Running and Being

I’m a long-time runner. Well, some would call what I do jogging, not running, but running sure does sound better! I’ve been doing this for years. The exercise is great, but I also love to see what folks are up to, what’s going on in the area, and just get some nice fresh air from time to time.

My journey the other day took me by a home for folks with disabilities and special needs. I’ve passed by this establishment many times, usually without incident or even pausing. The other day, however, was different.

A few of the home’s folks were out in the yard. It was a beautiful day, just one of those wonderful late-summer days where the world is gorgeous, there’s no humidity in the air, and the temperature was pleasant. This one lady was sitting in her wheelchair basking in the sunlight of the morning. Just sitting, seemingly content with the world.

Now, on the surface, if I was to compare myself with the lady in the yard, it would seem I had all the advantages of the world, and the lady whom I was viewing, did not. She was bound to her wheelchair, and appeared to be severely disabled from a physical standpoint at least. Yet, here she was, on a beautiful late-summer day, happy. She was happy. She was happy despite all of her “disabilities” from the world’s point of view.

I, on the other hand, was worrying and fretting over what I had to get done over the next few weeks. It seemed my life was filled with such important tasks to get accomplished, and I had to really buckle down to get things done.

After I saw my new found friend, none of those tasks seemed all that important any longer.

Here was someone who didn’t have the numerous advantages I had, yet seemed much more at peace at the moment, much more content just to be. Just to be in that moment alone. At some level, she realized that NOW is all there is, and that we might as well be happy with NOW. Here I was, filled with self-importance at all the responsibilities I had, living nowhere near NOW, worrying instead about some tomorrow that probably would never happen.

I saw God in that woman. I saw God once again reminding me that there really is nothing to worry about, nothing to fear. I saw God, demonstrating to me that one could have all the physical advantages in the world, but if one failed to be happy in the here and now, what good did it do them?

I’ve spent the better part of a lifetime searching for happiness, when in fact, the key to happiness is just to BE happy. Happiness isn’t a doing, it’s a BEING. One IS happy, one doesn’t DO happy. And one can BE happy, in spite of one’s physical limitations or whatever else is going wrong with the world.

God got through to me through the presence of that wonderful woman, just sitting in the sun, enjoying a wonderful summer day.

I smiled to myself, and kept on running without a care in the world.

-The Minister