Marathons and the New Age

On Saturday night, Richie was riding his bike around town with his friend Kristen. Richie enjoys looking in art galleries so when he spotted one while they were riding he slammed on the brakes and entered to look at the paintings. They were all very nice and interesting to examine. Richie likes trying to understand depth and perception and how the artist puts the paint together in order to get the viewer to see a particular image. An interesting prospect for Richie's inquisitive mind.

They left this gallery and kept riding only to spot another not too far down the road. This one had only two other people in it. Richie and Kristen quietly entered the gallery and spent sometime observing the art. The style was completely different, much more impessionistic and "a study of color and their effect on the mind" as the artist Sara put it. Her and her friend were there in the gallery relaxing and waiting for dinner to be done. At least this is what I believe they were doing as after Richie and kristen spoke to them for a while they said dinner was done so Richie and kristen had to leave. Anyway, they began to speak to Richie and Kristen and pretty soon it was evident to Kristen that they were new age. Things turned to what Richie and Kristen were doing in Amsterdam. This easliy lead to the words Christian Hostel, which revealed Richie and Kristen to be Christians. Sara and her friend readily accept this as they would accept any other religion. Of course they did say that they disagreed with some interpretations of the Scripture. Probably some interpretation that has to do with Jesus being the way, the truth, and the life and no one getting to the Father except through Jesus. This, however, did not come up. Anyway, Sara's friend was a gardener and enjoyed philosophizing. They especially enjoyed it when they found out Richie was a math major. Math is the language of the universe and there are many philosophies that run from math. So the gardener liked speaking of such things. Additionally, Sara gave Richie and Kristen a blessing from the Universe through a dance she performed close to when Richie and Kristen left. It was nice, but Richie found himself wondering what was blessing him so he prayed and asked God to bless him through this woman's dance. The gardener also gave Kristen some flowers as a gift from the universe or maybe from him.

Then Sunday was the Amsterdam Marathon. Richie decided to go. He watched and took some pictures at the 5K mark and then watched the finish. He enjoyed being in the running culture as it is one of those things that transcend culture. So Richie felt as much at home there as he felt in America. The winner ran a 2:06 with some seconds. Quite a fast pace.