As the day of the race nears to T-minus 9 days, I think it's time the Phat Pastor announces his official song for this year's race.
Eric the Buckeye and I like to joke about how our respective educational experiences are different even though we grew up in the same town, during the same era. EtB, being the son of a good Roman Catholic doctor attended the local catholic High School (Lima Central Catholic) while I, being the son of a good Protestant-public-school-educated civil engineer attended the large inner-city public high school (Lima Senior High School). There were lots of differences in our experience (like EtB wore nerdy uniforms to school, while I happily wore Hawaiian shirts just about every day of my senior year), but one of the biggest was music. Name any half-assed hair band or pop music sensation from the 80's and EtB knows who they are. When we travel in his car somewhere he even plays the "name the artist/band" game where he fires up a tune on his I-Pod, and everyone has to guess who did the recording. EtB can name every one-hit wonder who ever had their song played on 92ZOO. Probably had one of those ZOO bumper stickers on the Buckeyemobile he drove to school each day.
While I was not immune to Poison (which I never liked, not when they were popular and not now) or Tears for Fears (did like these guys.... too bad they only had one decent album in them), growing up in an urban public school did expose me at a young age to funk, R&B, hip hop, and rap. Some of those artists were popular in the mainstream. Others weren't. All I know was that I attached coat hangers to my stereo so I could pick up 107.7 in Dayton to hear Whoodini, LL Cool J, Parliament, Zapp, and other great music that at the time was not readily available on local radio or on MTV. So EtB plays some song by Aldo Nova and I'm clueless, but he fires a Kool and Gang or Earth, Wind and Fire or Slave (a personal favorite) tune at me, and I'm all over it.
So, this year's official tune of the Phat Pastor as he trains and runs this year's H2H4 5k race is "Victory" by Kool and the Gang. Victory not in the sense that I'll actually beat anyone in the race (heck, my associate pastor, Charlotte, has all but made it a personal vendetta to whip me that morning... she's been training like a maniac and looking great... got me a little nervous to be truthful) or even raise the cash I did last year ($3k, or $1000 per mile... that was pretty unbelievable).
I choose "Victory" because in this Christian life, defeat ultimately isn't an option. Defeat not even by death which ultimately has no power of us (not that I want to test that anytime soon, or anything, but yet I still believe). That's why while the odds in Haiti have always been long for any kind of improvement and growth over the long term, we don't give up. Eventually, recovery will come one way or another. We'd just rather be a part of the solution, however small or large that might be, of the provision of basic health care, clean water, and a decent education to Haitians who work hard every day just to survive.
Victory over hopelessness and helplessness by just giving people a chance. Chances make Champions, and Champions taste Victory, so here it is:
You can still sign up to run on May 22nd by clicking on our H4H2 link or click the donate button below to sponsor the Phat Pastor either with a flat donation, by the mile (3 total) or the kilometer (5 total). Every dollar goes to our humanitarian work conducted in an attitude of servanthood for the people of Haiti.
