Nicotine Free Since 1983!

OK, not actually since 1983, but I think I'm finally getting back to normal after two weeks of struggling through nicotine withdraw. Today is the 2 week mark since the last time I had nicotine from any source. Oh, and it's the 6 week mark since the last time I had any alcohol.

-Desire to blabber incessantly about my feelings and accomplishments for outside validation/praise: diminishing
-Ravenous hunger for anything and everything fattening and sugary: leveling out
-Sanity, to the extent ever possessed: returning
-Insane, irrational, impossible-to-quell self-confidence: you know it
-Ability to wake up after less than 8 hours and still be functional: yep yep yep
-Writing skills: on the rebound

I'm back, baby!

Yea Though I Walk

Good evening!

Those of you who know me know that it is not often that I am given pause to consider scripture. However, this evening, I was taking a walk and I think I finally understood the imagery in Psalm 23. The full text of the Psalm is:

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name' sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: For thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;
Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

This psalm is particularly important to me emotionally because my mother once embroidered a bit of...I don't know, it was like a miniature blanket or something that she then framed and gave to my grandmother, her mother as a gift. My mother embroidered this psalm on some cloth once and reading it at my grandparents' was my first exposure to Christianity. 

As the title of this post suggests, I am focused primarily with the meaning of the line "yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death."

While I was walking today, I was walking beneath a hill that blocks the sun at sunset. This made me think of walking in the valley of the shadow of death. It used to be that I thought that line meant "the valley of death," that in life we walked along a ridge and if we stumbled, we'd fall to the bottom of the valley and probably snap our neck on the way down. However, thinking about it logically, if you were walking in the valley of the shadow of death, assuming a translation error allowing for "in the valley in the shadow of death" then we are actually walking at the very bottom of the valley, and death is casting a shadow over us. In fact, death is such a daunting, fearful mountain that dominates our consciousness so completely that it casts a shadow that blinds us to the path that leads us safely through the valley. The only light we can see walking through the valley in the shadow of death is the light of "life everlasting" promised to us at the end. 

I think one way to interpret the psalmist's imagery is to say that death casts such a dark, impenetrable shadow that we can't see our feet or the ground we're stepping on. Whether we are walking on the right path or not, every step we take toward the light promising everlasting peace at the end of the valley is an act of faith. Faith that God will lift the path up to meet us (stole that metaphor from an Irish "have a nice day" saying).

I guess what I'm saying is "our knowledge of our own mortality and fear of our own death constricts our view so much that we can't see the right path forward without faith." From there, you can say "if you confront and accept death, its shadow decreases and you can see the way forward" or just stick with "you've gotta have faith." 

Whichever way you choose, you'll probably get where you're heading.

P.S. The way I said this all in my head on my walk was WAY better than what I wrote here.

1/40 of the Way to 1000 Miles!

Today marks the end of the second week of my quest to become a Runatic (running fanatic...DUH!), and I finished it up with a great run. I jogged 4.5 miles in a row, then ran an extra 200+ yards toward the end of the walk back to the office, just to keep my heart guessing. I still jog barely faster than I walk (at least for the first half of the run), but I'm getting to where I can speed up a bit and do some interval training to increase my overall capacity. Also, finishing a full 4.5 mile jog means that I increased my total to 25 miles for the last two weeks! For those of you who have never gone 4 years without running at all to starting up a running program at random one day, that's pretty good.

So, in two weeks, I went 25 miles. So, if I see absolutely no improvement in the future, that means I should get to my goal, 1000 miles, in 79 weeks (about 1.5 years). I'm pretty confident that I'll start getting faster and increasing the length and frequency of my jogs, so I think I'll be hitting the 1000 mile mark before next Thanksgiving.

Now that I've proven to myself that I can run, I want to set some goals.
By January 1, 2011:
-Consistent 10 minute mile (6 miles per hour); I'm currently doing about a 14 minute mile (estimate)
-Weight down to 240 pounds (currently back up to 255 from a low of 250)
-Able to run 6 miles in a stretch
-Run 6 miles at least 4 times per week
-Buy sweatpants and sweatshirts, because it is going to get COLD after Thanksgiving!