Keep on Keepin' on

“And David sat between the two gates: and the watchman went up to the roof over the gate unto the wall, and lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold a man running alone.”
-- 2nd Samuel 18:24

“My body’s sayin’ let’s go… but my heart is saying no.”

The first quotation is from the Bible… big whoop.

The second quote was made famous in the song “Genie in a bottle” by Christian Aguilera, arguably the most gifted bible scholar of our time (actually she married a Jewish boy in 2008—check it out on wikipedia).

The song (penned by David Frank, Steve Kipner, and Pamela Sheyne) was HUGE the last time I was in Israel, starting the summer of 1999 till February 2000.
And its message, like that from the second book of Samuel, has withstood the test of time.

Well, running a marathon is essentially the opposite.
Your brain tells you, “Keep going! Come on!”
And your body says, “Check, please!”

You want to follow the advice of Dory in “Finding Nemo”—

“Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.”
Metaphorical for us, literal for her. Well, around kilometer 34 (or mile 21), my legs informed me, “Ahem, excuse us… Brain, I think you should be sitting somewhere right about now, eating a sandwich, watching clips on youtube, and not sweating anymore.”

My body was the minivan driving a cross-country road trip:
Legs= kids : “We’re hungry, we’re thirsty, we gotta use the toilet!”
Brain= parents: Damn it! Would you shut up! Do some Mad Libs or something!”

It was a feeling I hadn’t experienced in over 15 months… when I got contact lenses. Talk about frustrating! It was like Algebra and juggling combined. My brain said, “Put it in!” And my eye said, “What, are you nuts? Nothing goes IN me! Stuff only comes OUT… like tears at the end of ‘Field of Dreams’ or an exceptionally moving episode of Two and A Half Men!’ ”

But my then- fiancée informed me that I was being a … less than masculine individual. That I should “grow a pair” (I assume she meant eyes… y’know, for the contacts… what else could she have been referring to?)

But I kept at it… and eventually conquered my contacts… and the marathon (nearly 4 hours after beginning) and that’s what we all have to do in our lives. I am sure it’s what Moses told the Israelites during those 40 years wandering through the desert.
(well, that and “No, I told you yesterday, we’re not stopping at Denny’s!”)

The same message the Brady Bunch taught us:
“We're gonna keep on, keep on , keep on movin’…”

Or…

“And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?”
-- The final words of Tom Hanks’ character in “Cast Away,” screenplay by William Broyles, Jr.

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