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What Is a Pilgrimage?

I consider my journey this year a pilgrimage, but when I thought about defining such a thing, I realized I didn’t really know what a pilgrimage was!  My favorite definition from the internet was a circular one–pilgrimage: a pilgrim’s journey.  So then I was stuck looking up “pilgrim,” which means “a person who journeys to a sacred place for religious reasons.”  For me, the final destination (Key West, FL) is not the important piece.  If there are sacred relics in Key West, I am not aware of them.

I am more mindful of Jacob’s journey, running away from his brother Esau, whom their mother, Rebekah, had heard threatening to kill him.  (There’s more to the story, which you can read in Genesis 27)  The cover story was that Jacob was on his way to their ancestral home to find a wife suitable to his parents.  Jacob stopped to rest for the night.  While there, he had a dream in which he saw a ladder or stairway resting on the ground, with its top reaching to heaven.  The angels of God were going up and down the stairway, and the Lord stood above it.  He bless Jacob and said, “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.”

6 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” (Genesis 28:16-17)

Jacob set up a memorial stone there and gave the place a name, Bethel.  I believe that he discovered not the gate of heaven, itself, but that he discovered that every place is truly awesome, and each place is filled with God.  He did, after all hear the Lord say, “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.”

Adventure Cyclist, in their most recent issue, actually had an article about bicycling as pilgrimage.  They spoke with several people who had either begun a journey searching for a new direction in life, or who had found a new direction as a result of their journey.  Sometimes they found that new direction unexpectedly.  It was not something for which they were searching.

As I researched what various people meant by the idea of pilgrimage, one of the most interesting stories I encountered was about Mildred Lisette Norman Ryder, the Peace Pilgrim.  She walked across the US several times, eating when someone offered food, and then fasting until the next time she was offered food, and spreading the message of peace.  “This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love.”  “When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others. ” (From Brainy Quote)  Or, in the words of Paul,  “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.  If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”  (Romans 12:17-18, 21)

This is my calling, to be an instrument of God’s peace.  I have been greatly disturbed by the divisions in our country.  As a person who knows and loves many people on “both sides” of the political divide, I am called to do my part to repair the bridges that have broken down amongst the American people.  I can’t do everything, and perhaps not even very much, but I am called to do my part.

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Logistics Are Complicated!

Wow!  There are sure a lot of things to work out when you plan to do an epic bike ride and a move at the same time!

Moving Plans:

 I decided a couple of years ago that I would like to live closer to more of my family.  Some of them are scattered around the country, so it’s impossible to be close to all of them at once.  But Iowa is the state where I grew up.  My sister and her spouse live there, my son lives there, and my nieces and nephews live there.  Also, the next generation: a great-niece and great-nephew live in Iowa.  Iowa is the state with the highest population density of my relatives! 

Work Plans:

 I am taking a leave of absence from my appointment as a United Methodist pastor in the Indiana Annual Conference.  The Board of Ordained Ministry saw fit to honor my request.  I received permission from my Bishop to inquire about appointments in the Iowa Annual Conference.  And I have completed the application process and been approved for appointment by the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.  This means if there is a church available I am eligible to be considered for the job.  But I don’t have any guarantees. 

And all that entails:

  • a self-financed move means I need to only move what I really want to keep
  • I need to sort things into
    • what I need now,
    • what I need for my journey,
    • what I want to move to my new location
    • what I want to sell or give away
    • trash
  • moving company arrangements
  • pack
  • storage options until I find work
  • continue training
  • raise funds for the Fuller Center for Housing
  • buy a plane ticket
  • arrange for health insurance coverage
  • figure out how to pay my bills while I’m away for three months
  • take care of my dog and two cats
  • prepare my congregation for a new pastor
  • leave everything in good shape for a new pastor
  • say goodbye
  • where to live while I look for a new position  
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Work in the Gym Pays Off on the Bike

As I have mentioned before, I am not really good at pushing myself.  Since I ride by myself most of the time, riding my bike is not the best way for me to improve my bike riding!   I actually began to realize this last year when I got myself a smartphone.  I signed up for MapMyRide, a free app which, of course, includes advertising and enticing articles to lead you to the advertising.  Anyway, one of the articles I read was about the importance of core strength to efficient bicycling technique.  Mine was terrible, even after years of long-distance cycling.  My core strength was poor, my technique was poor, and my efficiency was not good.

I have not been intimidated by long distances on the bike for a long time, though my slow speed kept me from completing some of the longer distances in a single day’s ride.  For the Fuller Center Bike Adventure, we are given fitness recommendations translated into bicycling terms.   Though we don’t all ride in a pack, we do need to move forward at a somewhat predictable rate.  We also have a few 100 mile days that need to be completed in a reasonable amount of time.

Fuller Center Bike Adventure recommends training so that we can ride an average speed of 12 mph and a distance of 20 to 25 miles without long breaks.  I couldn’t do that last year; I was slower and I stopped more often.  Now I can do it!  Yesterday I rode 26 miles averaging 12.6 mph and stopped for a total of about 6 minutes during the two hour ride.  Whoo-hoo!  I was so proud of myself, I almost cried!

I want to thank my trainer, Carlos Marroquin, for his help.  He told me he didn’t know much about bicycling, but he took the trouble to look up how bicyclists get in shape during the off season.  We worked on core strength, upper body strength and leg strength.  As the ride got closer we started working more on cardio.  Throughout the training he worked with me on breathing.  Apparently that’s an important part of fitness!

It is really exciting to me to be in such good physical condition.  I had no idea it would make me feel so much differently about myself.

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Help Along the Way

It turns out I need lots of help, even for things that I think I should be able to do on my own.  As I accept that idea for myself, I am better able to see that this is how we were created.  Humankind was created “in the image of God.”  As a Christian, I see God as Trinity: both three “persons” and only one “God.”   I won’t make an attempt to explain it, but it definitely implies that humans are made in a way that we need each other.  We need each other and are far more dependent on each other than we recognize.

Because I recognize that I need help in so many ways, some of which I detail below, I can also recognize that many people need help with affordable housing.  I am privileged to be a part of the solution, and hope that you will join me!

Donate to the Fuller Center

I have needed a lot of help throughout my life, and this journey is no different.  There was a time when I rarely allowed myself to ask for help.  Usually it was because I was embarrassed and wanted to protect my ego.  I didn’t want anyone to know my weaknesses, or even to know that I had weaknesses.  That doesn’t make them go away, though!  Some of them seem silly to me—things that “everybody” should be able to do on their own, but for some reason I can’t.  Others, like losing weight and getting in shape, are things that few people are able to do on their own, but I still think that I should be able to do it!

Right now I am preparing for a bicycle trip across the country and for a move.  I knew that I would need help preparing for the bicycle ride.  I have done a lot of long-distance riding, but I was worried about such a major undertaking, especially knowing that there are mountains in the way and no way to bypass them if you ride West to East across the entire country.  I needed to improve.  Except for endurance and stamina, I have never been good at pushing myself physically.  I was not likely to get much stronger without help.  So finally I broke down and decided to hire a trainer.  That always seemed like a luxury to me, but I really wanted to work toward this goal.  It’s one of the best decisions I ever made.

I have been working with my trainer, Carlos, for about ten months now, and I am in the best shape of my life.  We started with a lot of strength training and a little bit of cardio work.  A little bit of cardio was all I could handle at the beginning.  Now, in the last few months before the ride he has upped the cardio conditioning.  He pushes me hard enough to improve, but not hard enough to be injured or get discouraged.  I have also gotten better at pushing myself, though I still work harder during our sessions together.

Preparing for a move is a big job, but straightforward.  I find that I need help with that preparation, also.  I even have trouble with the straightforward parts.  I get easily distracted and sit down and read instead of sorting and packing.  Last week, I called a friend and said, “I need somebody to boss me around.”  Just having her in the house so I don’t sit down and start reading will make a big difference.

Sometimes I just have to admit that I need help, even if I think I should be able to do things on my own.  It is part of being human.

 

 

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Choosing a Ride

Like many things in my life, the Fuller Center Bike Adventure was chosen partly by accident and partly by design.  Over the years, I have learned to thank God for many of the happy accidents of my life!  About a year ago I decided that I wanted to do a cross-country bike trip.  It is a long term dream, but last year I decided that if I was going to do it at all, I needed to do it soon, in the next year or two.  So I started looking into different ways that I could accomplish that.

I was not interested in going by myself, nor in trying to plan out all the details on my own.  I wanted some companions along the way, and some support in case I needed it.  I checked into the options for guided trips through Adventure Cycling, America by Bike, and Trek Travel.  I also looked into various ways that I could raise funds for a worthy cause while riding my bicycle across the country.  I had heard of Bike and Build–when I looked them up, they were focused more on participants under the age of thirty.  And then across my Facebook feed came the Fuller Center Bike Adventure!  (There are at least some good things about that targeted advertising.)  In 2016 they went from Seattle to Washington, DC.  That sounded perfect!  I contacted the leader just to get on the mailing list for 2017.

Around Thanksgiving it was time to decide whether or not I was going and what kind of trip I wanted to take.  I have always considered this trip a spiritual pilgrimage.  For several months, during my morning devotions, the idea would pop into my head, “I need to take a pilgrimage!”  Seeing how divided our country was, leading up to and after the 2016 elections, made the pilgrimage even more pressing to me.  I had already begun to train for the ride as far back as May.

Going with the Fuller Center Bike Adventure would give me the opportunity to meet people all across the country.  It’s not that I don’t have that opportunity with another sort of trip–it’s that I know myself and I would not take advantage of that opportunity.   With the Fuller Center for Housing, we raise funds, making us part of the solution to poverty housing.  We also stay in host churches along the way and work on some building projects along the way.  I want to be part of pulling our country together, and this is how God is calling me to be part of that work.

I checked out the Fuller Center for Housing using guidelines from Charity Navigator to make sure I was asking people to donate to something I could really get behind and support and it met my requirements!  I have raised nearly $2000 dollars of my goal of $5000, and am still training with a trainer.  The weather is good for outdoor bike rides now, too.

Donate to the Fuller Center

Support the effort to end poverty housing!

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Life Changing, Even Before We Start

I am planning to go on a bicycle ride across the country with the Fuller Center Bike Adventure.  Actually, I intend to cycle the entire Cross-Country Ride and then join the East Coast Ride in Savannah for two more weeks.  The ride begins on June 2, a mere two months away.  We are raising money for the Fuller Center for Housing, and we will be hosted by churches along the way.  Right now, there are twelve people signed up to ride all the way across the country, and several more who plan to join for one or more week-long segments.

One of my friends, remembering her first time training for and running in a marathon, keeps telling me it will be life-changing.  I respond that it has already changed my life.  Here is some of the evidence:

I started working with a trainer last May, before the bike trip pictured on the right. That was an Adventure Cycling trip, the Finger Lakes Loop in the state of New York.  That trip was in July, 2016.  The picture on the left is from February, 2017.

This year I celebrated my 60th birthday, and I am in the best shape of my life!

Donate to the Fuller Center

Support the effort to end poverty housing!