Josh Cox:
Forgotten Number Four
(Elite Athlete Blog - Entry #7)
Posted April 17th, 2008 at 12:00 PM by Josh Cox
Section: News & Results, Marathons, Elite Athlete Blogs, Josh Cox
Welcome to the official blog of U.S. marathon runner Josh Cox. Every other Wednesday visit http://joshcox.thefinalsprint.com for Cox’s latest blog entry and for more information, also please visit: www.joshcox.com
“Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.”
–Jesse Owens, 4 time Track and Field Gold Medalist at the 1936 Olympic Games
“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.”
–C. S. Lewis
“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”
–Charlotte the spider in EB White’s “Charlotte’s Web”
I get loads of email from strangers. When you write blogs, have Myspaces, Facebooks and a contact button on your website, it comes with the territory. My latest “Miracles” installment solicited a Santa sized bag of digital mail. For every public comment I receive, another five appear in the inbox. If a common theme arises I address it in the comments of the blog – years of blogging tells me this is the best course of action. This way the popular, pertinent issues get addressed. If I’m busy this doesn’t always happen. So before diving into this entry I’ll let the mail senders know I’ll be answering their questions and keeping the comment section of the last blog alive and kicking.
One blog comment over at my Myspace – this blog’s vacation home - asked me to prove God’s existence, to show real empirical evidence for His existence. Another email stated, [paraphrased] “If it can’t be viewed and tested in a lab then it isn’t real.”
That brings us to Sunday, family beach day. Dan and I finished our 15-miler along the coast and headed to the sand to play Wiffle ball with my two nephews, Carson and Brandon, and their 7’6” high jumper, dad, Jim. We took our hacks and after a few hits we ran along an imaginary base path. Few things are as fun as watching my nephews swing the stick and race around fictitious bases while Dan, Jim and I act like a group of intoxicated Bad News Bears dropping and overthrowing balls as they slide into home. Why was this so exciting? Pure, unadulterated, joy.
They love the game and I love them. (If you don’t have a real, honest to goodness, friendship with someone under the age of ten then you are missing out on a beautiful part of life.)
I enjoyed watching them succeed.
Why was I so elated watching Meb win his silver medal in Athens? Friendship.
Why was I jumping off my couch while watching Ryan run 2:06 this past weekend? Friendship.
Friends like watching friends succeed.
There’s an old Swedish proverb I love,
“Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.”
That’s friendship.
Tuesday night Carrie and I had dinner with Ryan and Sara at La Jolla’s Burger Lounge. The Hall’s had just returned from Ryan’s triumphal romp through London, it was Sara’s birthday and we were returning their beloved child, Kai the wonderdog.
Carrie and I both thought the food was great, and we’re not burger people.
Ryan and I talked about the race, his plans, my plans and our collective plans for global domination – you know, typical guy stuff. I overheard Carrie and Sara talking about Africa – a common passion of theirs – then stopped listening. 30 years of experience with three older sisters has taught me I’m better off not listening in on girl talk.
The five of us had a great time.
I say all that to preface what came next. On the way home, as I drove up Torrey Pines, I thought - how do you prove friendship?
Fortunately for my wife I don’t voice every random thought.
My mind tends to spatialize everything. Trouble is, not all of reality involves space. Everything isn’t in the physical realm. How does one go about proving friendship? Do we stick it in a lab? How does one go about proving love? Do we stick it in a tube? Can we see friendship? No, but I’d bet my life that it’s real. Can we probe love under a microscope? No, but love is real, love is powerful. Love loves the loveless, gives to the selfish, hopes in the hopeless, returns blessings for curses, prays for enemies, and other utterly unbearable things. That is the power of love. That’s what makes love - love.
We made it home and I immediately went back to work polishing up my next entry, “Miracles: 50.” This was the heavy hitting one; the account of the day that forever changed my faith, a day unlike any I’d had before and any I’ve had since. This was the day I quit putting limits on what God could do. This was the day my faith catapulted into something else, something more, something bigger than faith. This day changed everything, my faith wasn’t something merely hoped for - it was something real and palpable. This day was my alter, my stake in the ground – moving forward it wouldn’t matter if Nietzsche called it nonsense or Dawkins called it delusion. This day was a miracle so big, so tangible, that it made the side of the road water episode seem like a cheap parlor trick.
I loved writing the entry and couldn’t wait to fire it off.
Then came a call from the bedroom, “Babe, will you come cuddle with me?”
The wife.
In my short married life I’ve learned that cuddling is key cog in the marriage machine.
Cuddling? I have work to do.
We don’t even do anything exciting when we cuddle. We just lay there – I don’t get it.
“What’s that babe?” I answered. Please say never mind, please say never mind.
“Come cuddle with me.”
No luck.
“Just a sec, almost finished.”
Five minutes passed, then ten. Still working.
Things are supposed to get shorter as I edit, not longer. Why does this always happen? Just shut up Josh. Less words, not more. You see; I’m blowing it even now. Stop typing.
Five more minutes. Another call, “Honey, I’m going to sleep, just cuddle me when you get in bed so I know you’re here.”
I stopped.
Number four - forgotten again.
In my last entry I said I learned three things through the death of my dad. I numbered them – to keep things short. Truthfully, I could list 101 things. The sad thing is I left out the most important point. As soon as the entry posted I kicked myself. How could I omit that? Why didn’t I put number 4?
I had talked about it in an interview with Adam here at The Final Sprint, with Bob Babbitt in an interview over at Competitor.com, I’d even written about it in previous blogs - but writing is cheap, talk is cheaper, and if I can’t live out, what I spew out, then I ought to keep it in.
Work will wait.
I got up, entered the love nest, kissed my wife, cuddled for ten minutes, gave her an abbreviated back massage and lulled her to sleep with a soft rendition of Lay Lady Lay. I slipped out and manned my post back here in my little red writing chair.
Living what we write - living what we say. The problem isn’t that most of us don’t know what to do; we just lack the courage and freedom to do it. We’re held captive by invisible chains. True freedom is the ability to say no to the thing we want to do and do the thing we know we ought to do. Doing - not hearing - makes the difference. Action. Not intent.
So for those expecting the second installment of “Miracles,” sit tight for two weeks. I needed to write this one for me.
Number 4. Taken from my dad’s deathbed at the hospice. “Josh, only two things matter – your relationship with God and your relationship with man.”
You don’t know my dad but coming from him - the former President of Lincoln Financial (www.lfg.com) , a man who worked through the night, a man who made millions - that hit like a 747 shoved off a skyscraper.
If you want to know our family story go rent Adam Sandler’s “Click.”
Sandler - Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, SNL - this is going to be funny right? No. I cried like a five year old staring at the carnage of his truck smashed puppy. That movie was scary. Ask my mom or any of my five brothers or sisters – it was like watching a fictitious rendering of our lives. After that I even bought my mom’s husband, Larry, red Speedos for his birthday. Watch the movie and you’ll understand. Family first.
With that said, I now offer forgotten number four:
4) Relationships are more important than agendas. Relationships are more important than work. When it’s all said and done, the thing that matters most are the people you love and the people that love you.
There is a time for work and a time for rest. It’s why we have the Sabbath; it’s why we go to the beach. It’s why my wife hides my computer one day a week – usually Sunday. (Good idea, Tracy).
One Sabbath, two thousand years ago, Jesus’ buddies were picking grain and the religious guys – the Pharisees - rebuked them for doing work, Jesus responded, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2)
The day off is for our benefit not God’s. It’s a day when “the work is done, even when the work isn’t done.” It’s a day to invest in the thing that matters most - our relationships.
A fast car or a big house won’t hold your hand when your body is riddled with cancer. Your 401(k) won’t bust you out of the hospital when you’re sick of nurses drawing blood.
That day was awesome. La Mesa’s Grossmont Hospital.
Nurse opens door.
“Mr. Cox, we need to take some more blood.”
“Oh sure, honey.” That’s what my dad called all the nurses. “Would you mind coming back in ten minutes?”
“No problem Mr. Cox.”
Door shuts.
“Josh, let’s get out of here. I’m not giving them any more blood.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Wheel chair - a jacket for cover - an elevator - the parking lot - see ya in traffic.
May this blog, and the number 4, forever serve as my reminder - God, family, friends… relationships, relationships, relationships.
The Byrds have a song, Turn! Turn! Turn!
(When I watched that vid I was reminded of Nirvana’s In Bloom)
The Byrd’s song was taken straight from Ecclesiastes 3 :
“To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep…
A time to dance, a time to mourn.”
There’s a time and a season for everything. When your wife wants to cuddle, cuddle. When your friend runs a 2:06 - it’s a time to dance and a throw a blog party - not continue on with your blog agenda.
Proverbs 27:2 says, “Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth.” And since we all know Ryan is a God fearing, Bible reading brother, I’ll do the honors… “MAN!
THAT WAS AWESOME! GREAT JOB!”
Below are two videos. The first is Ryan’s workout video that, by now, most of you have probably seen. The second is the live-middle-of-the-night race coverage from our home in Cardiff and some cool dog tricks. In my opinion, had the pacers found a rhythm and not been all over the board with their first half splits it would have reaped another 20 seconds for the guys at the finish. Just nitpicking, the pacers did a great job. Well done, Ryan.
Workout Vid
London recap: Mile splits, Highlights and dog tricks
See you all in the comments. Go cuddle.
Written while listening to Tristan Prettyman’s new album Hello, Worth Dying For’s self titled album, a host of Mat Kearney (one t in Mat) tunes, Bob Dylan’s Lay Lady Lay and Constantine’s Kensington Heights album
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Tags: christianity, christians, Dan Browne, elite athlete blog, elite athlete blog series, faith, friendship, god, jesus, josh cox, Jr., London Marathon, marathon, relationships, Ryan Hall, sara hall, thefinalsprint.com elite athlete blog series, theism, track and field, waffle ball
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The Final Sprint
I just wanted to say, I thought your last Blog was one of the best things I have ever read, but this one just blew me away. Not just the content but I have a report due for my academic writing class on “How is God real?” and I was having true trouble thinking of how he is. I was thinking about miracles, and explaining them. I was thinking of reasoning…
But what you said with love and friendship truly inspired me that i have not looked at all the angles. I am going to use that (quote your saying of course) of how you can not put friendship in a lab and test it.
Once again, thanks! Keep up the good work
-Anthony
April 17th, 2008 at 9:23 amHey Josh-
Once again, I think you’ve hit this one on the head. I decided to leave the “lurking” phase and enter the “participation” phase, especially after your reference to my sons.
Relationships ARE everything. The ‘quality’ of the relationships one keeps really define that person. Generally speaking, a good, personal relationship with God will create a strong, confident spirituality (eg. you, Ryan, Dan, your mom!) Honest, committed business relationships lend themselves to successful business results, especially long term (look no further than your dad’s track record on this one). True friendship is one of the most rewarding events in life. We have to place value on that!
Thanks for keeping it real Josh. I love that you are a great runner. I love that you are a great writer and thinker. I love that you are a great son, brother and uncle. And most importantly, I love that you are my friend.
Train hard. Stay healthy. Run fast.
God bless, Jim
April 17th, 2008 at 1:16 pmExcellent, excellent blog. Always so great to read your words, Josh. The part about the kiddies running around the bases… that was a visual that made me laugh. Been there! Done that! So awesome! We all need “little pals.”
Turn, turn, turn
and, of course:
Cuddle, cuddle
Take care, be true,
April 18th, 2008 at 2:32 amKaren
The workout vid wasn’t embed. The Final Sprint team will correct the error but in the meantime here’s the link to Ryan’s workout video:
http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=2313476df0d09910702f&page=1&viewtype=&category=
Thanks for the notifying emails. (Apparently not everyone who reads this blog was one of the 9000+ first week views. This are busy days with Track, Boston and the Trials - so give the guys here a break :)
I’ll be back in a few to address the other comments. Thanks for reading!
April 18th, 2008 at 1:21 pmI write nearly everything on my laptop. Years ago I wrote on my desktop iMac but after enduring long hours of sitting my back started acting up. I found if I wrote while leaning back in a chair - or a couch - my back didn’t get tight.
Currently, I’m up in Laguna at Carrie’s parents house. Yesterday my brother in law Danny hooked us up with free Phantom of the Opera tickets and we stayed in town to see my favorite violinist, Hilary Hahn, perform last night. Since we’re heading over to Mt. Sac tonight we never left the area.
Rule number one when writing on a couch: Never try to post anything while a 15 week-old German Shepherd is crawling over your lap and laptop!
Fortunately for me he didn’t step on the “Enter” key or the last post would have looked like this: the video didn’t embed sdfgfdfsfsdfgthnjdfgfdgnkjldfdfn final sprint.
Instead, I held him off with my right arm and posted the entry with my left. I was going to proof read but he now weighs 40 pounds and I couldn’t hold him off any longer!
Here’s a shot of Parker immediately after the episode:
http://www.beenup2.com/photos/126016-after-i-told-parker-not-to-jump-on-my-mac
Moving forward to the comments. Thanks Anthony. I had another paragraph exploring that angle further. I deleted it in the final edit since this is The Final Sprint and not The Final Science Lab.
The gist: (continuing the thought, “Not all of reality occupies space”) Would anyone dare say friendship doesn’t exist because it can’t be seen? What about love? We can see evidence for their existence but it can’t be tested in the traditional sense by using the Scientific Method.
What is that that scientists use in a lab and readers use while reading text?
Reasoning and logic.
Reasoning and logic are realities but they are in the realm of mind and spirit - they can’t be probed but they are true. There is a mind/spirit reality that is just as concrete as matter – except that they exist in a different dimension. (As do love and friendship)
—-
I didn’t pull the doc for the comment but you can see where I was going. That is really just the edge of the rabbit hole. My wife was a Mathematics Major (Quantum Physics minor) at UC Berkeley and she had loads of mathematical input here that I’ll omit because I don’t want anyone’s brain to fry. (She’s a total brainiac – she spoke at the graduation, designed a cooling system for a NASA spacesuit, wants to talk about String Theory etc. etc.)
Thanks for the comment, let us know how the paper turns out.
–
Jim, thanks for your friendship and for leaving the world of the lurking! It’s always better to participate. I want you to write about the day you jumped through the roof up at Fullerton. This would probably be a good time to tell the world to keep an eye out for Carson “Homerun” Cody in 2023.
Karen, thanks for reading and for the comments. Getting a response from a journalist like you is a huge compliment!
Talk soon,
–jc
April 18th, 2008 at 4:13 pmThe essay rough draft is done and I am waiting for that to be graded before I work on it again. But it came out better then I thought I could read. For the miracles section i actually quoted you with your thirty mile run, as well as your friendship/love quote. Bet you never thought you would be the basis of an essay not about running! But i was talking to my teacher after class and told him and he said that its great i was going with a unique angle with what I was doing. Then i quoted Aquinas to get something else. But you have really inspired me with what you have gone through.
I was running the other day and just thought about that 30 mile run you did (of course i could only do 11 at best because I am a mid distance runner), but we were doing our long run and I was so tired but my body just kept picking it up because I was so far from school trying to stay with some of our top guys moving at 640 pace (easy for them, nearly impossible to me) but i just though how I havent quit yet and prayed to God to just give me the strength to finish, and I stayed up and everyone was shocked a kid coming off a 3 month injury was able to knock out the last 4 miles as fast as I did.
April 18th, 2008 at 8:14 pmThe essay rough draft is done and I am waiting for that to be graded before I work on it again. But it came out better then I thought I could read. For the miracles section i actually quoted you with your thirty mile run, as well as your friendship/love quote. Bet you never thought you would be the basis of an essay not about running! But i was talking to my teacher after class and told him and he said that its great i was going with a unique angle with what I was doing. Then i quoted Aquinas to get something else. But you have really inspired me with what you have gone through.
I was running the other day and just thought about that 30 mile run you did (of course i could only do 11 at best because I am a mid distance runner), but we were doing our long run and I was so tired but my body just kept picking it up because I was so far from school trying to stay with some of our top guys moving at 640 pace (easy for them, nearly impossible to me) but i just though how I havent quit yet and prayed to God to just give me the strength to finish, and I stayed up and everyone was shocked a kid coming off a 3 month injury was able to knock out the last 4 miles as fast as I did.
Sorry I have a habit of rambling on
April 18th, 2008 at 8:14 pmMy computer was so excited about my essay and run it posted twice…
April 18th, 2008 at 8:34 pmJC-
Another great blog. You always know how to make people think of what life should mean. You may be a stranger, but a friend you would be worth having.
In His Name,
April 18th, 2008 at 11:11 pmRay
[…] If you want to know our family story go rent Adam Sandler’s “Click.” Sandler - Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, SNL - this is going to be funny right? No. I cried like a five year old staring at the carnage of his truck smashed puppy. … Source: Josh Cox: Forgotten Number Four (Elite Athlete Blog - Entry #7) […]
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:30 amHi Josh,
I know … I know … I am so behind on my comments, it is nothing short of ridiculous. But honestly, if I were to tell you what has been going on in my world, ya wouldn’t believe it … just
gonna say that teaching college students provides for MANY interesting days.
Any hoo, can I just say how much I LOVE LOVE this blog. I love all of the JC chronicles, but this one speaks especially to me with the focus on relationships. I have always lived, and will continue to live my life based on the relationships.
I truly believe the relationships I have with my family, my friends, my amazing boyfriend, and Christ are the most important parts of my life. If I were to leave this world tomorrow, I would leave knowing that I have been truly loved and have been loved truly. I thank GOD every day for the capacity he has given me to love. I love so much it hurts … no lie. Whenever I visit my parents, I always get choked up when I leave. A visit I had a few months ago was no exception. As I was leaving, my teary-eyed self waved goodbye as my two amazing parents stood at the curb and waved back … tears just rolled down my face. I just had this overwhelming feeling of love come over me and I said out loud, “Thank you GOD for allowing me to love so deeply and thank you for blessing me with the best parents in the world” …do I need proof of this? No, I just know.
Being a doctoral student puts me in the company of those who live for statistical and empirical proof for everything … I have a handful of friends who are either agnostic or atheist and I get that question a lot … “Jodi, how do you know God is real?” I say, “I just know” … they come back with the common, “well, prove it.”
Some of the greatest wonders of our world were not meant to be defined by numbers or science. Matters of the heart, emotions of the soul, and the presence of God do not come to us packaged in these wonderful little equations. I heard a sermon one time that basically said, the sheer amazement of God is far beyond what mortal man could devise … which makes sense, how could anyone ever expect something as wonderful as God to be able to be proven based on mortal standards and conventional wisdom?
How do you KNOW when you love? you feel it … you don’t see it … sure you SEE the effects of the emotion but love itself is not a visual element. The same is true of the power of God … I see God every day in every thing and everyone who is in my life. I see him in my blessings, I see him in the sun and the rain and all that is good. For me, that is all the proof I need … but if you think about it, when you believe in something or someone you don’t need the proof, you just know. It is only those who have doubts and questions that require some sort of proof to validate the way they are feeling.
Nobody should ever have to prove their love or commitment to someone else … it should be enough for someone to simply love and be committed, that is all that should be required. I think we walk a slippery slope when we get obsessed with the idea of “proving” everything under the sun. I never want to be in a relationship where I feel as if I constantly have to prove myself or my love for someone… God is no exception, he shouldn’t be required to continually prove his love for us. As far as I am concerned he did that in the most ultimate way … through Jesus … was I there to see it happen? No, I just know.
It is so hard for believers to get this across to non-believers … but when you know, you know and that is all the proof I need.
Ahhh … sorry, for the tangential expedition … pump up the bandwidth!
~ Jodi
April 26th, 2008 at 2:21 amI just am overwhelmed by the amazing Christian community in the running world! You are all such an inspiration to me! I told my husband tonight it is because Paul was a long distance runner. How was he able to get so much evangelism done all over the place — he ran! And his running metaphors, it’s all there. :)
May 27th, 2008 at 2:47 amI was a runner who ran Division III, and my brother competed in the 2004 Swimming Olympic trials after swimming at Wisconsin. So, I did meet a lot of cool Christian athletes. But this year I am really following the American athletes for the coming Olympics! I just wanted to praise God that so many of you love Him! I am a mom now pregnant wtih my third child and I don’t really compete anymore — but it is so much fun to follow all you rage runners! YEAH!
JC,
The world is waiting for you to write a book! Hope the training is going great.
We have a huge God that is incomprehensible. Did you know that the biggest star in the universe is over 2000 times bigger than the sun? We are but a vapor, a tiny, TINY speck in God’s eyes and yet He is mindful of us. He trully loves and cares so much for each one of us. I am humbled and amazed when I think about how much God loves us. Not that we can prove that but you know that you know God exists and His love is real.
Always a blessing,
June 26th, 2008 at 7:44 pmIvy
Thanks Ivy!
The new blog, The Library should post soon! I hope you like it!
We’re in Eugene covering the Trials so keep an eye out for our video coverage!
I’ll post links at joshcox.com and my facebook.
–jc
June 27th, 2008 at 1:23 pm