REAL HUMAN RACE ^_[1]

PIERCING LITANY

1.  In the Australian movie Gallipoli, a handsome, athletic, young man teams up with his uncle, a gruff, hard, grizzled old man. The young man is a runner. The old man is his trainer. At the beginning of every practice, the old man pierces the young man's consciousness with a litany.

2.  The old man uses the litany to recall the young man to his duty. He pitches a question like a fastball. The young man catches it and tosses the right answer back. This is how the litany goes:  "What are your legs?"  \"Steel springs." \ "What are they going to do?"  \"Hurl me down the track."  \"How fast can you run?"  \"As fast as a leopard."  \"How fast are you going to run?"  \"As fast as a leopard!"  \"Then let's see you do it."^[2] 

RUNNING TO HIS FUTURE

3.  The young man, of course, was traveling much farther than the end of the make-shift cinder track. Like each one of us, he was running to his future, to determine what life would offer him, to learn if his own decisions made a difference in the outcome of his future. Perhaps most of all, he wanted to discover what kind of person he would become.  

4.  The young runner discovers that he possesses uncommon bravery and valor. He learns that his own decision to enter the Australian army makes a decisive difference in the shape of his future. Life, which is another way of saying forces much greater than himself, offers him a battle at Gallipoli, a desolate stretch of cliffs and steep hills on the coast of Southern Turkey.

LIVING WITH CONTRADICTION

5.  The forces much greater than this young runner are not hard to define. World War I was the rage in Europe, and England had declared war with the Ottoman Turks who had sided with Germany. So Australia, as a member of the British Commonwealth, called its finest young men to arms, to fight with the English at Gallipoli. 

6.  Running attracts many young people because they can see the end of the track. They see their goal in front of them, attainable and very personal. That the races are short does not disturb them. Life itself is short. Runners live with a contradiction: They know that if you think that winning is more important than training and practice, one will never win.

REMEMBERED FOR VICTORIES

7.  But one has to think about winning anyway. Runners are remembered for their victories, not their training. A runner wants to know who the winner is, and if it is someone other than him, his hunger grows for the next opportunity. He knows that whoever crosses the finish line first is transformed from runner into winner.

8.  Sometimes a young person thinks that the power to make a decision in the present has no connection to his well-being in the future. Youths often fail to consider that the consequences of today will affect the health and fitness of his soul tomorrow. Our runner knew instinctively that life was much bigger than the cinder track under his feet.

FROM LEOPARD TO SOLDIER

9.  Big things were happening in Europe. A war was going on. Excitement, adventure, idealism, invincibility, surged through his bloodstream and that of many other young Aussies like himself. The runner and his friends join the army. His new coach is a military officer. The young idealist has to learn a new litany.

10.  The moment arrives for the leopard to be transformed into a soldier, the cinder track to be exchanged for a theatre of war. History records that the British army suffered massive casualties at Gallipoli. The Turks triumphed in battle. In the midst of the plangent battlefield our young runner understands, for the first time, the enormity of one's power to make decisions, especially his own decision to join the army.

BOY BECOMES MAN

11.  He confronts himself in the depths of his own soul. In the midst of inhuman conditions and suffering, he faces the reality of the other two questions of life: What are the consequences of my decision? and What effect does it have on the kind of person I should be?  In a very short time, his youthful excitement, adventure, idealism, and invincibility resolve themselves into a new person: a boy transformed into a man. He learns that fear is not an enemy of bravery, nor doubt a foe of valor.

12.  He begins to understand that rightness and goodness are not necessarily the same thing. He becomes aware just how much others depend upon him. The runner understands that, although circumstances are important, they cannot determine how one goes about making decisions in life. There has to be another way, a way that one carries in his heart and soul wherever he goes, a way, the origin of which, is not in changing circumstances of the day or even in forces much greater than himself.

COLDLY IN THE FACE

13.  He achieves the profound realization that the real human race is inside a person, not outside. Often the results of one's decisions are not known fully  for many years. Even so, our young runner came to know during his company's last great assault on the fortified Turkish positions that it would be his last race as an infantryman. It would cost him his life. The questions Who am I?, Where am I going?, and Do I make a difference? were no longer theoretical.

14.  Their reality stared him coldly in the face. The youth became a man on the day he realized the value of his soul and its freedom. His companions could not be aware of all this. Conversion is always very personal and often very private, because, "...everyone, anywhere who escapes to freedom has to come alone".^[3] 

JOURNEYS OF ALL

15.  The young man's transformation, from runner to soldier, from youth to man, from games to destiny, shares something in common with the journeys of all human beings. As Christians we should know what this something is. We should know that at the end of the cinder track is God, that God is the alpha and omega,^[4] the beginning and end of all things.

16.  Only a Christian would dare say that God has made it possible for mortal human beings to be transfigured like Christ our Light. Christ revealed the fullness of his divinity on the mountain. "And as he was praying, the appearance of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became dazzling white."  [Lk 9:29]  His companions, Peter, James and John behold his glory.

NEVER AN EMPTY VOID

17.  The revelation of Christ's divinity is a foreshadowing of ours:  "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit."  [2Cor 3:17-18] 

18.  If we believe that God is the beginning and the end of all things, if we believe him when he says, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him"  [Lk 9:35], then we are no longer slaves to circumstances, allowing circumstances to rule our lives and master our decisions. We realize, once and for all, that the important questions of life are never asked in an empty void. The questions Who am I?, Where am I going?, and Do I make a difference? were Jesus' questions, too.

NOT EASY IN THE GARDEN

19.  It is easier to answer them, or dismiss them, when one is on the mountain, and his face is shining. It is not so easy when one is in the Garden of Gethsemane, and his face is anguished, "and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground".  [Lk 22:44]  Christ witnesses the fullness of his humanity on the night before he died, hence he says, "Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done."  [Lk 22:42] 

20.  As a Christian, you accept the challenge to be an athlete,^[5] to race for a prize, the beatific vision of God, to be able to see the face of God and live^[6]:  "Not that we have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but we press on to make it our own, because Christ Jesus has made us his own.

TAKE THIS ON FAITH

21.  Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, we press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."  [Phi 3:12-14]  Hopefully, one discerns a certain order or progression to things, and if a person understands this, then the questions Who am I?, Where am I going?, and Do I make a difference? begin to make sense. 

22.  The old man never told his nephew what was at the end of the cinder track. Somehow he knew that visualizing steel springs was more important than imagining blue ribbons. The gruff, hard, grizzled old man had it right. If the young man focused on the leopard, he could motivate himself to run like one. Because being is more important than doing, and doing is more important than winning.

23.  You have to take this on faith. "What are your legs?"  \"Steel springs." \ "What are they going to do?"  \"Hurl me down the track."  \"How fast can you run?"  \"As fast as a leopard."  \"How fast are you going to run?"  \"As fast as a leopard!"  \"Then let's see you do it."