People of faith keep running

I was walking down to the river recently and saw a pole with an American flag at half-staff. I found myself wondering, “What tragedy is this marking?” I couldn’t remember which was the latest one.

Have you had that feeling at all in the past little while? So many shootings. So many disasters. So much tragedy.

Why is the flag lowered today? When will it go back up the pole? Once it re-ascends, how long will it be before it needs to be lowered again?

I once heard a story about a woman who ran a road race and noticed that the path seemed to keep leading uphill. She thought, “Well, what goes up must come down,” so she kept anticipating a crest that would lead to a nice downward grade that would allow gravity to assist her progress. But it didn’t happen; the route kept climbing.

She started to become angry. “This isn’t fair,” she thought. “It can’t be. The path must go downhill soon! Who would design a race route like this?” Still, the path climbed.

Finally, she said, “I guess this path just keeps going uphill.” It didn’t change the situation or allow her to exert less energy, but it created a little bit of space around the experience. She accepted that the course was hard. The grade was challenging. If she wanted to keep running the race, she was going to have to keep climbing.

We live during challenging times. Our path is leading uphill, and we’re huffing and puffing as we try to keep up. It seems like it should start to level off and give us a stretch to rest and catch our breath, but it doesn’t seem to be happening yet. We’re still climbing.

The winter this year was long and dark and hard. It seemed by April that we should be able to expect sunshine and warmth, but the cold endured. We had to keep climbing through added weeks of dampness, chill and gloom.

People of faith like us are the ones the world is counting on not to give up hope as we climb. We must be the runners in the race who say aloud, even as we pant, “We can do this! We will find our way! God is with us! All is well! Keep going! We’re getting there!”

It may be awhile before we get to coast downhill. But challenges call us to dig deep and summon our best virtues.

God made us for these times. Now is a time to keep going.

(Father VanDerveer is pastor of St. Mary’s parish in Coxsackie and St. Patrick’s in Ravena.)