my favorite treadmill in the gym faces the 76ers office window. the blinds are always pulled down, leaving me with a faint glassy reflection of myself, the pale outline of a bobbing blond ponytail and pumping knees. i was exhausted, but the glassy girl still kept moving, the watercolor hair kept swinging, and i was surprised at her apparent energy. but then, of course, she was me, and i realized i could go a few more miles. it was a strange and rare moment of objective observation, quickly passing into oblivion. i was running to DCTalk, letting myself get lost in the rhythm and lyrics. ..the truth, it frees us / forgiven now i'm livin / like a man full of jesus i used to think those words were so dumb, and i still won't argue for any artistic merit on their behalf. however... i have to admit that, in the absence of anyone else that believes the way that i do, those words are gold to me. you get spoiled, sitting in a pool of people just like you. you get to forgetting what it's all about. the truth is that i'm occasionally unsteady saying "Jesus" out loud here. for sure, i don't throw around the Christian lingo like i used to. that, in itself, is a good thing. ask someone on the street about the "fruit" they are "bearing" and you're making gulfs, not building bridges. and it's not just that i don't want to be dropped into the "one of those people" pile. that's not who i am, but i know that i have to earn the privelege to straddle that stereotype. i care about people more than i care about some stuffy morality, and yet i have to do that without watering down what i know is the truth. i frequently get confused about the details of what that should look like, but i think it'll get clearer as i go along. and so i run, and listen to toby mac preach it (word to the fatha).