Feet

One of my favorite anecdotes from Born to Run reads something like this:  “Why are my feet weak?” “Because smooth roads aren’t natural, our feet are made to run on rough terrain.” What I love most about this little explanation is its simple statement of truth running contrary to most of our beliefs. One of the real-life characters encountered in Born to Run is Barefoot Ted. His name explains what he does; he runs barefoot. At ultra-marathon distances. Over rocky terrain. Even most of the ultra-running community thinks he’s a freak. He constantly gets told he’s going to get hurt and to put some shoes on, but he’s gotten used to the nay-sayers and consistently proves them wrong with each and every race. It’s his persistence, and the proof of his running ability that we are capable of running without shoes, that is to say, running without all the additional cushy support found in modern running shoe technology. It sounds absurd, but I know it’s true, even though I don’t go so far as to run barefoot. I wear those ugly, frog-footed five-finger toes instead, and I love them. The question everyone wants to know? Why!?

The answer is simple. It’s healthier. I’ve been going to a chiropractor since I was in elementary school. One of the first things I was told was that I had a flat left foot and needed to wear orthotics the rest of my life. An answer I challenged when I got out of college because I couldn’t afford new shoes and new orthotics. I had to make a choice. Continuing down the path chiropractors told me about my feet, or try and get to the source of the problem and fix it. I chose to get to the source. As I did I began to discover a few things about feet and shoes.

Feet have a quarter of the body’s bones. They also have more bones, tendons, muscles and ligaments than our hands. This subtle structural meaning? Feet are made to move. But shoes often aren’t. The goal of most running shoes is to limit motion. That’s why it’s called motion control. When the foot cannot move, its muscles atrophy. Atrophied feet are more prone to injury. Weakened feet strain more easily, but most foot injuries are not quick, they build over time. This weakening and perception of strain leads us to believe we should surround our feet with more cushioning, restricting further motion and causing strain on the knee. The more cushioning on the foot, the more the knee has to stabilize; lots of foot cushioning leads to knee problems. To compensate for knee problems, we adjust our stride and foot striking out of proper alignment. This causes hip and lower back pain. What starts at the foot effects the rest of the body, causing a host of symptoms that stem from a single problem: weak feet. How can we strengthen our feet? Let’s return to our little narrative about natural surfaces.

Since feet are so flexible, they are made to run on uneven terrain. Our modern world is full of concrete, asphalt, tiles, wooden flooring and carpeting: we’ve done everything we can to make the world smooth. After all no one wants to get sued due to the trip hazards of natural terrain. The best place to start strengthening feet is to go off-road. Do some trail running. You don’t have to climb the nearest mountain, just get away from flat. Why? Because running long distances on purely flat surfaces can cause repetitive stress injuries. The body needs variation to stay healthy. Moving over uneven terrain allows the foot to move and for muscles to fire in different patterns. Different does a body good.

If you can’t find a trail near you, try going barefoot on flat surfaces. Going barefoot removes the fluff around the foot and brings it into directly into the contact with the world, causing it to move, flex and engage like it struggles to do in a shoe. As you do this, keep this in mind: your foot has forgotten what it’s like to run barefoot. Go slow, take your time, build your strength. This strengths muscles that have weakened in the ankle, allows the knees to stabilize properly and reduces the strain on the hips and lower back.

By going nearly barefoot on smooth surfaces I overcame my injuries and have been orthotic free for the past four years. It has literally changed how I walk. I am more mindful about the muscles in my feet and I can engage them, no matter what is on my feet or what I am doing. I can stand painlessly for hours. I can walk without knee or back pain. I can lift heavy weights and not feel like an old man the next day. Discovering the power in my feet has given me the power to do life. Which is why I believe we all need to take care of our physical feet, as well as our spiritual feet.

Biblically speaking, one of the highest compliments and signs of a healthy spirit is described by walking. Not praying. Not preaching. Not even teaching. Walking. The walk is what’s most important. It triumphs over activities. Why? Because when the walk is right so is everything else. Walking rightly with God changes everything else. The walk speaks where words fail. The greatest problem with Christianity today is a walking problem. It’s not a church structure problem, a church industry problem, a church institution problem, a church education problem, a church program problem or even a church service problem. The problem is in our individual walks. Everything else is a symptom of what’s really going wrong.

The main problem? Our feet are weak. We need to strengthen them. We need to learn how to walk out what we believe.

How do we do that? By going barefoot into the world. By walking in places where the road is not smooth. Not just physically, but also relationally.

Perhaps the problem of the twenty-first century is one of comfort, and the desire for comfort is killing us.

Some say the church is anemic and dying. Some believe logic, reason and the scientific method are triumphing over old religious systems. They believe it’s time we cast the old aside in the wake of a new world order. What is this new order based on? Perfection. Advancement. Evolution. Safety. The exact same things that are the claims of running shoe technology. Which means our running shoes should be making us healthier. But they aren’t. Something is wrong with this new world order thinking; it’s not applied in real world examples. It’s based on theory and an assumption. We are not made to run. We are not made to be mobile, to walk the uneven and rugged path. We must protect ourselves from it. Such science is flat out wrong. Our anatomy proves otherwise. We are made to run, without the artificial controlling support we’ve been told we need.

Perhaps the release of Born to Run has changed people's minds about shoes, after all its been almost a decade since it hit shelves. Nope. I was in a shoe store the other day and saw a lot of the same bad technology, and I saw a bigger section of orthotics to correct what the shoes couldn’t fix. Instead of trimming down shoes and getting to the heart of our foot problems solutions have multiplied. We have the same problem spiritually, we keep adding cushion, trying to make life easier instead of stripping down to basics and walking in direct sensitive contact with the world.

So what it is that we as individual Christians need to do with our own spiritual lives? Do we need to find the hardest part of town and start a social program? Maybe, but that’s not really the answer. The answer isn’t about picking up something new, it’s about changing how we do. The answer is not to new tools, but learning to use the ones we already have. We have the tools we need, we just need to start using then.

Where? Where we are. Ministry is not a profession. It’s a lifestyle. One of walking humbly before our God wherever we are. It’s the ability to admit when we’ve done wrong. To seek reconciliation instead of continual silence. I am convinced that we know where and to whom God has called us, we just don’t want to go and don’t want to humble ourselves. Sometimes it’s easier going to Africa than to the person sitting next to you, or talking to the people we work and live life with:family members can be especially difficult. Confession and Forgiveness may be hard, but they are the tools to break the darkest of nights. Admitting wrong is the best way to start making things right. To start getting our feet off the smooth path of prideful comfort and on to the uneven road of healthy feet.

Walking as Jesus walked takes humility, we often make mistakes along the way. Pride acts as a cushion, as a justification for how we screwed up. Laying down our pride is the beginning of a new day and the strengthening of our weak feet. It’s the only way to start changing our world.