I recently watched the movie, Forest Gump, and I had forgotten just how good this film is. Not only is it beautiful from a visual standpoint, it is profound in so many ways. I could do a blog just on this movie, but I won’t.
It’s amazing how skillfully this movie explores the distinctions between intelligence and wisdom and asks questions about predestination and free will. But I think the basic movement of the film comes from this idea: Forest may not be the most intelligent person, but he is an exceedingly wise person, at least most of the time. When he isn’t wise it’s because he’s too much like a child. It might be better to say that he’s a very wise child.
I was watching the part where Jenny comes home the first time, then sneaks away in the morning, leaving Forest without any explanation. There is an extended group of shots where the soundtrack goes dead silent. Forest is shown sitting in different parts of the house, trying to make sense of what she’s done, but it’s something he can’t make sense of. All he knows is that he’s hurting. Truly, he has been used in a painful way. Finally, the camera shows Forest sitting on his porch, thinking. Then the music begins to swell as Forest says something like, “All of a sudden, for no particular reason, I felt like running.”
And for the next umpteen minutes of the movie we get shots of Forest running across the country and back again, and I remember not really getting this part of the movie when it first came out. It seemed out of place. Even the humor in this section is much broader than the rest of the film. But if you think back to the beginning of the movie where some local punks throw rocks at Forest it makes sense. He’s hit with these rocks and Jenny yells at him, “Run, Forest, run!” So he does. He runs so hard that his braces fall off his legs and he gets away from the boys. He runs from them all through his childhood until it lands him a football scholarship. Later, Jenny tells him that when he gets to Vietnam he needs to run if people try to hurt him.
Jenny teaches him to get away from pain by running.
The reason he runs so long and hard after Jenny abandons him is that the pain of his life has finally caught up to him. The pain of his childhood. The pain of his war wounds and the death of his friend Bubba. The pain of mistreatment. The pain of his mother’s death. And finally, Jenny has given him the greatest pain of his life by using him and abandoning him without an explanation.
All of this pain, festering under the surface, pushes Forest to run for over three years, even though he doesn’t totally understand why he’s doing it. His pain is a silent motivator and running is the only thing he knows to do. But, finally, he says, “Momma always said you got to put the past behind you before you can move on. I think that’s what my running was all about.” So he stops running. He says, “I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll go home now.”
All that running would wear anybody out, don’t you think?
Peace to you.
© LW Publishing 2010
Showing posts with label running. Show all posts
Showing posts with label running. Show all posts
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Marathon
Last October, at the Detroit Free Press marathon, three different guys died within a fifteen to twenty minute period of time. This is not a typical thing. And they weren’t all old either. People did what they could to save them, but it didn’t work. Tragic.
When I read about this, all I could think was, “It could have been me.” I actually ran this marathon once. Well, “ran” is a bit extravagant.
Let me explain.
A friend of mine was a runner. He took it seriously and he was good at it. He ran all the time. He lost all kinds of weight and seemed more relaxed. And I observed with admiration. I was impressed with his dedication. I wanted to be that dedicated too.
Alas.
Then, one day, he told me he was going to run in the Detroit marathon. He was working hard for it. And I thought, hey, maybe I could do it too. I could start running and get ready. There was still time to prepare. And I meant to. I really did. I thought about it a lot. I even bought some new running shoes.
I went out running a few times. To be honest, it was more a kind of jogging with an intent look on my face. Around the block. And as the date kept getting closer, I thought, “It’s just a few miles. Old people are doing this run. I’m in pretty good shape. I’m not in it to win. How hard could it be?”
Did I mention that this marathon was over twenty miles long?
The day arrived. I went out there with my buddy and we ran. Well, he ran. He did great. Placed pretty high on the list of survivors. As for me, I ran for a bit, trying to keep up with the people around me, but that soon faded into a sort of half-hearted jogging motion, which progressively degraded into a painful lope.
Many, many people passed me by. The trained runners flew past in a blur. Others moved past more respectfully, but it still pained me. Then those old people passed me by. I think some guy on crutches passed me by, and then some infants, crawling, snickering as they went past. Squirrels made jokes at my expense from the sidewalks and trees. At one point it felt like someone was jabbing a knife into my side. But I kept going. I walked. I jogged. I tried to run. I walked. I loped. As fast as I could, I forged ahead.
It seemed like the run would never end. It went on and on and on. Hours and hours, I plodded forward. The whole way I was trying to figure out why I was doing it. I was in some serious pain. At times I was just barely walking. Then I’d get my whatever back and keep going. I almost quit several times, but I didn’t. I’m just not much for quitting. So I finished the race.
People have said, “Hey. That’s still pretty good. You finished the race!” But that is not a race I should have been in. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t do the work. You kind hearted people need to stop encouraging my foolishness.
I went home. At the time, in that moment, I was kind of proud of myself. After all, I had finished the race. I told my family about it, then went to lie down for a while. I was tired. I had every reason to be tired.
A few hours later, I woke up. Suddenly, I understood the meaning of the word “excruciating.” We get that word from the word “crucifixion.” Pain so bad that it feels like you’re being tortured. And that’s what it was like. My legs had seized up in paroxysms of pain. I didn’t just have a charley-horse, I was riding that horse. Throbbing, unbearable pain.
I screamed! I tried to get out of bed to find help from someone, anyone. Pathetically, I fell to the floor. My poor abused legs had gone on strike. They couldn’t support me. And why should they after what I had done to them? If they had any sense, they would just leave and never come back.
Thinking that someone must be murdering me, the family came running. Thank God. Literally. Someone started rubbing my legs. Someone gave me pills. I don’t know what they were. I would have swallowed a toad dipped in used chewing tobacco if someone had told me it would help. Anything to make the pain go away. A spinal tap would have been good.
Finally. Finally. The pain started to let up. It didn’t go away fast. It took a while. My legs hurt for days. I still have flashbacks. I get the sweats when I walk past athletic shoe stores.
It was so stupid. But I learned. Running a race, any kind of race, takes preparation. Sometimes you can finish without it, but there’s a price to pay.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Peace to you.
© LW Publishing 2010
When I read about this, all I could think was, “It could have been me.” I actually ran this marathon once. Well, “ran” is a bit extravagant.
Let me explain.
A friend of mine was a runner. He took it seriously and he was good at it. He ran all the time. He lost all kinds of weight and seemed more relaxed. And I observed with admiration. I was impressed with his dedication. I wanted to be that dedicated too.
Alas.
Then, one day, he told me he was going to run in the Detroit marathon. He was working hard for it. And I thought, hey, maybe I could do it too. I could start running and get ready. There was still time to prepare. And I meant to. I really did. I thought about it a lot. I even bought some new running shoes.
I went out running a few times. To be honest, it was more a kind of jogging with an intent look on my face. Around the block. And as the date kept getting closer, I thought, “It’s just a few miles. Old people are doing this run. I’m in pretty good shape. I’m not in it to win. How hard could it be?”
Did I mention that this marathon was over twenty miles long?
The day arrived. I went out there with my buddy and we ran. Well, he ran. He did great. Placed pretty high on the list of survivors. As for me, I ran for a bit, trying to keep up with the people around me, but that soon faded into a sort of half-hearted jogging motion, which progressively degraded into a painful lope.
Many, many people passed me by. The trained runners flew past in a blur. Others moved past more respectfully, but it still pained me. Then those old people passed me by. I think some guy on crutches passed me by, and then some infants, crawling, snickering as they went past. Squirrels made jokes at my expense from the sidewalks and trees. At one point it felt like someone was jabbing a knife into my side. But I kept going. I walked. I jogged. I tried to run. I walked. I loped. As fast as I could, I forged ahead.
It seemed like the run would never end. It went on and on and on. Hours and hours, I plodded forward. The whole way I was trying to figure out why I was doing it. I was in some serious pain. At times I was just barely walking. Then I’d get my whatever back and keep going. I almost quit several times, but I didn’t. I’m just not much for quitting. So I finished the race.
People have said, “Hey. That’s still pretty good. You finished the race!” But that is not a race I should have been in. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t do the work. You kind hearted people need to stop encouraging my foolishness.
I went home. At the time, in that moment, I was kind of proud of myself. After all, I had finished the race. I told my family about it, then went to lie down for a while. I was tired. I had every reason to be tired.
A few hours later, I woke up. Suddenly, I understood the meaning of the word “excruciating.” We get that word from the word “crucifixion.” Pain so bad that it feels like you’re being tortured. And that’s what it was like. My legs had seized up in paroxysms of pain. I didn’t just have a charley-horse, I was riding that horse. Throbbing, unbearable pain.
I screamed! I tried to get out of bed to find help from someone, anyone. Pathetically, I fell to the floor. My poor abused legs had gone on strike. They couldn’t support me. And why should they after what I had done to them? If they had any sense, they would just leave and never come back.
Thinking that someone must be murdering me, the family came running. Thank God. Literally. Someone started rubbing my legs. Someone gave me pills. I don’t know what they were. I would have swallowed a toad dipped in used chewing tobacco if someone had told me it would help. Anything to make the pain go away. A spinal tap would have been good.
Finally. Finally. The pain started to let up. It didn’t go away fast. It took a while. My legs hurt for days. I still have flashbacks. I get the sweats when I walk past athletic shoe stores.
It was so stupid. But I learned. Running a race, any kind of race, takes preparation. Sometimes you can finish without it, but there’s a price to pay.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Peace to you.
© LW Publishing 2010
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