I have a friend who is a runner, a real runner. I receive updates about his almost daily runs on Strava. He runs long distances. He runs marathons. I haven’t directly asked him why he runs. The answer likely includes many reasons. I do think that for most runners, especially those who run regularly and at length, some of the reasons are spiritual. Running, for them, has some kind of spiritual component both during the actual outings and as a result of the repeated activity.
Do you remember one of the most famous running passages in the Bible? It is from Philippians 3 and says: “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me in Christ Jesus.”
There are more direct references to running in the Bible but this imagery stands out as employing a metaphor of running.
My friend doesn’t jog - he runs. Much of running used to be called jogging. I don’t think that you hear it as much now, “I am going out for a jog.” Now it’s “I’m going out for a run.” For those who take up such physical activity there is a notion that it decreases stress and anxiety. That’s an interesting concept because the running as spiritual growth metaphor was often within a frame of religious anxiety. If I think about why my friend runs I doubt that he would say, “I run because it makes me more anxious.”
In my recent reading of a book on the wellness industry, I came across a note on the beginning of the jogging/running craze. James Fix was a magazine editor in the late 1960’s who became frustrated with his sedentary, unhealthy lifestyle. He started running. At the time, running was the purview of gym class and military training. James Fix became known as the father of modern running and running (for a time) became jogging. Jogging became a craze and, in 1977, Farrah Fawcett and Lee Majors (the Bionic Man) appeared on the cover of People magazine in their running gear. James Fix stated that running helped alleviate his stress and anxiety. He said that it gave him a sense of control in his life.
Is there a way, following the biblical metaphor, that growth and pressing on to the prize in the spiritual and religious sense could reduce anxiety, rather than add to it?
Our spiritual life and religious faith should diminish stress, yet for so many the opposite has occurred. This is not to say that religious affiliation and commitment is akin to self care or wellness. Running the race spiritually is a focus not on self. At least it should not be. Runners who report reduced levels of anxiety would likely say that they wind up forgetting their worries somewhat, that they are less burdened with the cares of self while they are running.
Karl Barth warned against Christian faith that was marked by spiritual and religious anxiety. He said that, too often, faith gets co-opted by anxiety about the world, about self, about God. Spiritual growth becomes a stressful endeavour. It is not supposed to be this way. He said that the invitation of faith in Christ is an invitation to “a joyful course” and went on to say that in this course, we may “thankfully breathe and run and rest and work.”
In the same section of his writing, Barth said that “a gloomy, morose and melancholy Christian can obviously only attest a gloomy, morose and melancholy gospel.”
There has been a lot of gloomy gospel around. There has also been a lot of anxious gospel. Running on a joyful course is so much better than either of these.
A Prayer:
I have an image in my mind of one of the first times that I went jogging. The image informs my prayer. It would have been in the late 1970’s with my Dad. He was a single Dad and I’m sure it was not easy for him to find the time to exercise. Maybe he saw the People magazine cover, but, whatever it was, he decided he would take up jogging. We lived in southern Ontario. He intended to jog early in the morning, in the winter. It wasn’t a great idea, but a craze is a craze. I went with him. I was 7 years old at the time. I remember putting my shoes on. I think our jogging regime lasted for a total of three outings, but as I pray, I remember it.
Dear God:
Bless those who find solace and peace in regular physical exercise. Grant that our spiritual growth would somehow also be a time of letting go of anxiety and even of forgetting ourselves. Help us to see how things like running and spirituality come together. Grant us peace.
Amen.
Hi Todd, glad to have found your Substack, though I'm new to it. Recovering Evangelical here, as well. From this particular post, looks like you still embrace Christianity to some extent, and I'm still working that through in myself, but wondering how you square your conviction that Christianty ought to reduce anxiety rather than heighten it with seemingly calls to suffering like "Take up your cross," etc?