The Common Grace of Tailgate Beer

(Independence Pass, CO)

Benjamin Franklin was a syphilis-ridden inveterate skirt-chaser who thought the turkey should be the national symbol but he was right when he said that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Wait. Google has informed me that Benjamin Franklin never said this. This, despite its numerous sources on sidewalk kiosks outside bars and breweries. We can all go back to thinking Mr. Franklin was just a chubby ol' creeper with a penchant for electricity and bad ideas (looking at you, Articles of Confederation [though, admittedly, the Constitution pretty much sucks too]). 

Whoever did say it was on to something. Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. 

The biblical book of Ecclesiastes is the author's written wrestling with the theological dilemma of existence and the perceived absence of God. The book has been referred to as the world's first piece of existential philosophy. The author lives in a world with a volatile economy, judicial problems, and new and disparate socioeconomic classes (no, not America; post-exile Persia) and confesses an existence that is contradictory and absurd, yet tries to make sense of it all. 

There is a common theme throughout Ecclesiastes that gives me great joy and hope: enjoyment.  

"There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink and find enjoyment in their work. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?" (2:24-25)

"I know that there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their work." (3.12-13)

 

"This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the work with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us." (5.18)

"So I commend enjoyment, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them through the days of life God gives them." (8:15)

"Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long approved of what you do... Enjoy your life with the one you love and whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your might." (9.7-10)

 

"Have you had a PBR with lime? It's the reason I still go to church." (my friend, Payton)

That last one isn't from Ecclesiastes but it works. The gulf between God and humans is bridged in these moments of humans receiving and enjoying the good gifts of creaturely life: food, drink, friends, and even meaningful work. The German theologian and Nazi resistance leader, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about the message of Ecclesiastes: "We ought to find and love God in what he actually gives us; if it pleases him to allow us to enjoy some overwhelming earthly happiness, we must not try to be more pious than God himself." I grew up in a teetotaling culture that tried really hard to be more pious than God's own self. 

Oh, if the elders at Timberlane Church of Christ could have seen the pile of empty cans that accumulated throughout our stay in El Rito, New Mexico. Josh and I spent every day clipping bolts on beautiful, steep conglomerate walls in the dry desert heat and finished every night by a campfire with Doc Watson on the BlueTooth and a PBR in our hand. I spent the previous year in a "dark night of the soul" of sorts. But that week in New Mexico I saw the Deep Mind of the Cosmos in the panoply of stars. I heard the Everlasting Song of the Universe in the howls of coyotes. And I felt the Spirit of Creative Transformation in the conversations between two brothers, alone in the desert. 

Every can of cheap beer enjoyed on the tailgate of a truck or around a campfire with friends is a foretaste of the life of the world to come. At least that's the preferred vision for the future of Saint Brigid of Kildare. Brigid was an abbess in fifth-century Ireland known for her Christian virtue and “as a woman who likes to feast with plenty of ale and divine company.” She is purported to have prayed, “I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings with Heaven’s family drinking it through all eternity.” This is my entire eschatology.

Happy summer, megasplitter friends. I hope it's full of swimming holes, gravel rides, and tailgate beers. May the common yet good gifts of creaturely life mediate the presence of the Divine Mystery, whatever your religious persuasion. 

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The Buddha and the Pain Cave

Running hurts. Anyone who tells you otherwise probably says wheatgrass juice tastes good too. (It does not.) Some want to pretend that running is always social media-worthy, but running will almost always bring you to a point where you look like death and everything sucks. That, to me, is part of what makes it so beautiful. 

My favorite running photo is of the finish line of a hundred-mile trail race. A middle-aged man weeps as he struggles to make it across the finish line before the cut-off time. He's fighting, with everything he has, for dead last place. And everyone around him is going berserker to cheer him on. It's heartbreaking and beautiful and I wish I could find the link to it. I like running because it pushes the body and brain beyond the threshold of discomfort. It requires the runner to dwell in the pain cave.

The "pain cave" is a term used by endurance athletes to describe the deep, dark place where physical, mental, and emotional fatigue coalesce. It sounds bleak and yet you'll find about 3,830,000 google results for "embracing the pain cave." Many feature ultra-runner Courtney Dauwalter, who is largely responsible for popularizing the term. If you don't know who Courtney Dauwalter is, her ultra-running rap sheet is impressive. My favorite tidbit is her performance at the 2017 Moab 240 (that's 240 miles). Dauwalter finished in first place, kind of a big deal. She also finished 10 hours ahead of second place, which is a remarkably huge deal. Close your computer and ponder the world's greatest athlete you've never heard about. Courtney Dauwalter knows a thing or two about pain and how to deal with it.

Pain is the language our body uses to tell our brain that it does not like what is happening. I love this line from Haruki Murakami's, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." It's a Buddhist saying. The implication is that the body feels pain but the brain chooses what to do with it. You could give up. You could quit. Or you could delve deeper into the pain cave. Descend into the recesses of your mind and find the inner mental strength to carry on.

Watch any Courtney Dauwalter interview on youtube and she's grinning ear to ear as she talks about the pain cave. It could be her bubbly personality. Or it could be a peculiar love for this dark and agonizing mental space. For Dauwalter, the cave is the place to grow as a runner and a human being. 

Some runners transcend the pain altogether and achieve a "runner's high." I am not one of them. When I enter the pain cave, I bring an imaginary tent and sleeping bag because I'm going to be hurting for a while. I don't always tap into my inner-Dauwalter. Sometimes I have a pity party and cut my run short. I am not a world-class endurance athlete. I hesitate to call myself an athlete at all. But I do know that if I dig deep enough, enough times, my brain actually can dominate the body. And I've got pretty good at settling into the pain and suffering my way through things. Even when I hate it, I love it. And I almost always want to do it again.

I teach comparative world religions to eleventh graders in high school. I love my job. My favorite unit to teach, but the hardest for my students to grasp, is Buddhism. The First Noble Truth uttered by the Buddha is that life is suffering (dukkha). It is always interesting how my students respond to this assertion of the world. For many, it seems bleak or pessimistic. Still, others nod their heads in affirmation. Divorce, sickness, loneliness, death, poverty, bullying. Many students are acutely aware of the reality of pain. 

Last fall, in the middle of my Buddhism unit, our school experienced an awful object lesson in the truth of suffering. "If we are afraid to touch our suffering," Thich Nhat Hanh explains, "we will not be able to realize the path of peace, joy, and liberation. Don’t run away," he continues, "Touch your suffering.” This is the meaning of the First Noble Truth. And so that's what we did.

We didn't run away. 

We touched our suffering. 

We entered the pain cave. Sat with it. Kept company with the pain and suffering. Only then, the Buddha says, one can be on the path of release. But that's hard work. We'd much rather stuff it down, compartmentalize it, or run away. We put smiles on our faces and say we're good when everything seems like it's falling apart. This emotional bypassing is a pathological condition among Western folks, especially Western Christians. I mean, consider the great American folk song but the God-awful theology of the hymn, "I'll Fly Away:" 

Some glad morning when this life is over, I'll fly away!  Just a few more weary days and then, I'll fly away! Yeah, when I die, Hallelujah, by and by, I'll fly away!

This is either the ramblings of a psychopath with a death wish or a neo-platonic perversion of the gospel. Either way it's dirty brown water trash. Instead, the Buddha instructs us not to escape from life "but to help us relate to ourselves and to the world as thoroughly as possible" (Hanh). Yearning for a better life after death is passive. The Buddha encourages us to be active. Lean into the suffering and work towards its cessation here and now (Cūḷamālukya Sutta). "To be truly happy," insists Arya Namdol, "one must be intimately connected to and bear witness to suffering" (Namdol). That's a valuable lesson, even for non-Buddhists and, especially, for Western Christians.

Life, like running, involves tremendous suffering. But that is not the whole of it. The Buddha indeed taught the truth of suffering, but he also taught the truth of "dwelling happily in things as they are" (Samyutta Nikaya). And that, to me, is the meaning of the saying, "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." And that, to me, is the work of the pain cave.

So the next time you are edging toward the dark gaping mouth of the pain cave, physical or existential, set out for yourself a metaphorical meditation cushion. Maybe one day you'll reach enlightenment or whatever.

Further Readings (and Listenings):
Courtney Dauwalter on Embracing the Pain Cave (ep. 234 of Running On Om podcast) 
Courtney Dauwalter: How to Embrace Pain in Our Lives (Rich Roll podcast) 
The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh

Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor 

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5 Honest Strava Achievements

I love Strava. It's a fitness app that's equal parts training log and social media platform. Users can track their performance on routes and compare their efforts to other users on segments. Like Instagram and Twitter, users can give "kudos," leave comments, and be "rewarded" for their achievements. These rewards are great motivators, I just wish they'd be a bit more honest about them. Below are what I imagine would be honest Strava achievements.

1. Kudos

And mommy's baby is ready for his yum-yums. 

2. Top 10 Finish

I recently scored a Top Ten trophy on a local loop, which is really an embarrassment for the entire Chattanooga trail running community. I shouldn't have a top ten finish in anything. My high school basketball coach told me I ran like a 40-year-old man was fifteen. By that math, today I run like I'm 88.  

3. Local Legend

The Local Legend is a recent(ish) addition to Strava that rewards athletes who log the most attempts on a segment over a rolling 90-day period. TBH, I love it. It is the achievement I covet the most. To be a Local Legend, you don't have to be fast, you just have to be persistent. Or, you just have to be the only person on Strava ripping through that obscure back alley segment. 

4. KOM

Coming in hot with a side of bacon! We all have seen that guy (always a guy) blasting down the trail heat-seeking the much-sought-after "King of the Mountain" crown. Often, these bozos are so trophy hungry they forget they're not the only ones on the trail. 

5. No Bathroom Breaks

The data scientists and app developers at Strava Inc. need to make this achievement a thing. The only thing worse than a sloppy poo-poo sliding out your sweaty buttcheeks on a muggy summer day is an unplanned sloppy poo-poo sliding out your sweaty buttcheeks surrounded by poison ivy and mosquitos midway through your long run. Its avoidance should be celebrated. 

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Not My Words: Upon That Mountain

Paul scrambling the ridge of the East Face North Side of Seal Rock, Colorado

Trying to explain why we enjoy the things we enjoy is actually quite difficult. Why do I enjoy riding single-speed bicycles, climbing 5.4 multi-pitch, or eating Wendy's Baconators? Uh, because I do. How does anyone enjoy listening to The Beatles? I honestly do not know. Then again, I like music that's mostly yelling. I also enjoy reading mountaineering literature. In the excerpt below, early-20th Century alpinist Eric Shipton reflects on why he climbs mountains with a romantic eloquence far more charming and convincing than, "Uh, because I do." I thoroughly enjoy reading it and I hope you do too. 

It is impossible of course to provide an entirely satisfactory explanation for any recreation. The predominant motive in any human activity varies according to the temperament of the individual. Mountaineering provides good exercise in pleasant surroundings, a sense of satisfaction in overcoming difficulties, the joy, akin to dancing, of controlled rhythmic movement, a stimulating contact with danger, a wealth of beautiful scenery and a release from the tiresome restrictions of modern life. The expert likes to practice or display his skill. Some confess to having been drawn to climbing by a physical inferiority complex engendered by their failure at school to hit a ball straight and far. 

These motives are probably sufficient in themselves, and they certainly form the basis of many other sports. But in the deep devotion to any form of active endeavor there is generally something else we seek. In the case of mountaineering it is a kind of personal identification with the hills themselves, which comes of intimate understanding and strenuous contest and which brings with it a wealth of philosophical content. Above all, in my view, the attraction lies in the memory of those rare moments of intellectual ecstasy which occur perhaps on a mountain summit, perhaps on a glacier at dawn or in a lovely moonlit bivouac, and which appear to be the result of happy coincidence in the rhythm of mind and scene. These moments are not of course peculiar to mountaineering; they may be realized in deserts, on the sea and elsewhere. Such exaltation of feeling is achieved more often, I imagine, and in more normal circumstances by the mind of the creative artist, but for ordinary folk it would seem that it is more readily found in close contact with nature. -- Eric Shipton, Upon That Mountain (1944)

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The Adventure Spectrum

My wife might tell you that running in our neighborhood is an adventure. She's not wrong. It's not uncommon to be chased by dogs; she's been bit and has the scars to prove it. There's an old abandoned textile mill riddled with bullet holes across the street and we've seen the S.W.A.T. team on our block more than once. (Google how often "no-knock warrant" and other S.W.A.T. raids enter the wrong home.) Running in our neighborhood is exciting and even occasionally hazardous. 

My friends would tell you that raising children is an adventure. It seems like it. I've been around my nieces and nephew enough to know that their first steps, that first word, or the meltdown in a grocery store aisle certainly feel adventurous. But that isn't what we think about when we think about the word "adventure." I mean, there are not a lot of National Geographic cover stories on dropping off your kid for the first day of kindergarten. And don't expect an American Alpine Club grant for running around the block. 

“Real adventure is defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive, and certainly not as the same person.” -- Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman (2005)

I love Yvon Chouinard. I love Patagonia. I wish I could afford it. But this definition excludes a lot of adventure. For one, I try to mitigate not coming back alive as much as possible. Given the choice between hiking off the top of a climb and rappeling, I choose to hike every time. For that matter, you're more likely to die riding your bike to the grocery store in this country than you are climbing El Capitan. So living in a city with inadequate bicycle infrastructure, which is most American cities, basically means you're Alex Honnold. Except nobody actually thinks that, so this definition of adventure is insufficient. 

I started thinking critically, or thinking at all, about the word "adventure" in 2010 or 2011 when I watched 180° South. There's a line, also from Yvon Chouinard, that lodged its way into my brain and has managed to stay there for over a decade. 

"The word 'adventure' has just gotten overused. For me, adventure is when everything goes wrong. That's when the adventure starts." -- Yvon Chouinard, 180 South (2010)  

There's something admirably laconic about Mr. Chouinard. And it's true! I didn't think about leading youth backpacking trips as "adventure." Other than interpersonal relationships with the campers, it was pretty mechanistic. Water source here. High camp there. Summit before noon. Et cetera. But then there was that one week on trail when a mama bear and her two cubs woke us up in our low camp; and a kid went to the bathroom without a buddy, got lost, cliffed out, and cheese grated down a twenty-five-foot slab of Rocky Mountain granite; and we called off our summit attempt due to snow, and after we turned around, a different kid slipped and I had to glissade to his rescue. That week was an adventure.

I may not have thought about those trips as an adventure, but those kids sure did. Most of them came from the flatlands of America to sleep outside and climb to the tops of mountains for the first time in their lives. Every week was an adventure for them.

"I came to the conclusion that adventure is different for everyone. Just as climbing Everest is an adventure to a seasoned mountaineer, a baby’s first steps are adventurous for both a child and her parents. Both are new, exciting, and daring acts. Between staying at home on the couch and full-blown expeditions, there is a wide spectrum of adventure." -- Joey Homes, "Defining Adventure: Thoughts From Biking in Wales," Outdoor Women's Alliance 

Now we're getting somewhere! Adventure is a matter of perspective relative to experience. Adventure can be climbing a big, airy, exposed arete and running in a neighborhood that some of your friends don't want to visit after dark. Adventure isn't a clearly defined category but a spectrum to be explored.

"Gunsight to South Peak Direct," Seneca Rocks, WV

[Insert hard segue into exploring "adventure" from perspectives other than your own.] Malik Martin has shared summits with Conrad Anker, Manoah Ainnu, and Jimmy Chin. He's also the videographer behind Black Ice, a short film about Memphis-based rock climbers ice climbing in Montana. I stumbled across this Instagram post from Malik a few months back and saved it.

"I’ve been on a few expeditions where the journey to the summit gets extremely dangerous and not fun. I often tell my mentors that if I wanted to risk my life I’ll drive my car without a license or walk around the suburbs... Being black in the outdoors is an unnecessary experience that I want to extend to my people and my peers." -- Malik Martin, @malikethamartian, Instagram (May 20, 2021)

That'll make us rethink Chouinard's definition from Let My People Go Surfing. 

"Adventure," as we so often think of it in National Geographic or Patagonia catalogs, is unnecessary; a product of leisure afforded by relative privilege. Everybody deserves leisure. "Bread for all, and roses too," the old labor movement sang. Everybody deserves adventure, whether it's riding your bike somewhere to make coffee, backpacking with a group of inner-city teens, or climbing a really big mountain, even if it's just really big to you. And everybody deserves to stay home on the couch as well because watching t.v. rules. 

What's your (definition of) adventure? 

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