The Ides of March

The last week or so has been pretty interesting in the life of Todd. (At least it has been interest to me. If it is not interesting to you, kindly check out another blog.) Anywho, back to the topic at hand.

Biking.

Yes, after several months without a biking post, biking is back.

A few Saturdays ago, Jim, Trent, and I headed out on a field trip to Albright's bike shop in Mishawaka. We had a great time and learned quite a bit about bikes and gear. A road bike (something that I have wanted to purchase) caught my eye, but it just seemed like it needed some time to simmer.

Fast forward to this past Sunday in the weight room at school. This phenomenal athlete (i.e., iron man), Greg, from here in Bremen was working out in the weight room. My brother is friends with Greg's son. However, I just felt pretty intimidated about asking him what he would recommend for a bike. In other words, I didn't want to come across sounding stupid because I really don't know a whole lot about bikes. So after a few minutes, I decided to ask him about what he would recommend for my price range. Surprisingly, he told me to call this guy, Mike, also from Bremen, and see if he could put something together for me.

Well, coincidentally, I was also supposed to email Mike about teaming up with the upcoming food drive. Also, this happened to be the same Mike whose vehicle randomly stopped in the intersection before school as I was walking to work and we pushed it off the road into the vet clinic parking lot.

So Mike emailed back and said call him. We met on Tuesday at lunch and had a great time talking about bikes and he showed me a bunch of components and options.

On Friday, he called and said it was ready to go. (This is the bike in the above picture. Right now, it is in the living room. My bike storage in the kitchen is running out. The kitchen of course being the most obvious place to store a bike. Consequently, the next most obvious place to store a bike is the living room.)

Friday night, I could barely contain my anticipation for hitting the road on Saturday morning. (Those around me probably would question if in fact I really did contain my anticipation.)

Saturday morning arrives. It is sunny, but it is cold.

Nevertheless, I set out for a ride around the lake. About halfway through the ride, I realized that I was cold. I mean cold like I've never felt before. The wind was so brisk and I was a bit under-dresssed (understatement). I was so cold I almost waved a person with a truck down and see if he would give me a ride back to town.

However, it was about that time that I started thinking about the poorest of the poor and how they must have felt this winter outside struggling to survive. The cold gripping and numbing the toes and fingers. The cold numbing the very heart and spirit - the soul of people - leaving them without hope.

Then it dawned on me that I was praying - praying for the poorest of the poor and then those without jobs in this crippled economic state. This led back to an email conversation earlier in the week about prayer. In that message, I indicated that prayer was a major struggle for me. Yet, during this frigid ride, it dawned on me that part of the problem is my perception of what prayer is. It always has seemed like we must have to have these perfect, powerful prayers that just resonate. Yet, on the bike, prayer was more like a conversation with a good friend about concern for our world.

So anways, thanks for stopping back and take care,

Todd

(P.S., the picture that I really wanted to share didn't end up happening because the batteries were dead on the camera. After getting back in the house and beginning the thawing process, I sensed some dangling from my face. This major stream of snot dangled down to my shirt. It was cool.)