Significant Vapor. Magnificent Dust.

I look up to the heavens at night and realize I'm quite small, if not completely insignificant in this massive creation. I'm often reminded of this at church, school chapels, and my own astronomical gazings. I am fairly vaporish. Here today, I am. Tomorrow I will be gone. Vapor. Dust. Very small. I am very small. We are tiny. Like ants. We scurry. We work. We go with the flow. When one of us ventures off on our own we are either stepped on or commended for discovering something new. Little baby ants. We do not heed the ants. Why? Because we are mighty. We are strong. We are the masters. The ants probably have similar discussions amongst themselves. Something like "Those stupid, tiny parasites. They're so small and insignificant. We step on them!" It's all a matter of perspective. We tend to blind ourselves to what is greater than us unless we figure out a way to conquer it. To date, no one has devised a way to conquer God, though there has been at least one attempt. And that didn't end terribly well for the attempter. God is very big. God is very powerful. He is. This is my favorite sentence regarding God because it is so incredibly simple yet shows just how huge God really is. I could not say "John is." That's just silly. John was born, and John will die. That's about all I can do for myself. God, on the other hand, is. Is what? He is. He... is. God, this Being, was, is, and will be; He needs Himself and that is all.

But then He, He who simply is, decided to create the most spectacular work of art that has or will ever exist. And that is me. Yes, of course, the universe is more beautiful, magnificent, and incredible than I am. But what makes me the most spectacular is because I am made with pieces of Him sprinkled on top. He poured Himself into me. I am stained, besmirched, and broken, but to Him, still worth dying for. I was made in His image. And for me, for John Taylor, He became flesh, a form prone to sin, failure, and death, and conquered all three. For me. He did not sin like I do. He did not fail, though, for three days, many thought He had. But He did die, like I will. However, God, rather, the Son of God, who is God, who also is, declared victory over death by returning to life. And this life He offers to me. To us. To all who accept this as truth. We are magnificent. But we are only vapor. It's a strange, terrifyingly great concept.

Before ripping these mushrooms from the ground (why? because I'm bigger than they are), I ran and got my digital Nikon D70. The lighting was too perfect not to shoot something that day. I took a few pictures but realized I was not close enough. I wanted to see much more of the little umbrellas. So I knelt, and then lay down on the grass. The mushrooms were about an inch from the glass and my eye not much further from the view finder. However, a similar feeling came over me as I looked at the little ant umbrella, the same feeling I get when gazing into space. It's almost eerie to see such detail on something so small. Not only did God busy Himself with the stars in the sky but He also took His time on these tiny mushrooms. And how much greater, I thought, am I to Him than these tiny ant furnishings? Once again, feeling very small but very important, I smiled and focused on the little fungi. I waited as an ant meandered across my lens and, then, when it had taken to a blade of grass, pressed gently on that little silver button. God did a good job on these mushrooms, I think.

X

He sat there. She sat there. They sat there. Some alone. Some not. Consumed by sorrow or overwhelmed with joy or suffering the drain of apathy, they waited. The soldier there passed the time. The mother there waited for the whistle of the train. The vagabond there dozed the minutes past. Its seat is marked by tears. The wood still resonates with laughter. The humble throne has carried the large and the small, the rich and the poor, the selfish and selfless. It is the last stop to success. It is the first stop to failure. It is insignificant.

It is thrashed, abused, forgotten, stained, and used un-thanked. It is the point between A and B. It is no one's destination. Its mark is on no map. It is invisible.

I angrily sat down in the chair and slung my backpack over its scarred arm. Two hours I would have to wait. Two hours. I hunched over my book and attempted to pass the time quickly, but I soon became stiff. I straightened up and rolled my shoulders. I let the book fall to the floor. It wasn't very good anyway. My eyes scanned the room. Countless people filed in and out of the terminal. Though a few remained, like myself, stuck for further waiting. One was a soldier. Another was a mother. The last was a younger homeless-looking man with his life, it seemed, on his back. I couldn't imagine where they had all come from. And I could not guess where their travels would take them. Each had a different destination and each were coming from a different place. But each, myself included, were there, at that moment, together, waiting to continue on. This was point X. The point between A and B. AXB I call it. We were all at X. Waiting. If lives were single strands of yarn, each soul a keeper of a single length, point X would be the most infuriating knot any man would ever encounter. It is at X where so many people come into contact with so many people and are, in many cases, left changed by the event. Even if the change is slight, such exposure to such a knot of traveling souls renders even the most calloused traveler softer or harder than he had been hours before.

The soldier stood and left his seat; he walked briskly to a certain gate and disappeared from me. The mother also, after countless glances at her watch, gathered her brood and left. The vagabond and I had then reached our time to leave and we stood to board the Amtrak to San Diego. I picked up my backpack but it felt light. Too light. I looked back to the seat and upon its soft cushion rested my heavy, film, Nikon FA. I picked it up, cranked a square of untouched 35mm film into place, looked through the viewfinder, and saw nothing. Black. Lens cap. I took off the lens cap, peered through the viewfinder, focused, and pressed decisively on that little silver button. And on that square of film I later found my chair. And if one looks carefully enough they can see a chaotic mass of yarn resting peacefully upon the tear-stained cushion of point X.

I'm A Runner. I Run.

My first day, I remember, after putting on my shoes and driving to school, I was completely unready to do what I was volunteering myself to do. Hunter was with me, at least, and the Holden kid, but he was so quiet. Mr. Rouse met us with the rest of the team and spoke to us a bit. The seniors looked bored; the juniors felt empowered with their new sense of authority; the sophomores were thankful they were not the freshman anymore; and the freshmen, well, we, Hunter, Holden, Danny, Austin, and I, felt very small and ill-prepared. Hunter made me do it. I wasn't happy with him. And so it began, my first run. I went from dreading "The Mile" to dreading "The Eight Mile" or "The Ten Mile" in a matter of weeks. In a month I was in shape and pushing myself to new speeds and distances. As the season came to a close I was racing at Bell Jeff Invitational; it was there my running career began a downward spiral. I sprain my ankle at the top of the last hill and raced to the finish on a quickly expanding balloon of an ankle. After that day I was plagued with knee injuries, shin splints, and a myriad of other ailments. On any other team or in any other sport I am sure I would have quit in humiliation and defeat. I am sure of this. But it was not to be, not after having John Rouse as my coach and mentor and not after suffering with my team. Coach Rouse is known, in running, to be the teacher of "mental toughness." It is why a hill does not phase me. It is why I have never walked in a race. It is why my team and I are able to do what our bodies scream they are unable to do.

It wasn't until the end of Junior year, during Track, that I was able to improve because of my lack of serious injury. I qualified for the JV league finals in the 800. I remember the gun going off in that race and taking the first few strides off of the line. I rounded the curve with 6 people in front of me. I controlled my breathing and weighed my options, determining at what point I would make a move. I caught two people on the back stretch and came into the last curve in 5th place. Progress. I had one lap to go and was in range of the four ahead of me. One of those four had over-shot himself and fell behind me rather quickly going into the back stretch. I looked ahead and saw the next runner was the same runner I had raced against in the qualifiers. I smiled because I knew I could beat him. My body screamed at me and my lungs threatened to revolt but I ignored their pleas. Rouse, at that point, was no longer my coach but it was his coaching that enabled me to do what I was about to do. I had reached the point at which I needed to make my final move and begin my full sprint down the last stretch to the finish. And so I went. In every race I have ever run I remind myself of the following as I make the final sprint toward the line: "He will lift me up on wings of Eagles, I will run and not grow weary, I will walk and not be faint." Between my gasping breaths I uttered this as I flew toward the finish. Surely as I soared into third, the runner I passed heard me whispering my prayer. I finished in third, directly behind Marty Riley and Eric Adams. Maranatha came in 1, 2, 3.

Cross Country began again senior year and I ran throughout the summer preparing for camp. Camp is running 100 miles in 8 days in the steepest parts of the state. It is both my favorite and least favorite place on Earth. I remember running to the top of Paradise (a 14 mile run to one of the most beautiful settings I have ever seen) and looking back down the mountain at what I accomplished. It is unbelievable to me what running has done to my life. In the most literal sense, it has put my mountains underneath me. I am able to conquer what I set out to do. As we ran Paradise we sang hymns and smiled at the rock face in front of us as we put one leg in front of the other. It is a strange thing, learning how strong you really are. Before camp ended Coach McCown took all the seniors to Knapp's Cabin, an insignificant landmark on the side of the road. In the middle of the night we sat there and prayed for each other. We laid our hands on one another and asked God to be present in their lives and thanked Him for all He has done with the team.

In four years, with sweat, blood, tears, and countless pairs of shoes, I developed more than in the previous 13. I grew stronger. I was not only physically fit but mentally tough as well. Cross Country ended for me at League Finals in Craig Regional Park. As I crossed the finish line I felt free of the requirement to run at all times. However, I felt a great loss as well. I realized in that moment all I was leaving behind, all I must leave behind. I looked back over the past four years and saw how the race had gone. I began strong, taking that first mile hard, but suffering in the second mile, burdened with injury and a sense of hopelessness. But I persisted into the third mile and felt the strength course through my veins as I saw the finish. In the last sprint I was lifted up on wings like Eagles and I ran harder than I ever had before. I have finished my race.

I have always wondered what my impact on Cross Country would be, how my presence would affect MHS XC. And, in a sense, it did. But it was not my times or my running accomplishments that I know I am leaving behind. It is the relationships I developed and the pain I suffered with my brothers and sisters that will be remembered. But as time passes even that will be forgotten. The Great Effect, then, was not mine on the program, but the program on me. I have been changed for the better. I have been molded into a stronger person and have been wholly refined for the better. My impact on Cross Country will wash away in the tides of time, but I took with me a life changing experience. As the sun set on this stage in my life it rose in the life of another. And so it would continue, developing us runners for the better. I am a runner. I run.

And so I knelt and stared backwards as the last light illuminated this scene. And as time came to sweep away my presence for future runners I found that little silver button beneath my finger. The shutter opened and the tide washed right in.