COMMENTARY: Coming home from vacation

c. 2008 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ Last week, while walking a trail in Central Park, I felt so free and easy that I decided to run, rather than walk. I ran only a mile, but it was a revelation to discover that, after a 10-year vacation from running, I could still do it. […]

c. 2008 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ Last week, while walking a trail in Central Park, I felt so free and easy that I decided to run, rather than walk.

I ran only a mile, but it was a revelation to discover that, after a 10-year vacation from running, I could still do it.


The next day, I added a second mile to my run and made a connection with faith. It’s that connection that I want to explore.

Many people are taking a vacation from faith. By any measure we can reasonably make _ church attendance, signs of piety, strong personal and workplace ethics, tithing, freedom from fear, a willingness to embrace new life _ many people are trying to make it through life without God.

I don’t consider church and faith to be synonymous. A full church parking lot might be nothing deeper than a self-congratulation society of like-minded suburbanites. But at some point, an active faith does express itself in caring for other people, giving back to God, and living a self-sacrificial life. That expression can be seen.

What I observe today isn’t just a decline in church attendance, but a growing absence of visible signs of faith. The collapse of personal and workplace ethics is staggering. So are our desperate consumerism and scape-goating fearfulness.

It seems like an extended adolescence. I believe we are born knowing God, and then we spend our growing-up years trying to forget God, in much the same way we pull away from parents and anything that reminds us of being small children.

Such a vacation from God can never be either sustainable or satisfying. Not because of hellfire and damnation threatened by the super-pious, but because we won’t be fully human, fully alive, until we are complete beings. Our completeness includes God _ indeed, is grounded in God.

The question is how to come home from vacation.

How did I end my vacation from running? I didn’t seek instruction, join a running club, read a runners magazine or get enthralled by gear. I just picked up my feet and changed my movement from walking to running. A parallel in faith might be a decision to pray. Anyone can pray, just by trying to talk to God. Another parallel might be examining our hungers and fears and asking deeper questions about life.


My running pace was slow. I needed to brace myself for bullies. In a city where everything is competitive, serious runners wear the uniforms, use the gear, and demand control of the roadways. As I plodded along, I heard other runners sniff in scorn. I had to ignore them. Running, like faith, is a personal journey, not a pack exercise centered in $200 shoes or expertise. It is about movement. And the freedom that comes in movement.

I got into a “zone.” Not a true “runner’s high,” for I wasn’t running far or fast enough for that. It was an interior place where I let go of self-consciousness.

How, then, do people end their vacation from faith? Not by being judged, shamed or seduced into religious institutions, nor by acquiring gear or expertise. I think the day comes when we simply give faith another try.

If we can ignore the hyper-righteous and other bullies, if we can resist turning immediately to gear and comparisons, I think we will find that faith, like running, comes naturally and readily.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)

KRE/PH END EHRICH600 words

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