Exhausting Joy

New post on the 207 blog:
http://207miles.blogspot.com/2010/11/exhausting-joy.html

A few weeks ago I returned from another 3 day trip to northern Mexico to build a house for an impoverished family. Now i have done this trip over 12 times, and each time I return home I feel the emotional and physical drain that comes from 3 hard days of physical service. For some reason this trip was different. I was so exhausted I struggled to focus as i returned to work and I think Erin and I went to bed at like 830 that first night back. In addition to the exhaustion I noticed was that my heart was overwhelmed with joy and contentment.

As I reflected on this I noticed a trend between service projects to another passion of mine, endurance athletics. This feeling of immense joy and exhaustion that only comes from accomplishing something bigger than yourself. I can't think of too many things that can wreck you physically and yet elevate your spirit at the same moment.

Another observation, these opportunities don't just happen in our daily lives. You have to manufacture them, you have to put yourself out there to experience what I now call exhaustive joy.

So here is the question. When is the last time you manufactured Exhaustive Joy in your life?

If you need an idea to jump start you on this I have two opportunities for you. We are ramping the planning and marketing for this years 207 ride, in February we will again be taking the two day 200 mile cycling journey to rocky point. We raised nearly $6,000 last year and we are looking to quadruple that this next year. Also OneMission.us continues to have weekend mission trips changing lives weekly.

I encourage you to shed your inhibitions and experience the only kind of joy and contentment you can get from sheer exhaustion. Wreck yourself to change lives... not just yours.

It's been a while.

Well I have to admit it when I opened my blog today I thought it had been a few months since my last effort here, but alas it appears to have been exactly 1 year and 6 days since I put my personal thoughts on display for the digital world to ignore.

Lord knows I have plenty of thoughts swimming around in my head, so I promise to do better at sharing them from now on. Oct 2008-Oct 2009 I blogged 40 times. It will be my goal to eclipse that in the next 371 days.

Enjoy the show.

5 things I have learnd form riding to work.

1. If its not on your bike is seems to be real heavy. I weighed my backpack one morning this week and including my laptop it weighed 17lbs... Not that might not seem like a lot, but that is basically like me carrying around a second bike.
2.Changing Clothes in your office feels wrong. I have blinds and a door that locks, don't think I am stripping down in a cubicle...Our bathrooms are incredibly inaccessible so at the end of the day its just easier to change in my office, but I don't like it.
3. People in cars are one of three types... Considerate and observant, flaky and distracted, or straight up jerks with the need to show their car is bigger than my bike. Which are you?
4. Carpool >= Biking > Working from home > The bus.
I don't really like driving, so in the past 12 years of my life I have tried the bus, car pooling and working from home. Biking is easier than taking the bus (you can sleep on the bus, but you don't get to choose who you sit next to). Biking is harder than car pooling (you get to sleep/veg half the time when car pooling). Biking is better than working from home. (I have found that I get cabin fever if I work more than 3 days in a row from a home office and I work myself to death. best cure for cabin fever is to go for a ride.)
5. The riding is the easy part. The planning, packing, cleanup, etc. if the hard part.

To see the full map and details of my commute - checkout my Garmin Connect
22 Miles, 1Hr 20Min.

Going Green

Monday I will be starting a new experiment. I will be going green by attempting to not buy gas for a month. I have a valid excuse for this, actually I have a few but sparing you all the details I will quickly bring you up to speed. In July we went to CIY as mentors( a youth camp for high school students) Part of the experience was a the end of the week the students had the opportunity to step up to an unknown challenge. They were handed sealed commitment cards. They were asked to not open the cards unless they were committed to doing whatever was inside the card. Cards had everything from volunteering to be a big bro big sis, feeding the homeless for thanksgiving, paying someones way to CIY the next year, etc. I, of course to support the students, opened a card as well. The challenge "give up gas fro a month and give the money you save to a green charity."

Needless to say with the idea of 207 still fresh in my mind this challenge fit right in, but I have to be honest I immediately began to doubt if I could pull it off. Fact is I have a family, among other responsibilities and not driving at all for a month seems impossible. So I set up some cheats right off the bat. 1. Riding with Erin somewhere is not in violation of the rules. I am still saving on gas in my truck. 2. I would fill up my tank at the beginning of the month and survive off that for emergencies etc. All in all I think I will save on 3-4 fill ups at $45 a pop.

I say all this to get tot he point that I test rode my work route today. I actually attempted last Thursday, but 3 flat tires 500 meters from my truck kinda put a stop to that ride. I work on 16th Street and Northern about 23 miles from the house. The nice thing is that the Canal runs all the way from 75th ave past my office. So for about 13 miles of the route I don't have to deal with traffic, etc. This morning I choose to drive to the start of the canal and ride from there. Attached is the route, here, if you want to look at it on Garmin. It took me about 45 minutes riding the 13 miles, but about 1.5 hours door to door including a shower at the gym across from work.

So starting Monday I should be riding at least 2 days a week. Carpooling another 2 days (thanks Tim) and working from home the last day. I will keep you posted on how the adventure turns out.

The Search for God and Guiness

On Aurthur Guinness Day I thought I would share with you the next book I am going to buy. My wife is a Thomas Nelson blogger. What this basically means is that she gets free books if she agrees to blog about them. Its quite upsetting that she found this book before me, but that is probably because she reads more than 4 books a year. None the less the book looks real interesting, The Search for God and Guinness, a Biography of the Beer the Changed the World By Stephen Mansfeild.
"It began in Ireland in the late 1700’s. The water in Ireland, indeed throughout Europe, was famously undrinkable, and the gin and whiskey that took its place was devastating civil society. It was a disease ridden, starvation plagued, alcoholic age, and Christians like Arthur Guinness—as well as monks and even evangelical churches—brewed beer to offer a healthier alternative to the poisonous waters and liquors of the times."
God and Guinness, Two things I like.

What a difference a year makes.

So Erin has been reminding me lately that tomorrow it will have been one full year since I was laid off at SelectBuild and our family was heading off for a week a Disneyland. I think she would rather forget unemployment, but would love to return to the happiest place on earth. I can truly say that this was a year that had am impact on us. Here are a few things comparatively, then from now.
1. Then; Being laid off by a large public company in financial trouble. Now; Working for a small private company with money in the bank.
2. Then; Living at our means. Now; Living beneath our means
3. Then; Good excuse for being stressed. Now: No excuse for being stressed.
4. Then; Wrestling with the faith that God would provide. Now; Wrestling with the fact that I ever doubted God's plan.
5. Then; Wife and Girls who loved me unemployed. Now Wife and Girls who love me employed.
6. Then; ESPN, NFL Network and HD Cable heading into football season. Now; Heading over to my brother-In-Law's house to watch the game.
7. Then; Secure, clothed, warm and too well fed. Now;Secure, clothed, warm and too well fed.
8. Then; uneasy about how much unstructured time I had. Now; Uneasy about being able to find enough unstructured time.
9. Then; Expensive Health Care. Now; Expensive Health Care.
10. Then; Wondering what God has up next. Now; Wondering what God has up next.

As you can see some things change and some stay the same. I think what I realize is the things that stay the same tend to really matter. They are things that are above the situations of life. They transcend our condition. Things that don't seem to matter as much tend to manifest themselves firmly in the now. It's funny that we want change in our lives, but we want to dictate where the change comes from. I honestly think God wrecks havoc on one area of your life that he knows you can recover form to shed light on another area he needs you to address before it wrecks you.
Blessed be the name of the Lord

Introducing My Next Adventure

Check out my next adventure @ http://207miles.blogspot.com/

"There are 207 miles between my church home in Peoria, AZ and the barrios of Rocky Point, Mexico. 207 was born out of a desire to increase awareness of the poverty in Rocky Point and to raise funds for the people and organizations battling that poverty.

Later this year, I am going to be riding my bicycle from Peoria, AZ to Rocky Point, MX. It is my desire that many people would take notice and ask me why I am doing this, others would donate to the cause and still others might even be crazy enough to ride some or all of the event with me."