Taking the Long-Term View

On Sunday Paula Radcliffe ran the Tokyo marathon. Having ended her athletics career with the 2015 London Marathon, she ran her first competitive marathon for 10 years, aged 51.

Paula Ratcliffe is one of my athletic heroes. Her track races and marathons, her medals and records – her 2003 world record marathon time stood for 16 years… She always comes across as a really pleasant, personable lady.

The sprinter’s race is over in seconds. The marathon runner takes the long-term view.

Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘If’ speaks of doubt and certainty, success and failure… counter-cultural truth, virtue, determination, for example:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
     If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
     And treat those two impostors just the same…

He’s taking the long-term view.

Reagan Rose, in ‘Redeeming Productivity’, says: ‘Modern theories of personal productivity are rooted in principles of factory management developed in the Industrial Revolution.’ This mechanical view of productivity treats people likes machines, measuring what they can do, their cost and value, how fast they can do it…

Rose contrasts mechanical productivity with organic productivity: ‘We are called to be productive like a tree, not an assembly line… fruits and vegetables are found in the ‘produce’ section of the grocery store…’

A mechanical, assembly-line life view measures quantities, materials, money; the organic life view is concerned about long-term growth, quality, fruit…

Musing…

…Life’s marathon race, Kipling’s counter-cultural ‘If’, are both found in my Christian roots…

…David’s tree deep-rooted planted by the river… Jesus as the vine, his followers are frit-bearing branches… Paul’s ‘Fruit of the Spirit… love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control…’ Long-term growth.

…This morning …reading 1 Samuel …good things and bad things, battles won and lost, God’s forgotten then remembered …Samuel erects a stone monument naming it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far has the Lord helped us.’

I’m taking the long-term view… Up till now God’s been good and helped me.