I headed to my parish’s pre-dawn Ash Wednesday liturgy. I needed the silence to center the start of my day and this penitential season that will break forth into Easter.

But the surprise came when I brought my mother to the noon service, and I heard the familiar hymn that always takes me back: “Deep within I will plant my law not on stones but in your heart. Follow me, I will bring you back…”
I sang (and I don’t often do this) this very hymn to a dear friend who has since run her race into eternity.

And today, deep within, I hear anew: Run to Me, and I will transform you. Yes, I will give up some things, but the unbridled joy at what I pick up elicits the ever familiar invitation: Come, run with me. Something beautiful is at the doorstep.

And so I run. And you?

It is not often that the timing of a race permits me to attend Mass beforehand, but the stair climb these past two years is a welcomed exception. For me, every race has a purpose greater than myself, so it is vitally important to me to unite my efforts to the prayers of those in my life. A dear friend said I had my “breakfast of champions” before I hit the race course.

So to Mass I went, and one of our priests blessed me after Mass, an additional reminder that the stair climb was an opportunity to honor the One who gives me each breath. Bread of transforming life, prayers of so many to propel me up and forward- the familiar fatigue held no sway on the 804 steps.

So tell me, what gets you through? It has been a while since I’ve said this: I am propelled by Love-that is what and more importantly Who gets me through.

And the champions? Why they are the souls who form that great cloud of witnesses to cheer me. And you, my friend, are called to be the same for others in your life, part of that same body of witnesses, the salt and light that transforms the world.

For nearly every race in which I have competed, I assembled a playlist culled from the music that was randomly selected in the weeks and months prior to the respective event.  For tomorrow’s race, #19, I invited some of my friends to offer some musical inspiration, so that they too would accompany me on this momentous climb.  Forty three songs made the cut, and others will be used for my musical preparation for upcoming races. Many are on the list for the pulse they will provide as I climb 45 flights, and some are part of the prayer that weaves itself into every step I take in training.

So, here goes a brief shout out to the 32 musicians who will get me through tomorrow-and who inspire my friends and me to dig deeper on their race: Whitney Houston, AC/DC, Joss Stone, Matt Maher, Black Eyed Peas, Lenny Kravitz, Casting Crowns, John Michael Talbot, Avalon, Christina Aguilera, Maroon 5, Audio Adrenaline, Prince, Flo Rida, Pitbull, Nicole C. Mullen, Lady Gaga, Def Leppard, George Thorogood, Ricky Skaggs, One eskimO, Rod Zombie, Bach/Gounod, Wild Cherry, Grand Funk Railroad, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Coolio/George Clinton, Fergie, The Beatles, Kelly Clarkson, Sean Paul, and Three Crosses.

Disparate.  Eclectic. Surprising.  An unusual medley, to say the least, converged for race #19 for me.  It reminds me of another disparate, eclectic, and surprising group of men that hung out with Jesus…and changed the world.

Nothing is ever as it appears.  Onward and upward to number nineteen tomorrow.

For eight weeks I have been silent, insofar as it pertains to this blog.  Thankfully it has been a mild winter with less than four inches of snowfall, so my silence cannot be attributed to being snowbound!  It would be so easy and convenient to expound on the turns my personal race has taken in the past eight weeks, but as in the training I do, greater discipline rules when I stop. look. listen.

Perhaps it was the conclusion of one year and the commencement of another that elicited a needed and welcomed period of reflective hibernation.  Nevertheless, a thought remains with me from the Christmas season.  As I celebrated with extended family during the holiday season, I recalled looking around the table, a familiar verse from a song came to mind, and a few days later I heard the very same words as I listened to them in a Mass reading:  “Because you are chosen, called to be holy, because you are the Lord’s beloved, you must clothe yourself in kindness and heartfelt mercy…”  I smiled, looking around the table at my mother and friends gathered together, and the familiar sense of heartwarming love flooded my senses.  Each of us was chosen, from the beginning of time, to be whom we were in that very moment, and the satisfaction of realizing this anew connected me to the sacred meal and the revelation of unbridled Love that we experience every time we break bread together.  Yes, indeed, we are chosen, holy, beloved….

And so the story continues with my preferred and perhaps well-traveled metaphor of the race into 2012.  In less than forty eight hours, I will attempt for the second time a stair climbing event that is also a fundraiser for the American Lung Association.  Eight hundred four steps await my friend and me, yet for me, I prostrate myself before this sacred journey, made in honor of a deceased friend, made in thanksgiving for the God-given ability to do so.  Although I have revisited certain venues in my new life, each visit offers me new opportunities to learn and grow. Each race, each climb, offers me a much-needed refresher on humility.  No heroism emerges or accolades are sought.  Rather, I seek to remember that each step is imbued in a holiness that does not originate with me.    I seek to connect to being so cherished and beloved by the joys and challenges that are the fabric of my life.  I am called to dig deeper and rise higher; I am chosen-to draw nearer to the blessings that my climb offers. I accept the invitation.