Jacob's Ladder and a Lack of Variety

On the way home from work I stop at a parking lot on Highway 6 and run four miles in Terry Hershey Park. I run the same four mile route almost every time I run there. Jakeb gives me a hard time about running the same thing over and over. After driving for over an hour to and from work I have little time for variety. And besides, the park is scenic and I have not gotten tired of it yet.

Tuesday I was finishing up and I looked towards the reservoir on the edge of George Bush Park. On some concrete stairs that ascend the levee there were probably 25 or 30 people climbing to the top. Once they reached the top they would turn and climb down and once at the bottom they would start over again. The long line of people looked like a bicycle chain going around sprockets at either end of the stairs. I guess they were some kind of training group but it looked a little strange.

It reminded me of the story in the Bible where Jacob lays his head on a rock for a pillow in a place called Bethel and has a dream of angels ascending and descending stairs (a ladder) to and from heaven. Except as far as I could tell these people were not angels and they were definitely not making it to heaven.

It won’t be too long until all of mine and Jakeb’s running routes are new and different. I can handle the same four miles and Jacob’s ladder for another month. June 17th we fly out of Dallas on our way to Singapore where at least for a while every step we run will be on ground we’ve never run before.