The greatest race: the human one

Photo by Rob Cummings

This image is not your typical starting line of a running race. Running races tend to be intense affairs with anxiety, nerves, expectation, and anticipation thick in the inches of air between participants. On Sunday, however, I had the pleasure of running one of the most beautiful races I've ever encountered. The joy was simply explosive. The race--the Leatherman's Loop--includes harrowing river crossings, 45 degree pitches up impossibly sandy inclines, shoe-sucking mud flats, but more than anything, it is a race about beauty of the human spirit.

My friends Sean and Matt used to often greet each other in their days as summer camp leaders with the booming call and response,

"It's a great day for a race!"

"The huuuuuumannnnn race!"


And that reality returned to me on Sunday. I loved that, just prior to the starting pistol there was a requisite acknowledgement of the runners around you. That's the image above. Each of the 1,300+ participants extending a greeting to the human beings around them.

Then, there was a blessing, read by the race's "spiritual advisor."


Beauty below me as I run.
Beauty above me as I run.
beauty beside me as I run.
beauty inside me As I run.
I see beauty all around me.
In beauty may we walk.
in beauty may we see.
in beauty may we all be.

And finally, instead of leading off the 10k race with a gun, a song was sung with the ending chords constituting the race's commencement.

Now, what does this have to do with my students and my role as a teacher/learner in the classroom? Well, there's a Ugandan saying (that I know thanks to www.runjanji.com) called
Anazina Takumba!

This translates to, "If you are going to dance, THEN DANCE!"

This was the essence of the Leatherman's Loop. If we are going to do something--anything!--it is worth doing well, but it is also worth doing joyfully, gleefully, and with reckless abandon. It doesn't mean that it can't be difficult, or that it is going to be enjoyable during every second (because I can guarantee you that this race HURT), but just like dancing, we need to be overtaken by the things we do, not just do them as participants. There is beauty within us and "Anazina Takumba!" grants us permission to let that beauty out.

I want my students to love what they're doing, and find joy in it. I want their final 8 weeks of school to feel celebratory. Of course, I want them to feel challenged, because what is an accomplishment, what is growth, without overcoming obstacles, but I also want them to stop and see the beauty in who they've become.

After all, if you can't stop to find the beauty in the midst of the mud flats, why are you out there in the first place?

Anazina Takumba!