When I was in the first grade, I was the fastest runner in my class. I could outrun boys and girls alike. It was a beautiful thing. But when I hit second grade, a new girl came to school who could run faster than me. In my eyes, that made her a wonderment, and I tried in every way I could to be her. I found myself in a position of respecting her and at the same time, one, of growing envy. That old adage of “keeping your friends close and your enemies closer,” subconsciously came into play even in my seven-year-old mind. So, one day walking together—I had invited her over to play—I asked her what her secret was to running so fast. Her answer, “I run with my eyes up. I look at the clouds as I run, and that makes me fly like the wind.” Strange as it seems, that’s what I tried. I don’t know if it worked, but up until the third grade, I could still beat any guy, even boys who were 12 years old!
What she said though, “running with my eyes up,” has stuck with me through the years. Like a piece of wonderful chocolate to be savored, those words have translated into many areas of my life. And today, in the light, or should I say in the darkness of everything that is happening world-wide, they ring truer than ever before.
The world as my generation and the one even my grown children knew, seems to be crumbling before our eyes. Nothing is as simple, as sweet, as easy, as it seems to have been in years past. You can see it from the crazy way people drive—taking unbelievable chances of turning in front of an oncoming vehicle that’s a mere ten feet away, or careening 90 to 100 miles an hour on a heavily trafficked freeway—to the mass killing of people. People in San Bernardino who were working in an office, or those in Paris, listening to music, and now, in Orlando, unsuspecting victims dancing in a nightclub were gunned down. And for what reason? It feels like people are losing their minds.