I got out on my road bike today for a 16 mile ride. Two weeks ago I rode the Surry Century. (A century is 100 miles in one day. See odometer reading at the bottom of the handlebar computer screen, below. Sorry about the poor focus!)



Before today, I hadn't been on the road bike for two weeks. I just needed a break! I did commute several times the week before last, but this past week I didn't do any riding at all because I was away for a conference. Today I sure did feel that two week lay-off! And it was good to see the odometer click past 1,800 miles ridden for the year, on my road bike. Adding the miles I've ridden on my commuting bike, I'm well over 2,000 miles for the year.

This past Monday night I was touring the new building of the Mid-County High School in Newberry County, SC. In the principal's office, I noticed an arrangement of three pictures -- of the principal finishing the swimming, the cycling, and the running portions of a triathlon. I said to her, "I'm impressed to see that you're a tri-athlete! I rode my bicycle a hundred miles a week ago Saturday, but I've always thought tri-athletes are kind of crazy." She said, "Well, I've always thought people who ride centuries are kind of crazy! I've only ridden a metric." (Translation: a metric century -- 100 kilometers, 62 miles.)

I was in Newberry County, SC because I was staying with my Uncle Bob and his wife, Marcia, and that Monday night was the Ruritan Club meeting, and, after a dinner of barbeque and hash and cole slaw and sweettea (one word!), the program was to tour the high school.

I had spent Monday at the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, for a wrap-up meeting of 2007-2008 Synod Discernment Advocates for an initiative called Project Connect. The purpose of Project Connect is to engage young adults, aged 18-30 in conversation about what work the Spirit might be calling them to do, and to encourage and nurture those who might be called to become pastors and Associates in Ministry and Deaconesses and Diaconal workers in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Discernment Advocates do this work in their particular Synods. (One statistic illustrates how crucial this work is: each year, 500 ELCA pastors are retiring, but our seminaries are only graduating 300 new pastors!)

Then, I spent Tuesday through yesterday in Atlanta, because I had been asked to help orient the 2008-2009 Synod Discernment Advocates. In addition to the orientation event, a highlight of those days was the few hours we took to tour the Martin Luther King Jr. Center For Nonviolent Social Change. A major disappointment was that the holy ground of historic Ebeneezer Baptist Church was closed, because they are renovating the chancel to be as it was in the years 1960-1968, when King preached there. So, I have to go back when that's finished.

Nevertheless, the museum itself was very moving, with its historical displays. And I'll tell you, it's an experience to work with Discernment Advocate pastors who are in their 20s and 30s. The civil rights movement is long-ago history to those who were born years later. They would look at the displays, and then ask me about them, considering me to be a wise (old) man.

At one point I realized that, when the current Admissions Director of Southern Seminary was born, my son, Nathan, was two years old!

But it was not just an experience of feeling old. It was also an opportunity to be in on a view of what the future will include. For instance, consider these comments about one current controversy in the church. "Those in their 20s and 30s don't see what the problem is with homosexuality. Twenty and 30-year olds by and large think the way people are is the way God created them." And, "What worries me is how many young adults we'll lose from the church if we don't become more open to gays and lesbians."