Cross-Country Ramble 39: Body, Mind & Soul

Sent: 04/10/98

Body.

I'm of an age where "healthy tan" is not an oxymoron. To my eyes, I've gotten a wonderful tan on my exposed parts (the rest of me still looks like the great white whale). My tan has some interesting features. The top right hand side of my legs and arms are tan but not the bottom left side, a result of biking always eastward in a recumbent position. The bottom of my face is tan, but my forehead and eye sockets are white, and my bald pate has two wonderful tan stripes running from front to back--sort of an inverse Mohawk look. My biking helmet creates these strange effects. I love it!

After biking a month, a muscle or two has appeared in my legs. They're not Tom Sellig's legs, but one lady we were talking to a few days ago said, "Hey, your knees look pretty good to me," as we were explaining that my sore knee had interrupted our trip two years before. What a rush!

We started this trip doing 25-mile days and feeling pretty tired. Last week, we got to our intended destination for the day and felt so good that we decided to bike on to the next and still felt good after 53 miles. We've biked almost 1000 miles and there's no sign of the knee problem that stopped us in High Island, TX. The soreness I felt in my Achilles tendons during the first week of this stage of our journey has disappeared. I've been able to stop worrying about whether my legs will get me to the Atlantic and simply relax and enjoy the ride. What a feeling!

Mind.

In response to my think piece on Culture, one of our correspondents, a good friend, humorously chided, "You're thinking too much! Stop thinking and ride the bike!" But no!

Thinking is one of the things a bike trip is about. Even when we're biking a route we've traveled previously by car, biking presents us with a whole new set of data. It's very specific, here and now, detailed data, as-yet unprocessed. So much of the data or information that comes to us in our normal live is preprocessed, with a spin already on it. On a bike trip the data comes in raw. Our slow pace gives my mind plenty of time to do what the human mind is programmed to do. I compare and contrast what my senses are telling me with what I've sensed before. I count and categorize. I interpret data and reflect on its meaning. I decide what's important and what's not, what's good and what's bad. Sometimes an "aha" comes--that's the best part.

Soul.

Carol's words floated back to me on the wind today, "Hey, I think you've mastered your Lenten discipline!" "Hey," I called back, "I think you're right!"

I've always found it difficult to come up with a Lenten discipline. Mostly what I do for Lent is spend Lent failing to come up with just the right thing. When Carol asked me a couple of times what I was going to take on, I told her I was working on it. Finally, at the start of our trip, when Carol asked me again what I was going to do, I shot back, "I think what I'll do is follow you this trip, instead of you following me." When I thought about it a minute, I decided this was an inspired idea. Following Carol would be an easy way to keep me from getting too far ahead. It wuld be an easy way to keep me from burning up my knees. As it turned out, I was right about the benefits, but it wasn't easy. No more attacking the hills. No more trying to maintain speed going into a headwind. No more cutting through holes in traffic. No more following her so closely that I risk hitting her when she slowed down or put on the brakes. Following is not my strong suit. I've learned this fact the hard way--several times, and I've forgotten it as many times as I've learned it. This time, I'm getting the hang of following Carol, and it's only taken me most of the 40 days of Lent to do it. Maybe this time the learning might stick.

"You are dust and to dust you shall return." These Ash Wednesday words set the tone for Lent. We started phase two of our journey a few days into Lent.

Last Sunday was Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday gets the prize for being the most ironic Sunday of the year. The hymn that begins "Ride on, ride on in majesty," and ends "ride on to die," expresses the irony pretty well. This week is Holy Week and our journey is about to end. Maybe we'll reach the Atlantic on Easter day. Certainly during Easter week. There's got to be a metaphor in there somewhere. Perhaps we've just spent 40 days in the desert in preparation for some new ministry. Maybe we've wandered 40 years in the wilderness and are about to enter some Promised Land. We'll see.