Hallelujah Man

“I am afoot with my vision.”
—Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

My most lasting impression from our visit to Los Angeles in December is of a man running the hard-pack on Hermosa Beach.

The first time I saw him, he was an oddity: large and overdressed, shuffling along at the edge of the surf, somewhere between a walk and a slow, awkward run. I caught him from behind, so I didn’t see his face, but as I passed, I heard him. Every few steps, maybe with each exhale, he called out “Hallelujah!”.

He was still headed south about 30 minutes later when I passed him on my way back up the beach, still chugging along laboriously, still calling hallelujah. I saw him more clearly this time: he was barefoot and overweight, a middle‑aged Black man in rolled‑up dress slacks and a dark shirt, like he’d just stepped out of a church service and onto the sand.

He seemed so different from old and skinny me, cruising along in my shorts and hoodie, smooth and silent.

I saw him again, two days later. It was the same beach, at the same time of day, and he was in the same inappropriate clothing, with the same clumsy but determined shuffle and the same simple declaration of praise.

This time, I realized two important things:

• he was out there working at least as hard as I was, for at least as long;

• he was out there again — this wasn’t a whim, it was something he does.

And this time we made eye contact, and I gave that respectful nod of recognition we give to other runners wherever we meet them.

I don’t know his story or the specifics of his inspiration, and I doubt I share his particular flavor of religion, but I recognized what he was doing.

What exactly did I recognize? I recognized that he has a practice.

More precisely: he has a brave and authentic physical practice (public, but not a display) that’s rooted in the spiritual — and that spiritual component makes it so much more than just exercise. It lets the difficulty and discomfort become sanctified as a physical prayer, sustained over miles, repeated across days. And with repetition the practice gains power. It embodies the underlying beliefs, and reinforces them.

I recognized his practice because at its heart, it’s the same thing I do when I run, day after day, through the seasons, across the years.

Maybe you haven’t thought of your own running this way (or your hiking, pedaling, paddling... whatever repetitive physical activity you do under load). But if you sometimes do your activity when you don’t feel like it, and if somewhere on your list of why’s there is something other than just “for fun”, then you, too, have a practice.

The details of our practices (and the beliefs that feed them) are unique to each of us, but the principle translates across domains and transcends doctrine.

At base, we’re all doing the same odd, boring, challenging, wonderful thing.

That was going to be it: a simple story of unspoken solidarity with someone superficially not like me, yet in important ways very much the same. A message of spiritual unity through physical practice.

But I procrastinate (a lot). I didn’t sit down to write this until January 24th. And before I started (of course), I checked the news... and clicked into an emerging story from the streets of Minneapolis: another killing by rogue ICE agents, this one so savage and unambiguous that it stopped me cold.

Suddenly, writing about a peaceful encounter on a California beach felt irrelevant.

As people of good conscience, we see these things and feel a tragically familiar cascade: first outrage, then a strong need to do something, then that sinking realization that anything we do will be small and futile.

Of course token actions are not futile. Donations provide material support. Public statements show solidarity, and they let each of us see clearly that we aren’t as alone as we thought, that the situation is not hopeless.

But they do feel small compared to the heroic response of our peers on the streets of Minneapolis, who put their lives on hold — and on the line — to be physically present in protective support of their neighbors.

And so we’re left with an accusatory guilt, unspoken but powerful: “Why aren’t you there? Why aren’t you in Minneapolis?”

It’s the wrong question.

That rush-to-the-scene-of-the-crime impulse is the impulse of children on a soccer field, all running to the ball. We know better. We know about teamwork, about trusting our teammates to play their positions, being patient and disciplined, and being ready to play our own position when the ball comes to us.

We know we can’t be everywhere. We know bad things have been happening in many places, all around us, every day of our lives. (Perhaps, at least some of the time, in large or small ways, we’ve been working against those bad things.)

We know there’s a better question: “Will you be ready when Minneapolis comes to you?”

“Heroism isn’t some mysterious inner virtue, the Greeks believed; it’s a collection of skills that every man and woman can master so that in a pinch, they can become a Protector.”
—Christopher McDougall, Natural Born Heroes

We can’t all be in Minneapolis (or Ukraine, or any of the thousand other places people need help). But we do each have a position and a responsibility, and we can all be getting ready.

What are you uniquely qualified to do? Are you a leader, a protector, a builder, a witness, a storyteller? Do you have a hard skill that can be used for good? Are you one of the helpers Mister Rogers told us to look for when things are scary? Your position can change with the phases of your life, and it can shift from day to day and from place to place. But if you give your honest attention to the question, you’ll recognize your role.

No one can tell exactly how they’ll perform under pressure, but you can decide what you want to do, how you want to react, the kind of person you want to be. And you can prepare yourself to be that person.

This is you and your practice. Each time you go out, you learn something about yourself and what you’re becoming capable of. You get more comfortable with discomfort. You practice patience by delaying gratification. You exercise your courage — small courage, maybe, leaving the warmth of home on a cold night — but courage is a muscle. Over time, you become a better animal and a more competent human.

Going for a run isn’t going to fix the broken parts of this world. But a deliberate practice — done over and over — can make you stronger, clearer in your beliefs, more competent in the skills of your position, and more committed to playing that position with steadiness when it matters.

This evening, I’ll run in snow rather than sand, but it’s the same practice. I’ll be doing it for many reasons: to stay strong, to feel the animal joy of movement, to see the world up-close and find points of wonder in it.

But also, I’ll do it to get, to stay, to be ready.

I imagine Hallelujah Man was out on the beach today too, doing his same practice. Just as you’re out in your world doing yours.

We're all out there, present and in practice, in position and preparing, each of us hoping to perform well when the ball comes to us.

“I tramp a perpetual journey...”
— Walt Whitman, Song of Myself