Cycling for 30
This year myself and many close friends turn 30.
I’m attracted to the idea of getting older. I think I enjoy it as an iconoclasm for my generation (hello millennials!). Also, my brother always made a good example — gentle, world-aware, and world impacting — of being 5 years older.
So I appreciate the celebrating of birthdays. It is a practice which bears fruit because it celebrates some *thing* — a gift, or gifts — instead of celebrating in order to distract and entertain ourselves.
So let’s give attention to some of God’s blessings at this birthday: the anniversary of friendships, the growing distance and healing from the horizon of pain and the lessening distance to the horizon of fulfillment, even one which is glimpsed dimly.
Let’s give attention to the beautiful givenness of life. Its dependence on other forces and its received reality, and beauty. “From dust to dust,” as our pastor is fond of quoting on Ash Wednesday, and other times of the year.
Perhaps the activity which draws me most acutely to active reflection on both the incredible *gift* of the breath of life as well as its stark and frustrating frailty is that of endurance exercise. Cycling in this case, is the study. And so as I approach 30 — as we approach 30 — we cycle to celebrate and to be reminded.
900 kilometres. 30 km for each of 30 years.
5 riders will do 150 kilometres each on one day — September 10. Plus a 150km warmup that weekend.
And for you to celebrate with me I’m inviting you to give to support something which is often an unacknowledged blessing as much as it a longed for necessity in the soil of fertile life: affordable housing and supportive community. This HAS been a blessing for me.
Indwell is an organization whose mission is to carefully and intentionally find, build, renovate, care for, and support spaces of just such housing and community. Providing Hope and Homes in my city of Hamilton. They do this aware of and welcoming to folks with a wide-range of mental health stories. As I have come to receive the gift of the influence and support of a close community in walking through my own mental health challenges these past two years I can only be more grateful for the work that Indwell does.
So here’s my ask: celebrate the gift of life this way with me! I’d like 30 people to give $30. The same numbers as the 30km for 30 years. 30x30x30x30
You can give to Indwell here. If you do, mark it one of 3 ways so we can keep track:
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