Good news! Albert Lea was chosen by AARP / Blue Zones City Makeover to be the next “Blue Zone” community. There are several reasons why Albert Lea was chosen. Among them, our size, the average health of our population and the fact that we have ample numbers of folks who are considered to be in the “Blue Zone” age bracket.

Jen I and just ordered the book, which is a New York Times Bestseller: “Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest.” From what I’ve read about the book, it stresses stuff like eating right and building community. It makes perfect sense that the community surrounding a person would have tremendous impact on their health and well-being.

As I skim through the “Blue Zone” website, I see pages of fantastic articles which all get to the core of what makes people happy and healthy. The author of the book, Dan Buettner, is a Minnesotan with a very important vision about how to improve the quality of life, not just for older folks, but for people of all ages, and I’m confident that this “Blue Zone” effort in our community will be extremely well-received.

Here’s the article in the Albert Lea Tribune about Blue Zone folks choosing Albert Lea.

Welcome Buettner, Blue Zone and AARP!

A few weeks ago Jen and I got a new (used) treadmill. We bought it on Ebay and had it shipped via freight to Albert Lea from somewhere in the Chicago area. It’s a Precor 9.2s treadmill circa 1996.

Jen uses it for walking, as she finds running rather difficult…being due in March and all. As for me, I’m on that thing nearly every day. And to guide me in my workouts, I’m reading “Daniels’ Running Formula,” a truly amazing guide for those who wish to get themselves in tip top racing shape.

In past years, when the snow started to fly in Minnesota, I’ve been hard-pressed to get in good workouts because running over ice and snow tends to mess up a person’s form a bit. Now with a treadmill I’m able to tackle my workouts and target paces with a higher degree of accuracy.

Furthermore, I can listen to music while I run.

And it isn’t just ordinary music, mind you. One section in “Daniels’ Running Formula” explains how a runner is most efficient right around 180 steps per minute. There aren’t very many 180 bpm songs, so I analyzed my collection, using a nifty piece of software called “Mix Meister” (you’ll find it in a quick Google search — Mix Meister is free, so no need to whip out the ‘ole credit card). All the songs I use for running on the treadmill are right around 90 bpm so as to train my brain to run 180 steps per minute.

Among my favorite treadmill running songs are “Numb” (U2), “Gravity” (Eddie form Ohio), “Yer So Bad” (Tom Petty), and “Stupid Memory” (Sondre Lerche). I’m sure I’ll find more, but those are a few that stick out in my mind. They’re all 90 bpm.

Unlike most people, I love monotonous running. Running on a track is heavenly, and so is running on a treadmill. I love to know exactly what my pace is and how far I’ve been running at that pace. Few things fascinate me more than the science of running. The more I read and research, the more I discover that running the fastest races doesn’t mean you train harder. It means you train harder, but not too hard, and that you use your brain and listen to your body when you plan your workouts.

In a future entry, I’ll write about Wharton Performance and their “Active- Isolated Stretching.” It’s a fantastic way of getting your body ready for workouts and races. I bought their “Stretch Book” and am learning more and more how to use their stretches in order to become a more efficient running.

Perhaps one of the most baffling considerations in religion and philosophy is the “Problem of Evil.” If there is one God who created everyone and everything, then is it possible that God created Satan? And if so, why? (Some of this is in response to my own previous blog entry about evil spirits, etc.)

In the Christian tradition, Satan is a fallen angel. God created Satan and then Satan became evil because God granted him the free-will do to so. Does evil come from Satan because Satan chose evil, or does evil come from God because God granted Satan the power to choose evil? Some argue that evil is the absence of God, which inadvertently suggests that there are places where God does not exist. How could there be places where God doesn’t exist if God is the Creator of everything?

These questions get me back to my own fascination with free-will. I’ve been thinking and writing about free-will for over a decade. Theoretically, all the ingredients that lead to our making one choice or another come from God. If all ingredients come from God, and if all the experiences we face come from God, how is it that we’re the one’s responsible for the outcome of our life’s recipe? Excuse the cooking metaphor, it’s just difficult to see clearly where the Creator stops and Creation starts. Where does the hand-off take place? Or does it take place at all? Who is actually at work in the world making us who we are?

Finally, if we acknowledge the existence of Satan, are we not saying that there are two gods? Are we not saying that there are two competing forces in the world? I’d argue that there is only one true force of power in the world: a God who created everything. But this doesn’t explain what many have described from experience as the apparent presence of evil.

I’m not prepared to rule out the possibility that Satan’s evil is a force in competition with God’s goodness. There is plenty of evidence in history to suggest that evil exists as its own force: the holocaust, ethnic cleansing, brutal wars and injustices; and millions of experiences and tragedies that are too horrible to describe.

What I see, however, is that people tend to worship that which they fear the most. If they fear Satan more than God, then this preoccupation with Satan takes over and they loose their emotional and spiritual footing — and often their sanity. If people consider God as the sole source of true power in the world, I speculate that they experience less fear in their day to day lives and, as a result, have more room in their hearts to love their neighbors.

The purpose of this latest blog entry is not to answer questions, but to ask them. My reflections on “The Problem of Evil” change from one month to the next. However, I am inclined to say that singleness of mind comes, not from trying to spot evil in the world, but from seeking God. Rather than asking, “How is Satan at work in the world?” it is far better to ask, “How is God at work in the world?”