The Sixth Mile

I'm slowly working my way through the Podrunner interval training program that culminates in a 10K run, which is about 6.2 miles. When I use Google's g-map pedometer, my runs usually measure out around 5.5 or 6 miles ... of course, I'm still doing intervals, so lately that has meant six 9 minute runs, interspersed with one-minute walks. The next set involves 14 minute runs: five of them interspersed with one-minute walks. That's a big jump. I'm not sure how it will go.

Well, yes I am. It will be hard. And the first attempt might not fly.

But I'm learning something from this interval approach ... as the distance has increased, I've noticed that the first segment is usually just painful; the second fells like a slog; the third begins to open up a little, with more regular breathing and a better rhythm. Usually by the fourth and fifth segments, I feel like I am running (although I am of course just jogging). The sixth segment usually feels pretty good, though my legs are tiring by then. I think the aspect of my running I am most impressed with is my breath: my breathing usually stays strong and even.

One of my favorite lessons from the intervals, though, is that the first two or three segments are the price you pay for the joy of the fourth, fifth and sixth ... sometimes in the last segments, I feel like "I ran the first part to get to run this part." I have to run that first half to feel the exhiliration of the second half, not to mention the bliss of finishing and stretching.

Lately I've been having trouble with my ankle, though, and I've been asking around for advice, doing some research, wondering if I should go to the trouble of a visit to an actual doctor. So far what I am doing (rest, ice, ibuprofen) is helping some; I am happy that I am still running, and hoping I'll get through this (like I did the sore knee last spring and the sore instep last fall ... all on the left leg. Hmm).

The dissertation is in a similar place ... pained joy, let's call it.

I finished a draft of the whole thing, mostly, around the first of the year. And found myself facing the dissertation's "sixth mile": I got this far so that now I can revise.

The draft was/is too long: almost 400 pages when 200 would have done. I've had a bad case of "I don't know what I think until I write it down." Sometimes I have thought of it as "First you make a big marble block. Then you carve it into shape."

The problem is, it is very hard to have any perspective on what you have just written, a fact I know from editing other people's work.

I knew I needed help. And I felt picky about where I would get it. Who would understand the subject matter as well as the anti-racist perspective I was trying to hold? Fellow journeyers ... I was blessed that all three of the people I asked for help agreed, and provided prompt feedback: Felipe Hinojosa took time from his own work to advise on the South Texas history chapter (a topic on which he is far more expert than me); Tobin Miller Shearer took time from his Christmas family vacation to help with the white liberations chapter; and Regina Shands Stoltzfus has given feedback across multiple chapters. I am a blessed woman, rich in wise and generous friends.

Frankly, I am still struggling, which is a little scary. I should have the conceptual frame nailed down at this point. But I left some loose boards as I went flying through the middle chapters, and one of them is coming back to haunt me.

Long-time readers will remember the challenge Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz put to me ... "I think it is not theoretically valid from the perspective of liberation theology/philosophy to construct your argument mainly around what you can do for the oppressed. The moral agency of the oppressed in the process of our liberation is very key.

For me, if you work at dismantling white racism because it is important for your own liberation -- Wow! that would be an enormous contribution. We are always struggling to find ways of convincing those in power to understand that oppressing others [is] not in their (the oppressors') best interest..." [personal communication, April 25, 2008]

I heard what Isasi-Diaz said; it shaped much of what I developed subsequently. And yet, there are key ideas that I have been holding in tension, and I know they need to be held in tension, and yet I don't know if I am giving each their due, and giving their creative tension its due.

The idea for the dissertation began with my experience of being transformed by my involvement in dismantling racism efforts; this work changed forever the way I think about loving God and my neighbors. I think there are some profoundly right things about what I have learned, and the way I have learned them. I wanted to share those right things.

Isasi-Diaz is right, of course, that white people cannot liberate Latinas/os. But we can stop what we are doing to oppress ... and we can offer ourselves as partners in the struggle, able and willing to follow the lead of Latinas/os in solidary struggles for change. And herein lies the tension: it just so happens that this shift in commitment helps bring about the change in consciousness that is liberating for white people. To seek to benefit peoples of colors is to begin to see how one has consciously and unconsciously been about the business of benefiting white people.

There's one knot of the tension: white people's work does not liberate Latinas/os (or any other group of people), and yet committing to the liberation of Latinas/os does bring about a shift in consciousness that transforms what it means to be white, in positive and justice-producing ways. So, even a theology about the liberation of white people needs to have this component in it of listening to and following the lead of and committing to the benefit of people of color -- what I think of as processes of solidary love. I don't want to give up on any of these strands. I just don't know if I have demonstrated the necessity and nature of each.

The second knot of tension is my use of Latino/a and Latin American theorists and theologians ... not to mention the wisdom of Latina pastors, scholars and activists. This project is not a survey of all available Latino/a and Latin American theorists and theologians. I have picked the people I want to quote, reference, interview, and be informed and challenged by ... yet another instance of white privilege, yes. But I have good reason for the people I have picked: either they say something directly to white people that we need to hear -- and I am using this project as a listening post -- or they work in a way that models a useful approach for us to emulate. A corollary complication is that some of the scholars are from Latin America (El Salvador in particular) and others are from the United States.

I know these are different contexts; I know the work of these scholars cannot be lumped together. And yet, I am part of both of these contexts: definitely in the case of the United States, but also in the case of Latin America. I may not seem to have direct connections with the Latin American contexts of "my" scholars, but my nation has invested in the instability and violence plaguing that region. Isn't it right to hear and attempt to learn from their understandings of the gospel, not to mention respond to the demands their understandings place on us?

I have worked carefully to appreciate, and not appropriate, not only through citations and acknowledgments but also by respecting and responding. What I have read and sought to learn from has changed my work, and me. I get a lump in my throat thinking about it. I feel inadequate to respond well enough. And I get scared when I realize I am close to the finish line, and yet still feel undone. This feels a lot more like the third interval than the sixth.

Perhaps running still has something to teach me. A few weeks ago, I was running and suddenly stumbled. And fell. No real harm done: just a scratched palm, and later some soreness in the elbow I fell onto. Unfortunately, my iPod skipped back to the beginning of the interval program ... I knew I was close to the fifth segment, so I switched to another piece of music, and chose to just run all the way home. It worked out.

I don't know why I fell; I was deep in thought as I ran. But it occurs to me that my ankle problems cropped up after that run. So, maybe I twisted my ankle. Now I am having to go back and take care of it.

I've been struggling with the challenges Isasi-Diaz put in front of me all year. If I have stumbled, I need to know. I need to resolve these ambiguities, or know that they are inherent to the mysteries of learning to be a more-just white person ...

I'm going to the doctors this week ... asking a couple of members of my committee to help me work out these knots.

I do know that a day will come when I will be able to say, "I went through that struggle to get to this joy." Right now though, it's the struggle. And I am doing my best to let it shape me, and the work.

And here, I have to say, my breathing could be better. I need to draw full and invigorating breaths from the inspiring Spirit that enlivens us all.