I'm Older Than I've Ever Been...And Now I'm Even Older

Working in a bike shop, okay, service shop, has it's upside. The downside is that I am constantly surrounded with reminders that the shop is a young man's game. I am the oldest in the shop by nearly ten years, but still get to do all the fun stuff the kids get to do...like deliveries.

Taylor (19 year old college student) and I had to deliver a treadmill and elliptical machine to one place in town and then another elliptical of gargantuan status to another customer out of town yesterday. I opted to go since there was nothing to do in the shop and we loaded up the box truck and pulled out.

We arrived at the first place and the customer said that whoever sold him the stuff said that we'd haul his old treadmill out for him as well. This was not the most pleasant of surprises as everything that we did required a flight of narrow basement stairs and a sharp, 180 degree corner with lots of breakable stuff at the bottom. By the time Taylor and I got the old treadmill out, I was already sweating like a chubby Elvis and ruing my decision to do deliveries.

The elliptical made me nervous because of the tight corner. The arms on the machine extend pretty far up and I didn't know whether we had a prayer of getting the thing through or not. We hit the bottom of the stairs and were pleasantly surprised that the corner proved no problem.

The new treadmill was another matter entirely. It is one of those units that folds somewhat flat when stored, but weighs a ton (not surprising to anyone that's owned an even half-way decent treadmill). We had hoped to carry it flat through the door frame, but that proved impossible as, even with the door off, we would have been probably about four inches short of space. This meant we needed to take it through and down the stairs sideways.

The motor on a treadmill sits completely on one end of the unit and weighs roughly the same as a refrigerator. When the unit is tipped on its side, all of that weight kicks to one side and makes is about as easy to handle as my dad's old classic pickup (without power steering) careening down a series of switchbacks on an Alpine slope with the brake line cut. I can still see the marks on my hands where all of the weight of the unit was concentrated while we worked it down the stairs.

Somehow we made it out of there with no property damage.

We hit the other delivery in good time after about a 45 minute drive and were pleased to see that even though it was a two story house, we had ground level access either way. Even though that machine weighed significantly more than the other three we had maneuvered already, the elliptical proved a very easy delivery.

We were back to the shop before 8:00 and then had the joy of moving a Bowflex machine to the floor for display and an air hockey/pool table that is a testament to how a poorly designed, poorly constructed piece of game equipment can ruin what is actually a fairly creative idea.

By the time I rolled into the house, my back was screaming. Amy, my compassionate, lovely bride, did her best to work the ache and strain out of my back before we turned in for the evening, but I knew that I'd still be paying for the effort today. I am and I fear what I might have felt like today without Amy's intervention.

I think I may have to leave the heavy lifting to all the young bucks in the shop from here on out.

Recent Reading

I've been reading "The Christ of the Indian Road" by E. Stanley Jones off and on for the last few months and came across something this morning that called to mind Philippians 4:8. Verses 4-9 read:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

This is a passage that God continues to bring to my mouth for my sake and for the sake of others because of the anxiety that comes with living, but I often stop at verse seven before all of the "whatevers". Here's what I read this morning:

In the language of Matthew Arnold, "Jesus is an Ultimate."

Start in at the thing that you know is worth-while and follow it back to its final form and see where it lands you. For instance, love is a worth-while thing in life. We ought to love. Then trace love back to its ultimate kind and you will not be far from Him who loved as never man loved. If purity is a good thing, then start with it and go on back and see what kind of ultimate purity it brings you to, and you will find yourself looking into the eyes of Him who was "the Purest among the mighty and the Mightiest among the pure." If self-sacrifice is life's most noble quality, then run it back to its finest type and you will find yourself gazing upon a cross.

I have to admit that verse eight has often been a tool for me to reorient my thinking so that I would stop thinking about things that were not noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. I have seen the verse as a simple form of behavior modification through thought reorientation. While I believe that it has been helpful as such, the words of E. Stanley Jones bring me to something altogether different.

His recommendation to pursue the good back to its root to find the ultimate is, I believe, a huge part of what Paul intended the readers in Philippi to understand. "These things" are a good pursuit in themselves as they will lead to right living, but "these things" are also a magnifier of the person of God. If we will delve into what it is that makes things noble, right, pure..., at the core will be a greater revelation of the character and heart of God.

There are several other things that I hope to share from this book over the coming weeks that are extremely relevant to today's Christianity. It amazes me how some of the issues that E. Stanley Jones wrote about in 1925 still speak a prophetic word to the Church today.

The End of My Blogging Sabbatical

I didn't necessarily make a decision to stop writing for a period of time, but found that every time I sat down to write, even if I had something in mind, I would just blank. Rather than writing for the sake of writing, I opted to simply take a break. Last week it hit me that today would mark one month since my last post, so I decided on today as my unofficial relaunch into the blogosphere.

A lot has happened in the last month, but not a great deal has changed. Other than Amy starting at USF a few weeks ago, major change has not been afoot, but has been bubbling under the surface. We're continuing to wait for a chance to go interview at the church that I applied at in June. They've been extremely busy and we just haven't been able to find a date. Patience has been the key for me over the last 18 months and the lessons that I've learned must have sunk in at least a little bit. I feel a peace about the pacing of things and know that even if everything seems ideal that God may have another plan.

Things with the house in Marion have continued to move through various cycles of activity and inactivity and we're back to the activity portion of things again as we just heard yesterday from a friend who is a missionary and may be interested in the house for their frequent visits back to Marion. We've seen interest before and been disappointed, so I'm trusting again that it will happen if it's supposed to.

We also had a chance to lead worship and speak at the Sheldon Church of the Brethren on Sunday which gave us an excuse to spend the weekend with my folks. We had a good time hanging out at the farm, eating raspberries in various forms and just decompressing. Well, we had a good time until the last 45 minutes when Xander decided that life was not offering him all he deserved and that he should just invest his energy in hacking everybody off. It was a brilliant plan on his part to try to gain our sympathies by trying to make us feel sorry for him, but it backfired horribly as each new attempt brought harsher consequences. By the time we left and got home, everything was fine. We're chalking it up to too little sleep, a little sickness and too much time being exposed to the manipulation ploys and temper tantrums of other first graders. Unfortunately, math and reading aren't the only things that a kid learns at school.

Things at work continue to plug away. We are firmly out of cycling season and are seeing more winter sport activity coming on. We do snow boards, skis, sharpen skate blades, drill holes in bowling balls and all sorts of other things that I have never even conceived of doing. I'll have to learn an entirely new skill set to get through the winter and it's almost like being a new employee all over again. I did build a bike last night while the other guys were on deliveries, just to have something to do, but there is little going on in bike land these days.

To compensate for the end of the season, I've started riding my mountain bike to work in a vain attempt to pick up a few more miles. A round trip winds up being 6.7 miles, so If I do that three times a week, I pick up an extra 20 miles a week that I would have missed otherwise. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep it up (South Dakota weather being what it is), but it only takes me about five minutes longer to get to work by bike than it does by car.

I've also started ordering and stockpiling new cold weather gear to pick up from work over the next few months so I can brave the weather a little more often this winter. Last year, my 2:00-midnight schedule killed any chance of winter riding. This year it will still be hard to pull off too much riding, but I may be able to sneak a 25 mile ride in every once in a while so that when spring hits I won't be quite as much of a slug.

Other thoughts are percolating and may even be written about at some point. Unless I decide to take another month off.