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!

Post-run fast food

Mediocre run this evening. Meant to do two laps at Mundy Park, but only got through one before I felt heavy and kinda sick to my stomach, so I ran home... and THEN suddenly felt RAVENOUS so I went out and got a big, greasy bag of buger, onion rings and a Coke from A&W. Now I feel awesome. Not physically awesome, granted, but definitely mentally awesome. Yay for fast food, post-run. Never in my life have I felt more justified in eating so many calories in one sitting. These days I don't think food spends any time hanging out in my stomach, it just gets sucked straight into my starving brain and limbs. A little marathon training will go a long way to increasing appetite and enjoyment of food, lemme tell ya.

Old Testament

Finished the Old Testament today, ending with the final 12 "minor prophets." After the Big Four (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel), you have:

1. Hosea
2. Joel
3. Amos
4. Obadiah
5. Jonah
6. Micah
7. Nahum
8. Habakkuk
9. Zephaniah
10. Haggai
11. Zechariah
12. Malachi

So these guys pretty much all had the same thing to prophesy about: God's gonna get mad if you don't smarten up. Well, technically, I know you ain't gonna smarten up, and He's gonna get mad regardless, but you should still make an effort 'cause He's forgiving.

"And prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." -- Malachi 3:10

My favourite prophet, and probably the most famous, is Jonah, as in Jonah and the Whale. The guy gets swallowed by a "big fish" for trying to shirk his prophetic duties, and then gets vomited out by the fish onto the shore because Jonah repented, praying for days inside the belly of the beast. I have no idea how anyone can take this story seriously, but supposedly Jesus later speaks of it like it's fact. Not sure what to make of this, but anyway, a great story, no doubt.

All told, the Old Testament took me almost 10 months of almost daily reading. It's a very long collection of historical, wisdom and prophetic books written by several different people over a long period in history around what is today known as the Middle East.

There is SO much that can be said about the Old Testament, and it depends from what context you read it (religious, scholarly, historical, etc.), and I've learned A LOT. The Old Testament is by far the majority of the Bible -- about three quarters of the whole book -- and I've realized the books can pretty much be read in any order, because they're not chronological. Oh, and one other thing I noted as I was reading through the many books, was the use of the word "selah," which I've learned is a Hebrew word without a good translation, but which means something like "stop and think of that." Maybe kind of like "Amen"? Anyway...

I am eagerly now awaiting the story of Jesus in the New Testament.

**NEXT: Matthew