riding the tide
As the quarter before my final quarter of grad school gets ready to begin—the percolating potential of pedaling LA»GR is in robust aroma. I have been reflecting today on the question a close friend of mine had been asking with his family, that is, “If God was really with you, what would you be doing?” It is a question I just can’t shake.
I got hit by a car back on November 12th and have been limping along since. In more ways then one I have lived through this limping existence for five months now—four if my math is off—and now, with a ‘pep in my step’ I’m able to revisit a dream as mundane as the daily. I ride my bike everyday. I’ve been sick for months now, and still, just riding along feeling my legs move has been therapy. And this question looms as my beard gets longer and existential pondering gets a hold of my being. Not in some epic sense, but reality hits when this question goes against the grain of my thinking and way of being in the world these days. If God was with me, well, God is I trust, and so what is it to trust in such a way that the stories that God seems to describe inside me are lived, embodied—playing out in the daily. This is an old surge deep in my bones, and in the past, when this tide rushes, I ride.
All this to say, I have a single speed bike now—the $2000 Giant TCR got confiscated by a stranger, but that’s cool. I was climbing on the thing (the Masi) a few weeks ago—tired and sick—and thought, “Boy howdy! I think I could ride at one pace for 2200 miles, I walked the AT at 3mph for 3 months?” This may be a crazy thought, however, there might be something to be learned in the gearing system of a long ride. Pacing, endurance—as Nietzsche called it—the long obedience in the same direction—there might be something there.
