Luke

Finished reading the Gospel of Luke today. It's the longest of the gospels, and, I think, my favourite, because it emphasizes Jesus's mercy and includes the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan, which the others leave out. This book is filled with stories of Jesus's life and teachings, as well as an account of his birth and youth, his baptism by John the Baptist, and his ministry and crucifixion.

There is so much in each gospel, it's hard to know what and how to summarize. One of the most important elements, as far as I can tell, though, is that Jesus is often asked what mankind should do to live righteously. To attain eternal life, Jesus says the most important thing to do is:

"Love the Lord they God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself." -- Luke 10:27

This is obviously very important, because it is repeated more than once in this and the other gospels. Love God above all, and treat others as you would want them to treat you. So simple to understand, and yet so difficult to do.

**NEXT: John

Run...down

hu·brisNoun/ˈ(h)yo͞obris/

1. Excessive pride or self-confidence.

2. (in Greek tragedy) Excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis.

I've been bragging the last couple of weeks about not being sick even a once this entire year... and now it's come back to bite me. This morning I woke up with a splitting headache and a sore throat so I haven't been for a run. And I skipped the 20 km workout on Sunday, opting to sleep in instead. Now I'm worried I'll be underprepared for the marathon, which is in 12 days. Hopefully it's nothing extra sleep and Cold FX can't take care of before the big day.

Three balls, 15 minutes

Every day for the past couple of weeks I've been setting my alarm for 15 minutes and practising tossing three balls in the air. I'm getting better. I can keep them going for up to 20 seconds now, but then I always end up throwing one too far in front of me and then the rhythm is broken. More practice time needed. Like, 10,000 more hours of practice. I want to eventually be able to juggle knives on fire while blindfolded.

Mark

Finished the Gospel of Mark this morning after breakfast. Mark is the shortest of the gospels, but it's still a lengthy 16 chapters. According to Cliffnotes, it's the oldest and therefore most reliable, or accurate account of the life of Jesus, from which the other three borrow heavily. One interesting point to make about Mark is that it leaves out any account of his birth or youth. This book begins with his baptism by John the Baptist, and ends with his crucifixion.

There are many well-known stories about and by Jesus in Mark, but one I wasn't familiar with before I read it, is that of the fig tree. It's something like this: Jesus and his disciples are travelling, spreading the Word of God, and they're hungry. Jesus sees a fig tree in the distance but when he gets to it finds it bears no fruit. So he curses it, saying out loud, "May you never bear fruit ever again." And by the next day the whole tree had shrivelled and died. So I'm thinking, what's the moral here? I don't exactly get the point of this one. Or is this just an account of Jesus losing his temper? Did he ever have moments of being "merely" human and just losing, it like any of us would do? Though it's pretty well understood that he was purely good, purely without sin, was he ever petty? Was he ever in a mood? There were many people who met him and didn't recognize him as the Son of God.

Here's another interesting thing to note about Mark, which makes it different from the other three gospels. The last twelve chapters of the book as they are now were not part of the first manuscript. As the original manuscript was lost, and in fact broke off mid-sentence, the last part had to be filled in by someone else at a later date. Who knows what the original ending was? We can only assume it's close to the first copy, but I'm sure any theologian would be pretty stoked to see the original. 

**NEXT: Luke

Matthew

For anyone who is totally unfamiliar with the Bible, the first four books of the New Testament are called the gospels ("gospel" meaning "good news"), and they were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They basically summarize the life of Jesus from birth to death.

The New Testament, beginning with Matthew, picks up about 400 years after the Old Testatment leaves off the story of the Isrealites, who had been struggling under one oppressive ruler after another. When Jesus enters the picture, the Jews are living under Roman rule, which wasn't totally bad, but wasn't too great either because the Romans were not God-fearing men. They preferred to revere Zeus and other Greek gods.

I've heard the stories from the New Testament many times in Church, but it's interesting to read them on my own, directly in the Bible. I'd never done that before. The story of Jesus, whether one believes it to be the truth or just a fairytale, is a riveting read. If I'd never heard of Jesus and had just randomly picked up this book called the Bible and flipped to Matthew, I would have been hooked. It really is a page turner, filled with stories within stories, intrigue, miracles, life lessons, high drama and inspiring quotes. It's history and religion and literature wrapped into one. I'm a fan.

Of course, I'm not sure I understand it all, what all the parables are about and what I believe is history and what is story (the gospels were written long after Jesus died, and by humans, who are, after all, fallible), but I'm glad to be getting it straight from the source. Whatever one believes, I think it has to be conceded that Jesus was a pretty cool guy.

**NEXT: Mark

Final Long Run (31 km)

SO happy today -- the final long run for marathon training is over! Three laps (31 km) around Burnaby Lake today (2:57) and now it's all downhill from here. As I write this I'm sitting in sweat pants, wearing knee-high compression socks, trying to ignore the aching in my hips and knees. It just freaking hurts. AND, it takes up so much time, all this running. There's no way to get around the time committment of training for a marathon. And all the hunger. I'm so hungry all the time. I could eat dog food right now, I'm just starving.

Anyway, next week it'll be 21 km, the next, 11 km, and then it's race weekend.

Cross Training - Grouse Grind

Hiked the Grind this afternoon in 51:21, which is a personal best. I read an article that says hiking is good cross-training for running, which I believe, 'cause this was killer. I was panting like crazy and huge splashes of sweat were dropping off me the whole way up. Next time I've just got to remember not to wear a heavy backpack and I'm sure I'll be able to shave off another minute at least!