Annalytical 002 - March 22, 2024
I spent the end of my week making calls, taking notes and packing. All the packing.
I’ve spent my time planning what to pack where and then putting it there and it not working, so I take it out and scribble more on my notebook, drawing arrows this way and that as I pack my bag for three days on the Appalachian Trail.
I won’t be alone. I’ll be with my mother, who has been my partner in “outside crime” for a long time. She was the OG outdoor girl, who spent her summer days picking moss off the soft, Alabama forest floor and placing it on the large, flat rock that stuck out the side of the hill she grew up on.
The first time she went for a run, she had just passed her 40th birthday. I was in high school and was running on the cross country team, a decision inspired by my father, who had begun running marathons. Her 40s brought some health concerns, and she was determined to not grow old. Even though I was just a teenager, I could see my mother slinging her fists at the beast of aging.
Next thing I knew, she was running half marathons, then a marathon.
Nearly a decade later, I introduced her to the trail running community through the Birmingham Ultra Trail Society, which I was a member of when I lived in Birmingham from 2017 to 2020.
Moving to Birmingham brought rapid changes in my life and even more questions about society. I was thrown into what was a big, scary, statewide newsroom full of people way smarter, more experienced and hardened by life than my 22-year-old self. I was spending my evenings at shootings in the part of town my parents told me to avoid, covering protests, elections, teenagers who defect to ISIS and the occasional crude complaint about potholes in the City of Birmingham.
In all the thrill of the reporting and learning about the world, I felt unmoored.
What is real? What is God? Does God see any of this? I would ask myself as I was writing about the real madness happening in real-world Alabama, which was far more cruel, stupid and uncaring than I ever imagined it could be.
When I started running the trails with BUTS, I soon learned that most folks were out there to get away. From what? Fill in the blank. Their spouse. Their addiction. Their kids. Their miserable jobs. Their grief. Their gain. Their reality.
I am very familiar with using exercise as a way to get away. I did it in high school, and found it a pretty effective outlet for my energy, sadness and anger.
I made the decision to try running after seeing my father finish the Mercedes Marathon in Birmingham in 2007. I saw all kinds of people–literally all shapes colors and styles–finishing that marathon with mostly smiles, but all the pride. I saw the runners' faces transform when they turned the corner and saw the finish line. Crossing the line brought more emotions, embraces and joy. It was something that couldn’t be conjured anywhere else.
I decided that if anything could make that many types of people feel something, then I wanted to try it.
First I ran to try being happy. Then I ran to lose weight. Then I ran to keep myself from punching holes in walls. I was never the kid that was referred to anger management therapy, but I was mad. I can remember so many afternoons running at cross country practice with hot tears streaming down my face, crying between breaths. I cry the most when I am angry, and I have cried a lot while running.
As my feet pounded the pavement and the tears ticked down my face, I could feel the boiling cauldron inside me calm. Running gave me somewhere to put all that angsty teenager energy. I think running either saved my life or my ass from getting in trouble due to my hot temper.
I still have a temper. (Sorry). That energy still has to go somewhere. Some people choose intoxicating substances to deal with their discontent. Society has been drinking, smoking and pill popping our pain away for centuries.
When I found myself disillusioned by the church, I felt lost. What do I do with all this anger? I was old enough to drink, but wine didn’t give me the relief I was looking for. I knew I didn’t want to take pills or drink myself dead, as I had seen family members do for years.
I can’t say trail running gave me “relief” in the medical sense of “no pain whatsoever,” but it did give God back to me.
The God I know
Not long after I was baptized at 12 years old, I started reading the Bible. Then I started asking questions about how we did church.
At 23, I was wrestling the same questions and discontent that had plagued my mind for the last decade. I felt so deeply devoted and so fiercely skeptical of everything I was seeing from modern Christianity. The election of Donald Trump had just set the political world on fire, and I was the young reporter learning about “the real world” in a political world that looked nothing like our previous realities.
The internet, web-first journalism and more and more powerful cellphones were rewriting the narrative of how we communicate and relate. This was not the world I was looking at as a teenager. Church was different. People were different. Could God be different?
I decided when I was 13 that no, that could not be the case. Humans were the only people who could have fucked our understanding of God this terrifically.
I’m not here to talk about theology. I am not a theologian or a pastor. I did not want to talk about God on the trails, but I found these holy conversations everywhere. I talked about God with former mormons, practicing mormons, muslims, pagans, atheists, nihilists, Bible-thumping Christians and every letter of the LGBTQ community on the trail.
It was a silent run with my dear friend Olivia that reminded me of the quiet afternoons I spent beyond the playground as a child. My school’s elementary playground bordered a line of trees and field. Some of the trees were huge, and dropped huge crops of leaves every October when the wind got cold. I would lay in the leaves or on the soft green grass and listen to the trees.
The sound of the wind blowing through the leaves sounded like a quiet, constant applause. As a good Christian girl, I knew Psalm 19.
“The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And the expanse [of heaven] is declaring the work of His hands.
Day after day pours forth speech,
And night after night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there [spoken] words [from the stars];
Their voice is not heard.
Yet their voice [in quiet evidence] has gone out through all the earth,
Their words to the end of the world.”
As I laid there in the grass as a little girl, avoiding the noisy playground, I could hear the trees applauding. I imagined the tree-covered hills as a giant choir praising God constantly.
On that silent run, I could hear the trees, and the sound I heard transformed. Suddenly the canopy of trees felt more like the curved ceiling of a cathedral, and the trees were the choir.
Olivia doesn’t practice Christianity. She’s the tree-hugging, dirt and rock worshipping type. But she, in her silent guidance through the woods, brought me back to the God I felt so deeply and felt so comforted by as a child.
What is God? I’m not sure God is what most American Christians say he is, but I know that the majesty of nature must be a reflection of something wonderful and divine.
I found more God in the woods of Oak Mountain State Park than I ever did in a church. Since my baptism into ultra running, God has only become more evident to me, but probably not in the way your pastor preaches. You may not see me in your sanctuary or at your Bible study, but rest assured I know where I can get the closest to God, and that’s in the woods.
I’m going to the woods for my 29th birthday, and I can’t stop thinking about my mom picking moss off the forest floor. I wonder if she also saw God in those woods, like I did and continue to see.
News you can use:
All the press about the documentary “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV” has been very revealing. It left me disgusted and shocked. If you want to watch the doc, you can stream it here:
Remember the lady cop who was fired after having on-duty sexual escapades with her fellow boys in blue? She is claiming she was sexually groomed by the officers and was just awarded $500k for her suffering.
Have you heard about declining sperm count around the world? This information really blew my mind. I watched this video over a year ago and it made me throw out all my plastic food containers and replace them with glass.
There’s more research about plastic that’s scary. What do you think about microplastic pollution?
US pushes UN resolution calling for 'immediate and sustained cease-fire': Updates
The war in the Gaza Strip continues as the holy month of Ramadan is observed by Muslims, who spend their days fasting from food and water. Many are fasting with the suffering of those trapped by war on their mind.
A note:
Thank you for reading and listening to Annalytical. I hope this newsletter gave you insight on the world and kept you curious about reality. Keep asking questions.
Anna
This is beautiful. Can’t wait to join you and that mom of yours in May for a walk in the woods and communion with the Savior.