“Anything that stays in the same soil too long withers and eventually dies. I think people are the same way. If we stay too long in the same soil, we start to dry up inside. Soon, there’s nothing left but the shell and even after a while, even THAT goes. If we do the same things, in the same way, over and over, in time, we fall asleep in our own lives — until something happens to wake us up. That’s when, like any living thing, you have to take yourself out of where you ARE and out yourself BACK where you SHOULD be, where you started OFF before you fell asleep. You have to rotate back to fertile ground… to the soul that nourished you… back to the earth.” Pa Kent in SUPERMAN #700
The past monht of June, DC Comics celebrated three of the anniversary issues of three of their comic icons — Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. As a kid, I have been a fan of these characters and I have a collection of their comics. I made it a point to save up for Superman 75 which was The Death of Superman issue. At the time, part of me knew that they wouldn’t really keep Superman dead for long. The comic book may have suffered from declining sales and even now, kids no longer collect comic books — it is the adults who grew up with these characters who are reading and purchasing what are now called “graphic novels.”
Superman 700
Anyway, I started with that line quoted from Pa Kent because it speaks to me. They say that you can’t learn a thing about comics and that they are only for kids. But did you know that most of the movements of the Culture Revolution in China was done through comic books? That is how they were able to capture the young peoples’ hearts and imagination. And even now, many of the movies produced throughout the world are influenced by or are adaptations of comic books. The most recent adaptations to films include The Losers, Kick Ass ands American Virgin just to name a few.
Getting back to that quote I shared earlier, I suddenly miss having a garden. One of the things that I enjoyed as a child was that I grew plants and vegetables just outside of our house. Our mother would often tell us that it is pretty useless to plant anything since we were just renting out and that we will not be able to benefit from anything that we plant there. Seventeen years later, my mother is silent about the entire thing and she just remembers that the best avocados that she ever tasted was those that were planted by me, and that I can still recall all the other vegetables from eggplants to lettuce that we harvested.
But did you know that what Pa Kent mentioned is also in the Bible? I can’t seem to recall what particular verse at the moment, but the Jews were mandated that every seventh year, they are not to plant anything and that they are to plant something new. Even scientific research has proven this too. And yet year in and year out, I see farmers still planting the same crops spanning decades here in the Philippines. Then people start to wonder why the land is not producing enough. I guess there are some rules of nature that we have to respect and do not change. And in the same way, these rules apply in our lives.
Tomorrow, I will be doing my seventh marathon, the MILO Manila eliminations leg. I do not aspire to qualify for the Nationals in December because I know myself and it is too much to push for a sub-four hours finish knowing that is more than an hour from my usual marathon finish time. But I also realize that for the past three months, I took things easy, resting and recovering from my first ultramarathon. When I think about Pa Kent’s words on soil and plants, it makes me think that the roads of Manila have become too familiar to me that I no longer push myself towards the next level. In my work, I feel that after three years I am just taking root and beginning to feel the energy of the earth rushing through my veins — figuratively speaking that is.
So tomorrow, I am pushing myself again and targeting a finish time of 4 hours and 30 minutes. My usual marathon pace is 5 hours. It will be a challenge, but after six marathons, it is time for me to take it to the next level. It is time for me to “rotate back to fertile ground… ”
“I run in such a way as not without aim…. ” 1 Corinthians 9: 26 NASB
