for Kellee "It's not sprints!" she exclaims, half-laughing.
I smile.
"Not sprints?" I ask. Though I know what she means, I ask with the sort of child-like meekness that a 7 year old friendship allows.
"It's not sprints..." We pause to consider; she's staring into the ground now, eyebrows up, blinking slowly. I follow her example in this and sigh.
"The race of faith is endurance training!" she declares. I jump.
She's in her element now; eyes squinted and ablaze, she dances out the description of muscles, and arteries, and blood, and whispers of that darkly sacred last repetition that everyone who exercises knows too well.
I am not one of them. I survey her with love and general amusement. Watching her, I imagine that if I didn't speak English, I would think that she was describing a war. She is describing a war. I haven't slept.
"Yeah, it's definitely not sprints- it's more like slow diligence." My voice is an emission which infects the air around us. Her familiar face turns to me with all sobriety and whispers through a smile:
"Perseverance of the saints."
This is love, the force which gently commands: "You are not free not to."
