Hello Beautiful women, here is a conversation I had with God (i know it is weird but the way i journal is by writing letters to God, (I in no way think this is the only way to journal it is just what works for me and if it makes any0ne feel uncomfortable just let me know and i shall take it off our blog site) but i thought you lovely women might like to know what was going on in my head during parts of our race. I am so proud of us all and believe in each of your beauty, passions, gift, compassion, and visions for your lives and our world. I love you all and peace and love to each of you!! See you soon!

Running, running, running
My Forever Friend,
Why is it that I feel You so intensely during running? My Beloved, You would think that it would be in reading poems about Your universe, in singing, and in quiet time pondering You, that I would feel You the most. Why is it running; an active experience and the antithesis of "quieting the soul to listen" the act of prayer that I imminently feel You?

"When I run I feel God's pleasure," my favorite line in Chariots of fire, My God I have to admit though that is not quite what I feel when I run.

When we began the half-marathon I nearly wept. Here I stood with the beautiful Multi-faith running initiative women I had trained with and we were preparing to run the longest race of our training; we trained both as a group and as individuals and that would be how we completed this race. I stood with a plethora of people from all walks and runs of life. To my left were persons even crazier than I preparing to run a full marathon, to my front and back were persons preparing to run and preparing to feel both the pleasure of finishing and the pain of perseverance. I stood with persons who to my right were there to encourage and give energy to the runners. Above me Lord was the air of Philadelphia, the air of Your earth, the sun who first gave energy to life, the stars blazing the enormity of our universe, and below me Lord was the asphalt, the earth, and the bundle of solidness keeping my wandering soul connected to this celestial plane.

When the race began I ran and for the first bit of the race was not aware that my body was even running; the energy of the crowd, the heat of the bodies, the flags greeting me down Ben Franklin parkway made me feel nearly ethereal. Then the cramps began; I had to stop the pace that Allison was going in order to pull my body back together. I knew if I stopped running I would probably continuously stop for the rest of the race, so I ran through the pain... I became increasingly aware too of the physiological struggles of my fellow marathoners. One man wheezed through each breath, one middle aged "Running Mommas" runners was having shin splints, and one woman ran with a limp.

Lord, when I run I feel pain and I become attune to others' pain.

As I kept running I became increasingly aware of my surroundings as we ran down Columbus Blvd. I glanced to my right to see the "old city" section of Philadelphia and grappled with the Liberty Bell. Directly underneath this great symbol of "freedom" dwells the quarters where slaves "owned" by Jefferson lived... what is freedom, whose story is told in the remaking of "freedom"?

Lord, when I run I am a paradox.

As I continued running down Chestnut Street I remembered getting lost on Chestnut Street after a night of dancing on cars on Broad Street to Young Jeezy's My President is Black, The Barack Obama Song, and Letter to Obama. My friends and I got so lost and were exhausted after months of campaigning. Nonetheless, even in being "lost" Philadelphia we were "found" in each person we saw who walked/drove past us on election night. Sentences as a communicative method became obsolete. The greeting, conversation, and departure was the Beloved word OBAMA. The hauntings of slavery, the courage of the Civil Rights movement, and the memories of registering voters in Philadelphia who upon being asked if they were registered to vote took my hand and with tears dripping down their eyes told me, "Of course I am, it is time for my People to be free," ran with me.

When we run, we do not run on virginally trodden ground.

We run we run with the stories and races of the heroes gone before. Our sweat drips aloft the salt-the sweat, the tears, and the blood of our ancestors. We not only run with the echoes of the past but we run with the current runnings and inequities of this day. We cannot believe to run on a journey of solitude-how can this race ever have completion alone? We run because of the support and the goals of fellow humanity. Finally, we run because others will run after we run and we must tread new pathways so that their running may rise to new roads.

When I run, I feel my ancestors, my friends, my life-calling, and the children yet to enter this universe.

My Lord, why is it that I run? When I run I feel life. What is life? Life is beyond words and perhaps this is why the ritual of running speaks to my soul the pounding of life more than any poem or prose. Life is joy, life is beauty, life is pain, life is agony, life is suffering, life is rebirth, life is death, life is a paradox, life is a tragedy, life is a fight, life is making love, life is love, life is overcoming, life is chaos, life is order, life is the beating, the stopping, and the creating of the human heartbeat... Life is...life is...life is
When I run
When you run
When we run
When they ran
When she ran
When he ran
When they will run

My life flows on~