On a day
when the wind is perfect
the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty
Today is such a day.
-Rumi

After a long hot summer, the leaves are finally starting to change color, the weather is starting to cool, and the rain is beginning to fall.  

There is always a part of me during this time that wants to retreat inside where I can stay warm and dry. Yet as a runner, I know that changes, both in my neighborhood and in my own life, are best experienced in the simple experience of a good run.  It is on a run that I have no choice but to move ahead and to pay attention to the sights, sounds and sensations that are all around me.

Running forces us to always be explorers.  Without the need for much beyond a good pair of running shoes and the proper clothing, we can head out on to the streets and trails and have the opportunity to see beauty and blessings in every step.  While the world may be passing us by a bit more quickly than usual, there is something about running that also slows us down and allows us to focus our attention, to make our senses and our sense of presence even more clear.

Our breath, which usually moves in and out unconsciously as we go about our day, now becomes faster and heavier providing the rhythm to our run.  Our feet, which often carry us softly from place to place, now propel us forward with a surprising strength.  And our minds, which are all too often filled with the business of our daily lives, now have the opportunity to run free along with our bodies, or even better remain calm and quiet as we move ahead.  

Yet beyond what goes on inside of us, running allows us to step outside what we are used to, allows us to step to a new place, a new path.  And it is in these places where we often find the most inspiration.

On the running route that I do most regularly around my neighborhood, I head down the hill from my house and make my way to the trails around a nearby park.  While I prefer running on trails, and enjoy that first moment of stepping onto the bark path by the babbling stream, sometimes I am most inspired by running on the hard cement sidewalk on the way to the park.  It is here that I realize what I am missing when I drive past these very same places on the road just a few steps away.  

At 30 miles an hour, you can’t see the small purple flowers hiding in the cracks in the pavement.  Sitting in the car, I miss the colors of the sky, the peeling paint of an old house, or the wave of a neighbor sitting on his porch.  Listening to the radio, I can’t hear the chirping of the birds, the sounds of kids playing or the faint crackling of leaves moving in the breeze.  The splatter of water on my shoes, the smell of the grass, the sounds of car engines.  It is all part of the run, and it is all part of being present to our journeys and the changes going on around us.  When I finally make it home, I return from a truly holy space.

When we put on our running shoes we get to be explorers.  Explorers for whom the journey is the prize and the experience is the blessing.

I have been running for many years.  Like most runners, I have built up a small list of my favorite trails and streets, places where my feet flow smoothly and my mind can stay focused. The runs have become familiar enough, that as I pass certain key points, I find myself brought back to moments in the past when I had crossed these same places.  I go over the moss covered bridge, and I am brought back to a nervous run before my wedding day.  Passing a certain tree reminds me of my celebratory sprint after I competed my final paper before graduating from college.  Or climbing the long rock covered hill, brings me back to my first long and tired run after my oldest son was born.  Each place has a different story, to which more layers are added every time I pass.

We are in the midst of the month of the Jewish month of Elul, the time of year when Jews are asked to reflect and search for ways to improve themselves in preparation for the New Year.

Every year as we experience these holidays, I, like others in my community, go through the same prayers and stories, chant the same tunes, and are asked the same questions of how best to improve ourselves in the year to come.  So much of what we do and say is the same, but of course, it is we who are different.  Each year brings us new joys and challenges, new relationships and always new problems that need fixing. 

For me, the familiarity of the liturgy and rituals provides the strongest motivation to change, in part because they, like my favorite runs, bring me back to where I was, who I was, in years past.  I know that last year I had given myself the challenge to improve, and I still am not perfect.  I know that I had committed myself to work harder to do acts of tikkun olam, or healing the world, and the world is not fully fixed.  And I know that I once looked deep within, searching for the broken parts of myself, working to truly make myself whole.  

We will always be crossing the same paths in our lives, and we don’t have the choice to simply turn around and do things all over again.  In fact, the challenge of being human is that we often end up doing the same actions, and making the same mistakes no matter how many times we have tried to improve.  The idea of teshuva, returning, asks us instead to do something quite simple, to look back at who we were, see how we can grow to become better people, and then try our best to fix what is broken.  It may not work the first time, but we know we can return again the next time we find ourselves in the same place.  And may we all return to a place of true healing and wholeness.

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