Secret #1
People of the Second Mile Have a Contagious Attitude
“Give and it will be given to you.”
-Jesus-
The next time you visit a fast-food restaurant, do the following. Allow a few extra minutes before ordering your meal. Enter the place slowly, in preparation for what you’re about to witness.
A bit of advice: Move out of the way of those not engaging in this exercise. (It is, after all, a fast-food establishment and few will be sanguine about someone blocking their way to a hasty meal.) Afford yourself a panoramic view of the counter. Then, carefully observe the workforce.
What will you see? At first the action behind the counter may appear to be little more than organized chaos. But look more closely. You’ll soon witness a remarkable phenomenon. Several employees will be taking orders. Others will be barking orders. Some will be filling orders. And there’ll likely be a group studiously avoiding orders.
Marvel as the individual members of the work crew almost imperceptibly align themselves with one of two camps. The distinction may not be initially obvious but, like the fabled green flash at sunset, patient observation will usually pay off. So, keep watching.
What you’ll ultimately witness is a division of the employees into the ranks of the First Milers or the Second Milers. The twin groups won’t be dressed in different uniforms. The uniqueness can’t be found in the titles on the badges, nor will age, sex, or nationality be defining issues. Continue observing.
The First Milers will be notable for merely going through the motions of industry. They are invariably gifted at imitating dynamism. But though their bodies may be at the restaurant, their minds and souls will be elsewhere — at the beach, on a date, sleeping – anywhere but in the moment.
Observe them move slowly, gaze at the clock longingly, and successfully play the role of apathy personified. If someone politely asks for extra ketchup, the request will almost certainly be met with a shrug and a sigh, body language reflecting their objection to any such additional effort. Neither a smile nor eye contact will come with the completed order, which will be ultimately delivered (if my experience is an indicator) sans the extra ketchup.
Granted, there may not be equal fulfillment for everybody in manufacturing sandwiches. Sure, it can be a boring job. Let’s be honest: All of us occasionally engage in daydreaming while we work, worship, or play, however important and exciting the assigned or chosen task. But those I call First Milers, people who do the minimum and no more, know how to develop the accomplishment of little into an art form.
In most cases, a decade hence the First Milers behind today’s counter will still be showing reduced initiative, and will most likely have little to show for ten years in the work force. What you observe at your fast-food restaurant counter is both harbinger to and prognosticator of future accomplishment. First Milers rarely succeed, not by reason of societal determinism, but because of personal determination (more to the point, the lack of it).
But then there are the Second Milers. They are all pilgrims on The Road Called Extra. In many cases they are less gifted than their single mile counterparts. So, what’s the difference? Characteristics like initiative, attitude, thoughtfulness and servanthood.
Observe the Second Milers distinguish themselves. They are turbo-charged. Though holding an entry-level employment position at fast food place, you can picture any member of the M2 (Mile Two) group being promoted quickly. It won’t be long and they’ll actually own the restaurant, maybe a string of them!
Customers don’t have to ask Second Milers for extra ketchup; it is proactively offered as part of the extra mile mindset. Then there’s the smile, the eye contact, and the heart-felt “thanks a lot, please come again” at the conclusion of the order. You have a sense that the hungry patrons might be inclined to return, not so much for the so-so assembly-line cuisine, but for the attention and kind treatment of the M2s.
Mile One club members do the least, resist the most, and think the world has conspired to make them unhappy. Mile Two people go over-and-beyond, never-say-die, and know the secret that they create their own world by the way they bus a table or cook a hamburger, whether in Poughkeepsie, Providence, or Provo.
This experiment can be duplicated on sales floors, in office buildings, and in college classrooms everywhere. The net corporate effect of the two groups, for good or ill, is easily tracked in the financial pages of any newspaper. (Come to think of it, almost every section of a paper or magazine — whether sports, entertainment, and general news — essentially reports which of the two groups is in the lead.)
One Milers and Two Milers spell failure or fruitfulness to families, businesses, churches, and communities. They give proof to Mark Twain’s adage that “the difference between lightning and the lightning bug is a single word.” So, pick your own three-letter word: Will it be one or two — miles, that is?
Before you make your choice, however, let’s go over what’s at stake here. Its time to face the facts head on: Most people won’t travel that sweaty second mile just because it is a good idea or even because the credo is a verse in the Bible, part of Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount. (Sorry, but none of us are so altruistic; so self-effacing.) “What are the benefits?” we want to know. Okay, you asked, so I’ll tell you. In a word: Success.
Now, success comes in many shapes and colors. It isn’t always measured in dollars or promotions or trophies, though it can be. There are the “unmeasurables” such as a sense of accomplishment, the exhilaration of taking a proactive role about one’s own destiny, or the divine approval that comes when God has been glorified by us going further and doing more than expected.
Remember the scene in the movie Chariots of Fire when Eric Liddle is trying to explain to his religiously inclined sister why running is so important to him? She can’t fathom how being a world-class runner can trump going to China as a missionary. Finally, with restrained exasperation he says to her: “It’s because when I run I feel God’s pleasure.” To her credit she gets the point. For many Second Milers the smile of God is enough reward, a sufficient measure of success. For Jesus to hear his Father say: “I’m pleased with you” made His day no doubt. Maybe it is the same for you, too.
However, I’m glad to report that along with a sense that heaven is beaming can also come more immediate and tangible rewards. It need not be an either/or proposition. A person on The Road Called Extra can simultaneously glorify God and achieve a high degree of temporal satisfaction. The latter may take the form of a pat on the back, a tenured position, money in the bank, a trip to Maui, or rocking your grandchild to sleep.
The story of David and Goliath illustrates that a Second Miler can both please God and achieve personal benefits. David took on the giant because the big guy had mocked God, true. But David also had heard that the one who defeated the Philistine would be amply rewarded in other ways as well. While he had holy motives before he picked up his slingshot, it didn’t hurt that the “wanted poster” for Goliath also included some fringe benefits. Consider the Biblical account…
“Have you seen the giant?” the men were asking. “He comes out each day to challenge Israel. And have you heard about the huge reward the king has offered to anyone who kills him? The king will give him one of his daughters for a wife, and his whole family will be exempted from paying taxes!” David talked to some others standing there to verify the report. “What will a man get for killing this Philistine and putting an end to his abuse of Israel?” he asked them. “Who is this pagan Philistine anyway, that he is allowed to defy the armies of the living God?” And David received the same reply as before: “What you have been hearing is true. That is the reward for killing the giant.”
So, while Second Milers excel for eternal causes, while obeying a mandate made by the Greatest Master Hiker should be and is enough incentive, there are big perks here and now for doing the right thing. The Second Mile spells S-U-C-C-E-S-S. The First Mile is trapped in the doldrums of the ordinary.
Take this pop quiz. Quick, think of five people you know personally whom you would rate as successful. Write their names on a piece of paper. Now, what sets them apart in your mind? Why do you think that they made the cut on your list? Why do you admire them more than the others you thought of but didn’t write down? I dare say that all five of them go over and beyond the call of duty somehow. They are to a person Second Milers and, each in their own way, they are eminently successful. And successful people, whether rich or poor, famous or unknown, share the distinction of fleshing out Matthew 5:31: “If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.”
I have led and pastored churches for much of my life. Within the ranks of those who fill the pews are many M1s and not a few M2s. Here’s the way it often works. The former spell service, “serve-us”. They sign up for church membership to have one of the ministers on retainer. The prevailing attitude among this segment of the congregation is “I’ll let you know if and when you’re needed, rev.” They’ll periodically feel guilty (usually following a sermon about commitment), and “volunteer” to clean up after a fellowship dinner or visit a shut-in spasmodically. But most of the time they do little more than cover the Wood Family (church code for the backs of the pews), and that only when it is convenient to their schedules.
The Second Mile parishioners have a wholly (and holy) different theology. They come in the door, scanning those assembled like Secret Service agents, but looking less for someone to protect and more for a person to help, ever searching for a need to meet and a hurt to mend. It’s not that this bunch is the wealthiest or the healthiest. (In many cases it’s the opposite.) They have simply adopted a Second Mile lifestyle, one that embodies this oft-ignored tenet of faith, which reaches far beyond Christianity or mere do-goodism.
Take Charlotte, for example. One Sunday she met a visiting couple from Nigeria in the lobby of the church I was pastoring at the time. They expressed appreciation for her friendliness, and then remarked to her that they thoroughly enjoyed the corporate singing time. Wistfully, they mentioned how much they’d like to have one of our hymnals. Where could they buy one?
Well, we didn’t have the books for sale. But Charlotte took things into her own hands. She asked one of the staff pastors, who was nearby, if she could give a hymnal away. Armed with an affirmative answer, she presented the gift to our foreign guests.
When she told me about the experience, she could hardly contain her joy. Her offer to repay the church coffers for the book was kind, but unnecessary. Charlotte had proved her worth by being a Second Miler. She found a problem and solved it. She saw a pothole and filled it, so to speak.
But the episode wasn’t over. On the following morning the African couple, on their way to the airport, stopped by my office to express further appreciation. They gushed about Charlotte’s generosity, and noted that such thoughtfulness must certainly be part of the DNA of the entire church. Would I write something in the flyleaf of the hymnal, so they could remember their positive visit when back in Lagos? I did so most happily, realizing that we have probably yet to hear the end of this story, one that started casually with a caring parishioner going the Second Mile.
Such extra courtesies happen daily across America on numerous levels. In business they make the difference between a one-time purchase and a longtime customer. For the salesperson it can mean the difference between a nice commission and base pay. In marriage it can spell the difference between divorce and a golden wedding anniversary. In sports it can be the difference between the Hall of Fame and an asterisk.
Some companies and employees have so excelled at the Second Mile ideal that their names are synonymous with customer satisfaction. (My guess is that, even now, names of such stores, airlines, and corporations are scrolling through you head.) And I have another guess: You wouldn’t have picked up this book if you were not already well on your way from Milepost One to Milepost Two (or at least anxious to start the trip). People of the Second Mile instinctively, almost irresistibly, long to improve and excel. You’re my kind of person and, more importantly, the kind of person who makes God and the world sit up and take notice.
So this book is not only for you; it is about you. It is both the story of others and your story, too. It is history, both biography and autobiography. Yet, it contains an element of the prophetic, what the collective future intentions and goodwill of all Second Milers will likely achieve.
A person on The Road Called Extra is an individual with a special attitude, not necessarily a specific aptitude. Second Milers don’t necessarily memorize precepts and recite mantras. There are no dues for membership in the loosely knit organization; no application to fill out. You’ll be glad to know that there aren’t a string of dos and don’ts to heed or shun either. The only absolute requirement is the inner cultivation of the habit to keep walking when you’ve hit the normal human limit at the one mile marker. It matters not what your companions may or may not do.
So, fellow pilgrims on The Road Called Extra, what follows is an explanation of how the Second Mile attitude can permeate everything that we do every day, in every situation. Whether you’re goal is to serve the most customer-friendly fast-food meal in your town, or you want to help a needy person, or you desire to take your company to the next level, this book’s for you. I know I’m ever challenged to do better, and to encourage those I serve to do the same. Though not everyone is like Charlotte in my world, many are. May her tribe increase, I say.
I’m convinced you and I are of kindred hearts. Since we’re going in the same direction, for the same distance, can we make the trip together? Our goal is yonder, at Mile Two. Thanks for the company, pilgrim. That you’d so kindly let me tag along is another proof that you are one of the growing throng on The Road Called Extra.
Secret # 2
People of the Second Mile Are One Milers Who Decide to Go Two
“If someone forces you to go one mile,
go with him two miles.”
-Jesus-
We aren’t big on does and don’ts in our era. We’d just as soon find our own way, our own “truth”, sometimes at the risk of meandering around in circles or even getting lost. Moses would find ready resistance from many of us to the commandments he lugged down from Mount Sinai. But interestingly few take offense at the wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount, even though the precepts found therein arguably rise to a level considerably above a compilation of nifty ideas.
Two thousand years ago on that balmy afternoon the most quoted man in history made a new startling declaration, which is still encapsulated and nestled in a single line within the text of that famous sermon. He wasn’t addressing a sales convention or a political rally. Nor was his aim to encourage a mediocre football team to excel. His powerful statement, often used in our era to urge people on to better things, exceeded merely trying to instill a ‘can do’ attitude in his sizeable audience.
The focus of Jesus Christ as he spoke was mainly spiritual. Midway through the message, his revolutionary speech reached a new level of intensity. Just when he had them in the palm of his hand, right when they were ready to put aside their prejudices against another set of rules, the attentive Jewish crowd thought they heard him say the unthinkable: “If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” What? Say again?
“If … someone … forces … you … to … go … one … mile ….” Teacher, teacher, certainly you jest!
At first the audience may have concluded that they had heard wrongly. Certainly this increasingly popular rabbi had not suggested going a willing second mile with a despised Roman centurion! No, indeed. So each person must have filled in the garbled final words of the sentence with a response of his or her invention. This was an exercise in verbal gestalt; fill in the blanks; the game of complete-the-sentence. A sampling of the crowd that day may have turned up any number of alternate endings to the one mile dictum.
The zealot probably thought he meant to say: “If someone forces you to go one mile … spit on him! Don’t give in to foreign oppression. Resist the Roman dog. Let him carry his own knapsack.”
The old woman probably thought he meant to say: “If someone forces you to go one mile … pretend like you don’t hear too well. It works for me. He’ll conclude that if you can’t hear him you won’t have the strength to carry his load, either. Brush him off with the passive-aggressive approach.”
The youth probably thought he meant to say: “If someone forces you to go one mile … glare at him. Carry the pack as badly as you can. Scuff it along the ground. Old Sarge will be so glad when the mile is up it’ll be good riddance once and for all.”
The rabbi probably thought he meant to say: “If someone forces you to go one mile … quote some messianic prophesies to him out of the Old Testament. Let him know a leader will one day come to liberate the chosen people. All the Roman legions will be sorry then.”
But what Jesus had said he had said, and he sincerely meant every single word : “If someone forces you to go one mile with him, go two miles.” If Jesus had political aspirations, that additional little three-word phrase, the one containing the second mile ideal, boded ill for him as a potential vote getter.
Members of the Jewish crowd before him, who had traversed significant distances to hear the famous teacher, were probably at first incredulous, then indignant. The air was likely soon filled with the middle eastern equivalent of boos, catcalls, and Bronx cheers. (“You gotta be nuts! Whatcha mean with this second mile malarkey?”)
What was all the commotion about anyway? Well, it’s like this. At that time Palestine was under Roman rule. To show the feisty Jewish zealots who was in charge, Roman soldiers would frequently invoke a law intended to further demean the citizens of that proud, but down-trodden, little country. The law gave soldiers the right to compel civilians to carry their heavy packs for a milion, the rough equivalent of our western mile.
The arrangement was disruptive to the worker’s day. It was insensitive to the aged and the infirm. But its most odious intent was to make the conquered bear the weapons of the sneering conqueror. John McArthur remarks: “Outside of combat the Roman soldier was never more hated than when he forced someone to carry his pack.”
“If someone forces you…” The verb Jesus used (translated “force” or “compel”) was particularly offensive. It was a loan word from the Persian language, meaning, “to conscript for service against one’s will.” The term originated with the ancient Persian postal service. Governmental workers were expected, on pain of death, to deliver the mail.
Hence, the early mail carriers could press into service a person, food, a horse, or any other item deemed necessary to expedite mail delivery. The potential abuses of such a system are evident, even today. And what was once the misused perk of a Persian postman, who sometimes compelled an unwitting person along his route to cater to his whims, had become a finely-honed science within the ranks of the Roman military force encamped in Judea and Galilee.
Fortunately the law had its limits. The writ of the era allowed for a forced march of one mile, and only one mile. At the end of a single full Roman milion, the unwilling bearer of the knapsack could legally call it quits. Enough was enough. You were entitled to say (albeit in dolce voce): “Get some other human mule to tote your load, corporal. I’m finished for the day.”
With the requirement of the law thus met, a resentful woman would tearfully run to her empathetic husband for consolation. The angry teen could commiserate with his youthful friends. The businessman, robe wrinkled from the unwanted and unexpected burden of an overweight backpack, might brush himself off and return to his personal business, though his schedule was now rendered useless by the intrusion.
The first mile was hard enough. Who would possibly wish for a second mile, much less volunteer for the job? How dare this upstart prophet from backwater Nazareth preach such a non-kosher message? Whose side was he on anyway? Was he a Roman agent — or just a rube?
Two millennia have provided sufficient time for most of the dissenting voices to be quelled. That first indignant throng dispersed into the ether long ago. The Romans have become fodder for the field of history. No one has been forced to carry a legionnaire’s pack for seventeen centuries. The ancient rule is now officially moot. But the precept, the second mile principle, is definitely not outdated.
There are still naysayers who argue that the minimum is satisfactory. “It’ll do,” are their bywords. Yet, the jury of time and experience has returned another verdict: Jesus was right. He still is. People on The Road Called Extra are the winners in every way. The effects of his maxim are transcultural and transcendent. Two miles are perennially better than one!
Of course, the starting point today is not at a literal milepost by a roadside, but is an invisible marker within the heart. It is an attitude; a philosophy of life; part of one’s practical theology lived out, not is cathedrals or churches, but where Main meets Broadway.
Make no mistake here. Mile Two is not about manipulation, customer service, or cheap flattery. Nor is it a means to a selfish personal end. If the ultimate good of the person we are serving is not in focus, the point of the additional mile is lost and, with it the blessing that its application can bring.
Harry Emerson Fosdick shares about the occasion when his mother sent him to pick berries. Her instructions were non-negotiable: Pick at least a quart of raspberries before you come home.
As a young man there were many things higher on Harry’s priority list than filling a quart bucket with tiny berries. So he confesses that his attitude was less than joyful as he trudged into the field, to comply with what he felt was an unreasonable demand. His only goal was to get the task accomplished and be thereby freed to play with his friends.
Then he was struck by a strange and unfamiliar inspiration. What if he voluntarily picked two quarts instead? Wouldn’t the family, especially his mother, be surprised?
Years later he reflected: “I had so interesting a time picking two quarts of raspberries, to the utter amazement of the household, that, although it happened a half-century ago, I have never forgotten … [that] what the circumstances and compulsions of life do to us depends upon what they find in us.” Fosdick had discovered the idea of second mile living. He had learned the value of trekking The Road Called Extra.
People on this less traveled road are simply one milers who decide to go two. One day you’re picking one quart of berries, the next day two. One day you’re going through the motions of lazily slapping together hamburgers; the next you’re enthusiastically creating a dining experience for the masses. One day you’re doing the minimum; the next day you’re pushing for the maximum. What has happened?
A choice has been made to go another mile willingly, joyfully, fueled not by writ but by will. A decision has been made to be proactive, rather than reactive. The Roman soldier may call you to carry his pack, but you’ll be the one who determines both the attitude and the distance of the journey. The idea of you abdicating your good cheer in exchange for a negative victim mentality is suddenly anathema to you. You will be in charge by going the Second Mile, that unrequired extra milion that leaves Roman soldiers both speechless and powerless.
But doubling the obligatory one-mile requires deliberation and intentionality. This act of multiplication never occurs of its own accord. There is no mistaking the second mile for the first one. They are as different as day and night. The first mile is a taskmaster, walked due to the demands of extrinsic motivation, whereas the second mile is a colleague hiked due to the joys of intrinsic motivation – a significant difference. The former is about being required to behave a certain way, whereas the latter is about longing to act in a certain manner. Drudgery hallmarks the first while desire fuels the second.
However, traversing that second golden mile is not always about doing more, always more either. It may be about doing less or other than the norm on occasion. Consider the following parable.
A young Native American lad longed to become a respectable member of his tribe. The problem was his fear of the dark. So, when he approached the tribal council and asked to be given the full privileges of an adult male, he was told he would need to overcome his phobia first. So, that night he was given an empty skin water pail and was instructed to go the creek, about a half mile from the encampment, and bring it back to the elders brimming full.
He set off running for the creek in morbid fear, tripping on branches and effectively bruising and scratching himself up by the time he got to the water’s edge. Breathlessly he drew the water from the stream and sprinted back to camp with the pail in hand. But almost all of the water had been spilled in his haste, which the older braves found unacceptable. The lad had not heeded their instructions. This was evidence to those in the tribal circle that the young man’s fear had not yet been fully conquered.
He was sent back to the creek again. This time he was so tired from the rigors of his recent one mile sprint that he slowly walked the path, less out of bravery and more by reason of his exhaustion. As he sauntered the second mile loop his fears began to subside. He could see beauty through the filtered rays of the moonlight. The hooting owl sounded less haunting. The shadows no longer took on the form of imaginary specters. He was at peace at last. The tribal council reportedly promoted him that night, following the second mile long trip, to full adulthood with all of the attendant rights and honors of such status.
Traveling the second mile may be about doing more or doing less, according to the requirements of the moment. It may mean knocking off talking to a coworker and serving an impatient customer with added efficiency or, on the other hand, it may require slowing down and actually listening to what a child, perhaps your child, is actually saying.
People of the Second Mile are one milers who decide to go two miles instead. The second mile may be a sprint or a stroll, but the real point is that two miles effectively doubles what you would have done ordinarily. It is in the second mile that the honors and promotions come – and bigger tips, and longer marriages, and better friendships, and …
So, let’s move further down The Road Called Extra a bit further and, along the way, let’s chat about a major mind change which must take place if we are to become true card- carrying members of the Mile Two Club.
Secret # 3
People of the Second Mile Have a Change of Attitude Along the Way
“As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon,
and they forced him to carry the cross.”
-St Matthew describing an event on The Via Dolorosa-
On my bookshelf sits a sleek model of the Bell X-1, nicknamed Glamorous Glennis. The real full-scale aircraft is exhibited at The National Air and Space Museum. There’s a Second Mile story behind how it has come to be displayed both in my office and at the museum in Washington, DC.
Mach 1 – the speed of sound – is 660 miles per hour at 40,000 feet. In the mid-1940s no aircraft had yet flown that fast. In fact, aeronautical engineers called Mach 1 the “sound barrier” because they believed that at such a speed air loads could cause a plane to break up. But, of course, no one could know for sure until a plane actually flew that fast.
In 1947, the Army Air Corps chose Chuck Yeager as test pilot for the X-1, the aircraft it hoped could break Mach 1. The rocket engine of the X-1 had the power to push the aircraft close to Mach 2 — if the plane could hold together, and if the control elevators and flaps continued to function.
The engineers planned a series of test flights so Yeager could inch gradually toward Mach 1, adding an additional 20 mph each flight. For a while it didn’t look good. The closer Yeager flew to Mach 1, the more problems the X-1 experienced.
At Mach .86 “it felt like I was driving on bad shock absorbers over uneven paving stones,” Yeager writes in Yeager: An Autobiography. “The right wing suddenly got heavy and began to drop, and when I tried to correct it my controls were sluggish. I increased my speed to Mach .88 to see what would happen. I saw my aileron vibrating with shock waves, and only with effort could I hold my wing level.”
During Yeager’s seventh flight, at Mach .94, Yeager pulled on his control wheel to lift the nose of the X-1, and nothing happened. The controls felt broken. Yeager jettisoned his fuel and landed, fearing he had taken his last flight in the X-1.
Engineers analyzed flight data and learned that at Mach .94 a shock wave hit one of the control elevators, negating control. But they soon figured how to overcome the problem, and Yeager resumed his advance on the sound barrier.
The ninth powered flight was slated for October 14, 1947. The plan was for Yeager to fly Mach .97. Yeager had fallen off a horse a few days before and broken some ribs, so he was in no mood to fly. Nevertheless he climbed aboard the B-29, which would carry the X-1 in its bomb bay up to 20,000 feet altitude. When the time came, Yeager clambered down a ladder into the X-1. Once dropped from the B-29 he started the engines, and the X-1 took off.
At Mach .88 the X-1 was again buffeted. Yeager adjusted his stabilizer, things smoothed, and he continued to accelerate.
“I noticed that the faster I got, the smoother the ride,” says Yeager. “Suddenly the Mach needle began to fluctuate. It went up to .965 Mach – then tipped right off the scale. I thought I was seeing things! We were flying supersonic! And it was as smooth as a baby’s bottom: Grandma could be sitting up there sipping lemonade. I kept the speed off the scale for about twenty seconds, and then raised the nose to slow down. I was thunderstruck. After all the anxiety, breaking the sound barrier turned out to be a perfectly paved speedway.”
Back in the tracking van engineers reported hearing what sounded like a distant rumble of thunder. It was the sound of history being made, the first sonic boom ever produced on earth by a man-made device. The loud noise was more than a scientific phenomenon, however. It was the cacophony of disintegrating paradigms. People could go above and beyond after all! Mach 2 was achievable. Today scores of pilots break that fabled barrier consistently.
Of course, this story is to us both history and metaphor. Concerning the latter, the moment any of us push for the second mile, our personal Mach 2, we break the attitude barrier, and there is a responsive sonic boom of joy. The attitude barrier keeps us at the first order of living, a place of failure and pettiness, resentment and selfishness. But break the attitude barrier, and the negative stuff evaporates. We can suddenly travel at Mach 2 and beyond with élan.
Before we break the attitude barrier, we respond in kind: Eye for eye, foul attitude for foul attitude, anemic effort for anemic effort, tit for tat. The lower others sink, the lower we sink. We are slaves of the worst and the lowest. The Sermon on the Mount mocks the dismal attitude we hold sacred. Our religious service is met at a shrine on the shortest and easiest route to questionable success.
Then something happens in us and to us. Suddenly run-ins with “Roman soldiers” become positive encounters, an opportunity for good to triumph over evil, a chance for nobler values to be born. We rise above the injustice of the situation and the faults of others. No matter what others now do to us, we are champions, because we have taken on ourselves far more than a bullying soldier’s backpack. We have deliberately assumed a new attitude, birthed not by reaction to a foe, nor even as a concession to the inevitable, but as a willing embrace of an opportunity that can spell success in a new way.
Now imagine a man, Simon by name, leaving a hill by the Sea of Galilee where he has just heard the most perplexing sermon of his life from a young rabbi. The year is 30 AD. His scroll is overflowing with notes. If he tries to live out even a few of the ideas with which he has just been challenged, it will call for a most radical inner transformation.
So, at random he picks a single new paradigm from the list as an experiment of sorts. His choice is the memorable line, uttered only hours before, about going a second mile, even though only one mile is lawfully required. (Simon remembers that one especially because he was among the first to hiss at its ridiculous impracticality.)
He decides to try this unusual theory the next time a Roman doughboy mandates that he tote his bag for the required legal distance. For the first time (and to his way of thinking the last), Simon will today go two miles, instead of the single one ordered by the law of the unwelcome invaders. In so doing he will prove the upstart teacher’s theories to be so much drivel.
Though doubting the veracity of anything he has heard, Simon becomes increasingly desirous to test the Second Mile ideal most recently expounded. In fact, on the way back to his home, he goes out of his way to attract the attention of a Roman infantryman who is resting atop his army-issue haversack by the roadside. He hasn’t long to wait, for with the all-too familiar imperial wave of a calloused hand, the soldier wordlessly points Simon toward his heavy, well-traveled leather bag.
Simon can’t make out the rank of the man whose pack he now carries. The badge of merit, sewn to his cape, bears the familiar eagle with the Roman C below the claws. No matter: He’s the enemy, whatever his distinction or lack of it. They’re all the same these Latin-speaking, pig-eating Romans, thinks Simon.
The unwritten rule during these mile-long forced marches was that they were to be performed in silence. There was no communication of any kind with the enemy, not even eye contact. Latin and Aramaic were as incompatible as the people who spoke them. Why even try a conversation? The Tower of Babel had effectively started a linguistic division made complete by the lordly behavior of these high-and-mighty Roman trespassers. (In any case this was Simon’s opinion, a prejudice echoed by myriads of his countrymen.)
So they trudge along in thick silence, the soldier and the zealot. Simon spends the first half-milion wondering what possessed him to actually invite the placing of this chafing load on his shoulders. He can feel the weapons move within the knapsack, can hear the clinking of their metal, can only imagine how many of his brothers they have impaled.
Every few steps he is tempted to throw the sack down, reach into its folds, draw out a knife or short sword from within, and dispatch this sneering Roman to Hades with his own armament. There must surely be some special award for such gallantry (posthumously bestowed, no doubt, for his life would probably be over just shortly after the Roman’s).
In the midst of his reverie, Simon suddenly hears himself say: “Colonel” (it never hurts to “promote” the soldier you are serving) “do you have family back in Rome?” Never before has Simon proactively addressed a Roman. To make matters worse, what he just blurted out was in broken Latin of such laughable quality that Simon braces himself for instant ridicule.
But, to his amazement, the soldier doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t even smile. He looks stunned. The look is akin to the one Simon imagined moments before, when he had been day-dreaming about running the fellow through with his own sword. Simon had mentally seen him fall, his hand on the buried dagger, his face registering perplexity more than pain, thereby seeming to silently ask as his life ebbed away: “How have you become the master and I the servant?”
When he finds his voice, the Roman centurion (his actual rank) hoarsely responds that he does, indeed, have family in Rome. He volunteers that his wife is often sick and their youngest son has fainting fits. He has not been home in three years. But if he is granted a New Year’s wish, he and all one hundred of his men will soon find themselves back by the Tiber River, far from this suffocating dustbowl called Judea.
It has never occurred to Simon that some Romans might actually not want to be in Palestine! So he tentatively asks another question in poor Latin, which leads to the centurion answering him in even worse Aramaic. This strange dialogue, unrecorded by history, continues until the soldier brusquely says, “Mile’s up.”
It is Simon’s turn to be perplexed. “What mile?”
Centurion: “The one that the law of compulsion requires.”
Simon: “What if I want to go another mile with you, Centurion, sir?”
Centurion: “I’ve never, ever had anyone ask such a question, zealot. I said that the mile is up. You are free to leave. You know the law.”
Simon: “Would you mind terribly if I went with you another milion?”
Centurion: “In all my years of marching for Rome I’ve never had such a request. Are you mocking me?”
Simon: “No. No. I would like to complete our conversation. Let me carry the bags while we finish talking. Alright?”
Centurion: “If you insist, ah, Simon (that’s the name, right?), though I don’t know what has come over you since I compelled you to carry my bags a mile back.”
What has overwhelmed Simon is a change of attitude along the way. It happens to all those on The Road Called Extra, usually sometime within the span of the first obligatory mile. Odometer watching suddenly stops. The serendipitous journey begins. The incremental markers beside the road, on which one once relied to measure when the indignity of pack carrying would be over, become inconsequential.
The centurion may not immediately be a friend, but he’s not an ogre an longer, either. Likewise, the coach, the teacher, the boss, the employee, the spouse, the customer are all transformed, by spiritual alchemy, into opportunities to test the theory — that two miles are usually better than one, if (and this is the kicker) one’s attitude is transformed along the way, too.
Simon learned his lesson. Having incorporated it into his daily life, he returned to his native Cyrene on business. When he came back to Judea, my imagination suggests that he may have been given a very public forum to exhibit the validity of Jesus’ teaching about the second mile, which he had first recorded, then actually practiced, on that notable warm Galilean afternoon.
If the imaginary Simon of my story was one and the same as Simon of Cyrene, who is known to us as the man who was compelled to carry the cross for Jesus, some questions are in order. Was it coincidence that Simon returned to Jerusalem on the exact day when Jesus needed help carrying his heavy cross further than most would have willingly journeyed?
Did the centurion pick Simon out of the crowd because he recognized him as someone who he knew made it a habit to go an extra mile, even for a stranger? And does the Biblical narrative use the verb “force” to describe Simon’s service at random — or deliberately — because it’s the same hated verb Jesus used three years before, on the mountain by the sea?
Near my model of the X-1, to which I alluded earlier, stands a cross. Both of these “Xs”, both symbols, daily remind me of the need for people like you and me to change perspectives if we are to become genuine card-carrying (and pack-carrying) sojourners on The Road Called Extra. Whatever the barrier, sound or attitude, it must be repeatedly shattered if we are to burst beyond the mundane into the realm of the extraordinary as part of an established lifestyle.
It worked twenty centuries ago. We have cause to believe it still works today. Who says? Jesus says. Simon says. Pass this secret along, fellow traveler, pass it on.
