can I be changed? or am I the same?
I haven't written in here in a long time, but today I felt the need to put this morning into words so I could always remember it.
I woke up at 7:00 am to go for a run ( I am in Pittsburgh at the moment with my kiddies). I did this last week as well (my first week here) but I had always run on the trail by their house. Today I decided I would just run around the neighborhood area and up into the cemetary.
I know, cemetary, creepy for sure. But I swear today something in me changed as I ran through that place.
This morning was so clear. There were just a few wisps of clouds in the sky and the sun was shining so brightly. It wasn't hot out, though. In fact, there was a lovely breeze and overall it was just the perfect running weather. As I ran up into the cemetary I became a little anxious.
First of all, I sort of felt bad for being there in the first place. I mean people were buried there...I was basically running through a whole bunch of people's "homes." That may be an odd way to think about it, but when you are alone running through a cemetary you really get a chance to think around life and death and what it all means.
Now this cemetary is quite large. It has all sorts of roads to run on and they go on forever. I was running uphill for about three minutes and I came to a clearing where there were no headstones.
And I swear my breathing got heaviver as I left all of those tombs behind. I swear it got harder to run as I ran further away from the buried.
Perhaps it was all in my mind. Maybe I just made myself believe that I had been running hard as I exited that part of the cemetary. But I swear that when I reentered the burial area I was breathing lighter again, feeling more relaxed, and running better.
For some reason I just felt this force. This feeling of happiness and fullness. Usually when I run I am full of so many thoughts on my life; where am I going, what am I doing, am I making the right choices, what could I do differently? But as I ran through this cemetary, I was at peace.
I ran past many tombstones. "Beloved mother, devoted Christian, loving grandfather." There were hundreds of gravemarkers, each one unique. Husbands and wives buried next to each other, entire families all in the same grave, war veterans...people of all kinds buried next to each other.
As I sit here typing this I am realizing how perfect a cemetary is. All people, black, white, male female, young, old, Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Luthern, even Jewish and Muslim people, all together, no fighting, no hurt, no pain. Granted, they aren't alive, but for once people of every background are together in one place and they are at ease.
I don't know if I "found" God this morning or if I regained faith in a higher power, but my feelings of calmness were so real and so good that I feel changed. This morning I felt like people who I had never even met, who weren't even alive anymore, cared about me. Protected me from danger as I ran in the morning light.
And now I feel as though something is watching over me. Beauty and peacefulness like that cannot exist without something beyond our control helping out.
I woke up at 7:00 am to go for a run ( I am in Pittsburgh at the moment with my kiddies). I did this last week as well (my first week here) but I had always run on the trail by their house. Today I decided I would just run around the neighborhood area and up into the cemetary.
I know, cemetary, creepy for sure. But I swear today something in me changed as I ran through that place.
This morning was so clear. There were just a few wisps of clouds in the sky and the sun was shining so brightly. It wasn't hot out, though. In fact, there was a lovely breeze and overall it was just the perfect running weather. As I ran up into the cemetary I became a little anxious.
First of all, I sort of felt bad for being there in the first place. I mean people were buried there...I was basically running through a whole bunch of people's "homes." That may be an odd way to think about it, but when you are alone running through a cemetary you really get a chance to think around life and death and what it all means.
Now this cemetary is quite large. It has all sorts of roads to run on and they go on forever. I was running uphill for about three minutes and I came to a clearing where there were no headstones.
And I swear my breathing got heaviver as I left all of those tombs behind. I swear it got harder to run as I ran further away from the buried.
Perhaps it was all in my mind. Maybe I just made myself believe that I had been running hard as I exited that part of the cemetary. But I swear that when I reentered the burial area I was breathing lighter again, feeling more relaxed, and running better.
For some reason I just felt this force. This feeling of happiness and fullness. Usually when I run I am full of so many thoughts on my life; where am I going, what am I doing, am I making the right choices, what could I do differently? But as I ran through this cemetary, I was at peace.
I ran past many tombstones. "Beloved mother, devoted Christian, loving grandfather." There were hundreds of gravemarkers, each one unique. Husbands and wives buried next to each other, entire families all in the same grave, war veterans...people of all kinds buried next to each other.
As I sit here typing this I am realizing how perfect a cemetary is. All people, black, white, male female, young, old, Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Luthern, even Jewish and Muslim people, all together, no fighting, no hurt, no pain. Granted, they aren't alive, but for once people of every background are together in one place and they are at ease.
I don't know if I "found" God this morning or if I regained faith in a higher power, but my feelings of calmness were so real and so good that I feel changed. This morning I felt like people who I had never even met, who weren't even alive anymore, cared about me. Protected me from danger as I ran in the morning light.
And now I feel as though something is watching over me. Beauty and peacefulness like that cannot exist without something beyond our control helping out.