495 Clothman Is Not Nocturnal
For the last few weeks I’ve been working as a crew bus driver for fire fighters who are battling some of the big forest fires we have burning in our neck of the woods. While I thoroughly enjoy this gig, I’m facing a particularly difficult challenge with this year’s deployment.
I’m about to turn 50 and as a birthday celebration I’m going to complete an Ironman Triathlon – an event which insanely combines a 2.5 mile swim, with a 112 mile bicycle ride and a 26.2 mile run.
My physical preparation for this event has required more time and energy than completing my income taxes. To complicate matters, I was sent out to the fires at the same time that I’m supposed to be doing my most intense training. Thus, I’ve had to try to find time to train while at the fires.
One way I’ve been able to train is by going to bed as soon as possible then getting up about the same time the sun is rising …in New York City. For example, to get a two hour run in and still be showered and at breakfast by 6:00am, I had to start running at 3:40am this morning. Though getting up that early isn’t easy, it’s not the biggest challenge I faced.
I can’t describe the mental challenge of running two hours on a completely isolated, high mountain road on a moonless night. My headlamp helped me to see the road’s surface good enough to avoid injury, but it didn’t penetrate much of the haunting, wooded darkness that enveloped me as if I was submersed in a sea of black ink.
Try as I might to focus on enjoying my run beneath the billions of stars, there was always a part of me that was keenly aware that Clothman is a poor seeing, slow moving, fleshy being who has no natural defenses. I suppose my intelligence, which must be superior to a wolf or mountain lion, gave me one advantage; however, the stick I clutched during much of the run indicates just how much confidence I had in a brain – vs. - nocturnal predator battle.
I’m not afraid of the dark but after stirring up two moose and four deer and three heart attacks, I found myself a skittish of what lives in the dark. Yes, I was raised in the remote mountains of Northern Idaho and learned to embrace the night as a friend, but I’ve lived close to street lights and asphalt for decades now and apparently I’ve softened. This adventure took me back to those early lessons.
“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men” (John 1:3-4).
God made both the day and the night. Humans and mountain lions. Just because I can’t see that doesn’t mean that I’m going to be attacked and eaten. God can still see me and he is a light within me. That light brought me a sense of peace in the darkness - a peace that helped me to run deeper and deeper into the black forest and not turn back early.
All of this hugely important because if I don’t run in the dark then I’ll be ill prepared for my Ironman. And an ill prepared Ironman would be as painful a wild animal attack.
Thus, I find myself battling both fires and fear in the same deployment. So far, so good.
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