Friday, December 10, 2010

An Act of God

So those of you who have followed my blog know that I have a somewhat curious relationship with God.  I believe in him utterly and completely but there have been times that there is no doubt I have made God laugh becuase of my presumptiveness.  Now, I don't believe in a vengeful God that likes to mess with us just out of principle but I do think it is a mistake to tempt him and I know I have suffered the wrath of said deity as a result.

I do converse with him on a daily basis yet I have to admit that I have not heard him speak back in the voice of Morgan Freeman;


That would be; a) incredibly awesome and b) far too easy -  at least according to those philosphers such as Immanuel Kant, Frederik Nietzsche, Friedrich Hegel,  Rene Descartes, or Socrates (read all about them here) or if you need the shorter, quicker movie version;



Well, with all due respect to Mr. Descartes, I don't believe I exist because I think, I exist becasue I ride;

It is when I am on my bicycle that I can ultimately reach that meditative state of flow or as one writer puts it, "the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity."  For me this is through my riding and while riding I often reflect about the many things going on in my life.  Sometimes I even hear the dulcet tones of James Earl Jones quoting biblical verse:



But more often the sounds I hear are my own labored breathing as I go up Stilwell Lane.  And on a day like today it would not be pretty.

Well, speaking of today I was all set to go bike riding and I had set out all my gear last night, lubed my chain, adjusted my brakes and pretty much set everything up so that I could get a good early start in the morning since I knew I needed to go and confer with my colleagues about casting our spring musical Bye Bye Birdie.

However upon waking I realized that the congestion in my chest was had not cleared up and there was no way in the cold weather I was going to be able to breathe what with my cold induced asthma on top of whatever was going on in my chest.  So I drove in - AND A LUCKY THING I DID TOO!

For you see, faithful readers a radiator pipe had burst outside the Little Theater about 6:30 in the morning and flooded the hall, the student government office, the psychiatrist's office, the Little Theater AND THE COSTUME CLOSET where we house hundreds of costume pieces and various accessories!  When I first drove up I didn't know what to think since there was CAUTION ribbon strung up everywhere and I peeked in the window and saw all the costume closet contents out in the hall.  So I ran around to the other entrance expecting the worst!

Long story short, I was able to save almost everything and I'm so grateful to Charles Abner, Tim Horace and all the rest of the maintenance and custodial staffs for getting everything out and mopping up as much as they could so quickly.  I was able to get about 150 costumes that had been soaked out of the costume shop and into my car and off to the dry cleaners!  Of course this took me almost the entire day to do so there was no conferring about casting with colleagues - however we were able to save a couple of thousand dollars worth of costumes.  So for once, everything aligned FOR me for a change. 

So today, instead of being frustrated about not riding and how I need to start training very hard and getting myself used to riding in all conditions to "stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood" for the charge ahead, it was most fortuitous that I headed my body and drove - otherwise, I NEVER would have gotten all of those costumes home on my bike!

Don't get me wrong, I'm still working on getting sponsors for our cross country ride and I'm praying/conversing/communing with God every single day praying for miracles and hoping that sponsors will come forward - and I do most all of this while I'm riding my bike. 

So next week its supposed to be REALLY cold but I plan on riding.  I have my Madonna del Ghisallo medallion and I will keep communing with the big guy (God, not JEJ) while praying and hoping that someone will come forward and help us out.

Stay well everyone and I WILL see you on the road.

No comments:

Post a Comment