Heart Lotus: It is an Impossible Task

It is the 27th day, of the longest race in the world. I see the two plastic numbers stuck to the fence, and for a moment, I try and fathom some deeper significance to the number 27. I fail, because when I look at the number of days and the numbers of miles close by, they are accumulating so rapidly that if I try and make some sense of it all, they simply sweep over my consciousness like a surging tide of data, leaving me dazed and adrift in a vast sea of indecipherable information.

Having spent so many mornings here, and listening to what the runners have to say about the race, I realize, as they have mentioned so many times, the race is not the numbers, it is the runners themselves who are the race. It is their imperfections and their glorious divinity shining through. It is the bad days when clouds swirl across their minds and it is the good ones when they are their hearts, and they become but brilliant beacons of light.

The race is of course, on days, when they are champions of the concrete loop. It is also when they are not overwhelmed by adversity, and it is when perhaps they are not victorious but at least they have not been laid to waste. They may look back in months to come at the moment when they crossed the finish line, and were told the race was done. But I suspect they will see and draw upon so much more.

I suspect that the carrying the flag and the singing of songs will be just one of the many precious treasures they will carry away. They will remember with gratitude both their tears and their smiles, when they ran alone in darkness of the mind and when they soared with legions in the brightness of their hearts. They know that self-transcendence is not a time and not a number. Self-transcendence can be only in their heart's victory in which God is the only guide and judge.