Sunday, September 20, 2009

The Law of Undulations

"and if only the will to walk is really there, He is please even with their stumbles."

-- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape letters

As much as my mother would like me to be, I am not a Christian man.  I am however a man of faith.  I'm agnostic, but in a sense of that word that I find is not often used.  I find that all religions that I have encountered hold many fundamental and powerful truths.  In the end, I am unable to place one over the other.

Let me also apologize if the blog has felt a little too much like a weekly sermon lately.  I assure you I am not always this earnest.  I've just been incredibly busy lately, and I've been using the blog as a weekly pep talk to myself.

With those qualifications out of the way, let me get back to the point.  This week was full of stumbles.  I missed two work outs and I've fallen behind at work as well.  It was a bad week.  It happens to everyone sometimes.  In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis calls it the "Law of Undulations."  We all have ups and downs.  That realization, the universality of the experience, helps me get past the first of the two dangers Lewis associates with undulations, despair.  We're all in this together.  You are not alone.  For some reason it reminds me that this too shall pass. 

The trickier part for me, is the second danger, complacency.  Accepting the lows as part of life is helpful, but it doesn't mean you should stop struggling against them, reaching for higher things, passionately pursuing your life.

So, I'm back at it this weekend.  I ran a long one yesterday, and I'll run a long one again today.  I caught up on some work yesterday, and I'll do some more today.  I'm a little behind on fundraising, but I'll just have to spend some more time fundraising today too.  I have the will to walk, to be better tomorrow.  Stumble, stumble, stumble :)

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