The Betz Lecture Series

It was Monday morning, and that meant Big Bearpen again.  Vicki met me at Founders Park, and while I was waiting for her Marty Boone stopped to use the restrooms.  "Are you running with us, too?" I asked her.

"No," she laughed.  "I'm going to take photos at the Mullen Lecture Series."  She was referring to a lecture scheduled in a few minutes at the Presbyterian Church, a series endowed by former Pastor Don Mullen.  The sun was shining, the air was clear and cool, and I could not think of anything I would want to do less than sit in a pew listening to a lecture.  Besides, a lecture sounded somehow sterner than a "talk" or a "speech," many of which I have enjoyed at Center for Life Enrichment programs over the years.  It seemed more forbidding than even a "sermon."

"I think I'll go run up on a mountaintop instead," I said, and Marty indicated with a laugh that this seemed like a good idea (and, I thought, might have wished she was going with us).

Lecture:

1.  An exposition of a given subject delivered before an audience or class, 

as for the purpose of instruction.

2.  An earnest admonition or reproof; a reprimand.

So this was the first lecture of the day in the Betz Lecture Series:  Big Bearpen. 

It had been a couple of weeks since I made this climb, and so I needed this particular kind of instruction today:  re-learning the lesson of how important it is for every runner to push himself upward from time to time, in a relentless climb, trusting and suffering, persevering one step at a time, absorbing this sweet winding upward lesson through the fragrance of rhododendron blooming, higher and higher, finally arriving at the very summit.  There seemed to be something almost Presybyterian in this, after all:  the sovereignty of God gleaming all around us, so clear that we could see Lake Keowee in South Carolina.

We eased back down the long unpaved road and then took a left on Lower Lake Road, climbing again (although not so steeply) to Horse Cove Road, and then stopping at the Nature Center.  Vicki had to go to work, so I left her there and turned with determination to the second lecture of the day:  Sunset Rocks.

Yes, one lecture was not enough this morning; I needed to beat myself up a little more, I needed to be reprimanded by the steep grade and the uneven rocks for having goofed off on far too many easy runs this past week.  There was nobody at all on the trail, just me, my shirt drenched in sweat, my legs aching.  Just me and my acceptance of this reproof.

So once again I found instruction in running, and particularly in listening to these hard lectures we all must endure from time to time.