“AND UPON THIS ROCK…”
Copyright 2008 by John B. Reynolds (john@jrwrites.com)

Coming off a leg injury that had me laid up for several days without any running time, I was eager to join my training group on a recent Saturday morning. I didn’t need to be at the lakefront until 6:30 AM, but I left the house at 5:45 AM - it’s only a twenty-minute drive - because in addition to being eager, I was also a bit anxious about how the leg would hold up. Bob Seger’s Like a Rock spoke quietly from the radio as I drove east toward the sunrise. I thought I knew the song, but I guess I didn’t really, for in listening to the lyrics for the probably the hundredth time, I was surprised by what they told me.

My leg was fine and the pain went away, but the lyrics stayed with me, even though all I could remember for the next few hours was the familiar hook. It was playing again in my head the other night when I asked my wife and son if they knew what the song was actually about. “You mean, beyond the Chevy truck commercial?” Gail asked. In truth, this has long been my association with the hit single, too, but as a fifty-four year old grizzled athlete trying to hang on the glory days, the song goes deep. I had to look the lyrics up when I got home, and I think that the message that they bear is worth sharing.

“Stood there boldly, sweatin’ in the sun. Felt like a million, felt like number one. The height of summer, I’d never felt that strong. Like a rock. I was eighteen, didn’t have a care. Working for peanuts, not a dime to spare but I was lean and solid everywhere. Like a rock….” Just like that, I flashed backed to my late teens and early twenties when I used to fly over the running trails. Flashing forward again, however, I admitted to myself that it often hurts these days from the start of my run to the finish. And I’m sure not flying anymore.

“…You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,” Jesus says in the Gospel. After listening to Seger, I now see Peter - and the Church - with fresh perspective. “My hands were steady, my eyes were clear and bright. My walk had purpose, my steps were quick and light. And I held firmly to what I felt was right. Like a rock.” Seger sings. “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,” Jesus says. “And I stood arrow-straight. Unencumbered by the weight of all these hustlers and their schemes,” Seger sings. “…and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it,” Jesus says.

Catholic tradition puts Peter as the first bishop of Rome. Millenniums later, the Church - despite everything - is still here. “Like a rock, Standin’ arrow-straight. Like a rock, chargin’ from the gate. Like a rock, carryin’ the weight. Like a rock…” Sometimes, I really want to be young again, you know? Tell me I’m not alone here... Yet even if we’re all getting older, we’re all caught up at the same instant in something alpha-and-omega timeless, making us, in a sense, young beyond our years. “Like a rock, the sun upon my skin. Like a rock, hard against the wind. Like a rock I see myself again. Like a rock.”