When You Want to Run

It always seems easiest to run. To run from what we are afraid of or to run to what we love. Let's not move slowly towards those things...lets run! I wanted to run and even today I thought of running. But, how do you run from yourself? From your life?

Somehow I think that if I start running it will take me to a new place where what I am running from no longer exist. But, that just isn't the case. There is only so far you can go. In fact, the furthest place you can come still has reminants of home, reminants of those things I so desparately wanted to run from. But, the truth is that I did not run. Luckily, there are usually people or your own desire for self-preservation that makes us remain and walk slowly until we realize that running can wait.

My favorite constellation is Pleiades. Pleiades is a summer constellation that displays the seven female children of Atlas, a Titan who held up the sky, and the oceanid Pleione, the protectress of sailing. Usually the naked human eye can only see six of the sisters during the summer months. The Greek poet Hesiod mentions the Pleiades several times in his Works and Days. As the Pleiades are primarily summer stars, they feature prominently in the ancient agricultural calendar. Here is a bit of advice from Hesiod:

"And if longing seizes you for sailing the stormy seas,

when the Pleiades flee mighty Orion

and plunge into the misty deep

and all the gusty winds are raging,

then do not keep your ship on the wine-dark sea

but, as I bid you, remember to work the land."

Longing had seized me to sail the stormy seas. I wanted to plunge. I wanted to flee. My route would have been taken in a car and I somehow thought I could leave the stormy seas behind. But, I took Hesiod's advice and kept my ship on land and decided to work the land. Working the land, my land - my family, my marriage, my mind - is scary. It is hard and it sometimes seems appealing to plunge into some other life. But, this is the land that God has given. He has given me a newborn son, a foster child who is in the hospital, and a husband who does all he can to be perfect for us all. My mind is full, my heart is heavy, and right now, the land is hard to work. But, I fall to the mercy of my Lord and beg him to show me how to work my land again.