Hello!

 

"Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." - Hebrews 12:1

 

My name is Nathan Maris, and I am a graduate of the University of Washington Honors Program. As my website title implies, I am an avid runner and have been since my first real race as a bright-eyed fourth grader. Since then, I have participated in countless other running endeavors--cross-country meets, track events, hill workouts, and long runs, to name a few. As of 2018, I'm a second-year medical student at the University of Washington.

 

I believe that, beyond its significance as the purest form of sport, running is an apt metaphor for our journey through life. Sometimes it feels so easy, we imagine that there must be wings on our heels, while at other times, our legs take on the consistency of lead. Through running we feel euphoria and invincibility, futility and crushing defeat. Hills loom at us out of the mist and roots gnaw at our ankles, and yet for some reason we persist. We become sidelined by injury and sickness; we push through pain.  Finally, at one point or another, we must hang up our shoes and stop running altogether.

 

It is through this somewhat melodramatic lens that I view the quintessential college experience (yes, I am a sucker for corny metaphors, but aren't we all?), and while this season may be a single "race" in a lifelong career of preparation and striving, I believe that it is certainly a formative one. In college we learn to become our own people--to ask questions and to receive a plethora of different answers; to dream, to learn from our many failures, to eat a lot of chocolate and not feel guilty about it afterwards. Some of us might even fall in love with each other. The college experience is as wide-ranging and diverse as the people who decide to undertake it. It's as broken as it is beautiful, because we are broken and beautiful people simply trying to find our role on God's green earth.

 

And so I ask you now: Will you run this race with me?

 

S.D.G.