me trust amid setbacks…
for training me to see how progress
isn’t a straight line, but a squiggly one
marked by moments I put my hands on
my knees and gasp for breath.
I keep my eyes forward
that I might see the
promise before me.
Through my sweat today,
I’m building new strength
and skill for tomorrow.
The simple choice to try again,
to show up and do the work,
is victory in your book.
Help me find a goal that’s attainable for now,
and tomorrow, one a little further down the road.
I will be less overwhelmed that way…
And that’s how you do it –
sneaking me into believing
I can do this thing.
Yours is the coaching
voice I need most,
speaking directly in
my ear as you run alongside,
stride for stride.
I believe in you.
I am with you.
We will overcome
this together.
Amen.
Psalm 121 * 2 Timothy 4:7-8 * Hebrews 12:1-2
“Let us run with perseverance the
race that is set before us, looking
to Jesus…” – Hebrews 12:1-2
Something that nourished me recently…
*Getting our jerseys designed…Years ago, my dad coined the name “Team Victory” for our racing tanks. The name correlated with a theme in his caring bridge posts and Be the Match bone marrow fundraising. With my brother’s family in Duluth and us in Chicago, we decided it was time to make new tanks, this time with a twist. I just recently finished scripting the lettering and logo for the shirts.
*I’ve shared here before Cole Arthur Riley’s beautiful book, Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human, but had to include an excerpt from the Collect for Dusk that a friend pointed me to last week. I’ve been returning to it again and again in recent evenings.
Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…
*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Amazon link!
*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ You can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.
*For the running geek squad who has any interest in tracking, the Boston Marathon app is up and running! You can chart your runners the whole way. Regardless of what happens during the race, I’ll be smiling in my picture on the app. 😁
*WOMEN’S RETREAT ~ For those who are local, registration is open to the women’s retreat I’ll be leading at Northminster Presbyterian Church in Evanston, IL on Saturday, April 28.
Thank you for being the healing community, friends. And thank you for reading this Monday Manna Marathon Edition.😂 If you think of it next Monday morning, I’d be so grateful if you’d pray and send your powerful energy of goodness to all of us running. You’ll be carried in heart. 💛💙
Love and Light,
Arianne
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So beautiful. Thank you.