A Story of Banana Bread and Communion

One of my favorite scenes in the movie "Fordson: Faith, Fasting and Football" takes place among four unsuspecting football players, on the field, during practice. It is the holy season of Ramadan, which requires Muslims to fast from food and drink from sunrise to sunset. A microphone listens in on their conversation, but they don't know it. Standing in a small huddle, they stretch and start talking. They could talk about anything, but they don't.

This is a fascinating movie about what it means to be Arab-American, Muslim and more

"I'm dreaming of a Snickers bar right now. No, I want a Snickers ICE CREAM bar and Mountain Dew. I want it so badly I think I could throw up." Another player agrees as one looks at a teammate off in the distance. He is drinking water from the fountain (he must not be Muslim). "I think he's drinking from the fountain of heaven right now."

A collective "wow" comes from my students. And laugher does too, but the student athletes and I laugh from a deeper place. It need not be a high holy day--a day to fast or abstain from meat. It could be any day at practice, really. Perhaps you get it. Maybe you agree. How's that?

I can't tell you the number of conversations I have had with my athletes and my own former teammates about food. It's just so easy to talk about. It's the most basic of all human connections; it can be a cultural and religious connection too. Food can tie one generation to the next. It marks history and is passed on through tradition. And when it is shared after a hard work out and serves as something more than just fuel, it can be an act of communion or transformation. Indeed, food has that kind of power. Jesus modeled that for us in his final hours as He shared a meal with His disciples.

I thought about those conversations when one of the chairs of the International Food Faire at St. Ignatius College Prep, where I teach, asked me to share a recipe. She wrote "This year, we have attached an SI Food Faire Cookbook to the IFF website.Through the Food Faire Cookbook, we hope to highlight and share our community’s rich and diverse culture and traditions. I would like to invite you to submit a recipe with a little story. It does not have to be anything complicated or elaborate. It can be your favorite grilled cheese sandwich or root beer float. The idea is that all good food have stories behind them and those stories need sharing just as much as the food."

Gracie Girl on her special day

It was an honor to share not only my recipe for Quick and Healthy Banana Bread but the narrative that accompanies it. In talking about baking, I also had an opportunity to reveal the love that went into making this bread for a certain team several years ago. You can read the story here.

I wasn't able to make it to the 23rd annual Food Faire, but that was a for a good reason. My God-daughter and niece, Grace made her First Holy Communion at St. Peter's on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. In the twelve years I have worked at SI, I have not missed the IFF, but I know that today, I simply took part in the Communion of a shared meal, in another way.

I am grateful for the way both events have afforded tremendous spiritual nourishment.

Photo Credits
Fordson

Did Pope Francis Coach Cross Country?

A very close friend recently shared with me that her daughter has decided to join the middle school cross country team.  In a text message she wrote, "They run in the summer on Friday nights for conditioning.  Any tips coach?" 
There are so many things I love about her message. 

First...that she asked for tips /advice.  Coaching cross country is an art form.  Learning how to be a coach, let alone a good one takes time.  The same is true for becoming a cross country runner.  Because everyone knows how to run, there's a sense that the fittest person with the most stamina wins the race.  They assume the best coach is the one who runs their athletes the hardest; or, the one who is organized and pushes for longer, harder and faster.  The truth of the matter is  there is a method to the madness of running this long distance sport. Runner and athlete should know that humility, respect and optimism are good things to bring to a start line.  

Second...that she will come to the sport by way of summer running.  Every XC coach knows success during the season is contingent on three things: June, July and August. The fact that this middle school program will condition its runners before it puts them to the line in the fall is wonderful.  Conditioning is light and fun, yet challenging and rewarding.  The real workouts will begin when the season does; this will welcome Riley  and other girls into the fold with ease and grace.

Third...that her daughter has decided to participate in a great sport.  Cross country is hard and it's no glory.  It's also intensely team oriented, though individual.  Her daughter is going to learn so much about herself and her friends.  I believe Pope Francis would agree.

On June 7, 2013  NCR reported "Pope Francis ditched a 1,250-word prepared speech to students saying it would be "a tad boring" to read out loud and opted instead to just quickly hit the high points and spend the rest of the time answering people's questions.

In his speech, he told them "the journey of life "is an art" that isn't easy because it requires juggling the need to move forward with the importance of taking time to reflect.

"If we walk too quickly, we'll get tired and won't be able to reach our destination," yet if we stop or take our time, "we won't get there either." Life's journey "is truly the art of looking at the horizon, reflecting on where I want to go, but also putting up with the fatigue from this journey," he said.

"Don't be afraid of failure," he said. The problem with the journey of life and faith isn't falling; it's not getting back up.

"Get right back up immediately and keep going," he said.

Don't embark on this journey alone, either, he said, because that would be "awful and boring." Go as a "community with friends and people who care about you very much because that will help us get to our destination," he said.

I read his words and thought to myself, Did he coach cross country?  

Cross country runners know that you cannot run the first mile too quickly.  If you do, the second and third will be miserable.  Learning how to pace yourself, how to lead and to follow, when to make a move and when to hold steady is running strategy.

XC runners also know how to put up with fatigue from the journey.  "Our sport is your sport's punishment" is a popular adage on cross country t-shirts.  The fatigue is implied!  

Every race has one winner.  Does that mean that every runner who completes the race has failed?  No. Runners strive for a PR for a reason--a "personal record" can help your team win and is the standard by which every runner aims to improve.

Runners fall.  In "Running for Jim" Jennie Callan on the University High School cross country team fell at the beginning of the California state championship meet.  If she had not gotten back up, her team would not have clinched.

Cross country would be awful and boring if it weren't for the stories runners share, the games we have played, the songs we have sung.  Runners get through hard workouts, over steep hills and dusty, dirty trails because of their teammates and coaches--people who care about them, who love them and share something very special--the joy of running.  

Pope Francis is on to something....whether he intended for it to be applied to a sport I've coached for 10 years now, or not.  I hope that Riley and every other young person new to running finds truth in the sport and the pursuit of their very best.

Photo Credits
Pope Francis
Start Line
SI Team: Paul Totah

Running for Jim: Love in Action

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This year, my favorite unit to teach in the Foundations of Ethics: Morality and Justice course was on human sexuality.  That's because a few minor adjustments made the conversations and subject matter--although challenging--much more truthful, open and engaging.  One change was beginning with the classical definition of love.  For juniors in high school, defining love should seem unnecessary, but the world today defines it differently. According to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, to love is "to will the good of another."  Notice it does not say anything about oneself, there are no "I" or "me" statements to be found.

My students read it, but it didn't stick until I gave an example I learned from my sister.  Anne Frank was sent to the concentration camp with her mother Edith and sister Margot.  Edith did not eat so that her two daughters could get enough food.  She willed the good of another--her two daughters.  She loved them to her death...and theirs.  

An example of men and women who love in this way are necessary.  Fortunately, I found an extraordinary one in Jim Tracy, the boys and girls cross country coach at University High School in San Francisco and the subject of a new documentary "Running for Jim."  

Jim's story came to public attention when one of his athletes Holland Reynolds completed the 2010 California state cross country meet in a very dramatic fashion.  She suffered severe dehydration and collapsed but a few feet from the finish line.  Her sheer will to win for her teammates and for her coach, secured University's 8th state championship title.  This documentary chronicles the effect that desire and determination has had on other athletes; Coach Tom Coughlin of the New York Giants showed it to his team who went on to win SuperBowl.  

But "Running for Jim" also tells the tragic love story of a man and running.  It shares his  upbringing that exposed him to the sport in a unique way, how it shaped his life-the friendships he made, the path is forged in high school, college and beyond and how it was slowly yet surely taken from him by Lou Gehrig's disease.  Well, almost.  

As said in Outside the Lines: The Finish Line, Jim Tracy never married.  His athletes are his children; his team is his family.  This family has not left his side as his illness has progressed nor has his sense of humor and optimistic spirit.  Today, he coaches from a motorized wheelchair.

And you better believe he coaches them.  Several of his runners repeat his motto: We train farther than we race, so the race seems short; and we train faster than we race, so the race seems easy. He challenges every athlete with immediate and authentic feedback.  One athletes recalls having a bad race; she said "that might not be one of the best times you've had, but at last you got a good workout."  In that moment, athlete and coach know the truth.  The only thing to do is be honest and stay positive.  Jim does both.

He never boasts about the relationship he has with his runners. He loves them in the way that St. Paul describes in his first letter to the Corinthians (3:14).  Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.  In a humorous scene  Jim says "I figure they get enough love from their parents and teachers.  So I don't give them much.  Rather, I push them harder."  The audience knows he's lying.  

And we know they love him because as St. Ignatius of Loyola says "love is shown in deeds."  Much to his chagrin, Jim's athletes discover and decide to celebrate his birthday.  They sing to him, bring him a cake and are overjoyed to celebrate a life that is now battling ALS. He doesn't want the attention.  He smiles, gives thanks and says that everyone gets to have his cake and eat it too.  As the scene unfolds, the voice over from Jim reveals a very personal testimony.  "When they achieve what they have set out to do, when they improve, when they realize what their true potential is and when they excel--I feel good."  Even though it's his birthday, nothing in the scene is about Jim.  

His remarks shouldn't be counter-cultural, but they are.  Too often I hear (and it may be true) "When I improve, when I excel...I feel good."  This is valuable and worthy, but that feels much different than what I was looking at and taking in from the movie screen.  I saw a man who has found through his life's work to "will the good of the other."  It doesn't get more loving than that.

John Paul II said time and again "Man finds himself only by making himself a sincere gift to others" (Gaudium et Spes, no. 24).  The world might see all that Jim Tracy has lost with his disease, but to watch this documentary is to know and be a witness to all that he has found...and been given.  All of which has been made possible because of his two great loves: running and his athletes.  I hope you are able to see love made flesh, love in action: "Running with Jim." 

Photo Credits
Finish
Presidio Trail
Banner
Poster