In the Saddle Again…

I am finally back into the routine of riding my bicycle again. I have been riding regularly for a number of years but somehow did not get started after I moved to Ohio in March. Knowing that we were going to have a church bike ride on Sunday, August 16, gave me the motivation I needed to get my bike out of the basement and begin riding. I did not want to be totally embarrassed by getting pooped out on the ride and show my parishioners how out of shape I really was. With some trepidation, on Thursday before the ride, I started riding and even though it was quite hot, I found out again that I enjoyed biking and had greatly missed my time alone on the road. With my preparation rides on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I felt pretty good on the 26 miles along the Slippery Elm Trail. Now the goal is to keep riding. I have already had two rides this week and look forward to some longer rides this week-end.

The physical benefits of riding are numerous and obvious but it is easy for me to forget that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 6:19) and I need to take care of it. It is easy for me to think that I have more important “spiritual” things to do than regularly getting out on my bicycle and getting the physical exercise that I need to stay healthy. I have just finished reading again Richard Foster’s classic book, Celebration of Discipline. It seems to me that a chapter needs to be added on the discipline of keeping fit. I find that my spiritual life , emotional life and physical well being are all interconnected. When I am too sedentary, my spiritual life suffers. I need the regular discipline of physical activity as much as I need Bible study, meditation and prayer. I also find that when riding, I get ideas for things I am working on, and often it is easy to spend time in prayer while I am riding. I am finding some beautiful parts of our Creator’s handiwork right here in Putman and Hancock counties which elicit praise. Sometime my mind just rests as I pedal along which is also a benefit.

Pray that I can now continue to be disciplined in this important area of physical activity while I take seriously that indeed my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Transitions


Our whole family is in major transition this summer. I was the first to make a move as I began as Pastor of Grace Mennonite Church on March 15 and moved from Berne, Indiana to Pandora, Ohio. It wasn’t until June 13 that I was joined by my wife Dianne and daughter Julia. (I wrote about the move in an earlier blog.) They stayed in Berne until Julia’s graduation from high school on June 7. It certainly was good to have them here as it was getting pretty lonely in the parsonage.

On our trip to Colorado in July, we said good-bye to our son Phil and his wife Mary as they continued west to Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary in Fresno, California. Here they will both be pursuing degrees: Phil, a Masters of Divinity and Mary, a Masters in Counseling. They just had their one year anniversary of married life and had been living in Goshen, Indiana where they are both graduates of Goshen College.

Julia is presently on a missions trip to Nicaragua. She is having a great experience living in a different culture and learning Spanish. We look forward to having here back home in Pandora for a little over a week before we take her off to college at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Here she plans to major in peace building and development. At this point we will truly be “empty nesters” for the first time in our lives.

Ryan, our oldest son, is also making a transition. He will be leaving his work at Swiss Village, a retirement center in Berne, Indiana, to join a new Mennonite Voluntary Service unit in Madison, Wisconsin. Now, instead of all living in Indiana, we will be spread to four states and separated by many miles. Of course, we are grateful for email and cell phones, but it certainly won’t be the same as having everyone around the supper table.

If any of you have some hints or advice on dealing with family transitions and empty nesting, I would be glad to hear them. This is all new territory for me in my journey of life and I don’t claim to have it all figured out. I take confidence in the fact that my whole family from California to Virginia, from Wisconsin to Ohio is in the loving care of our Creator.