Missing My Pack

The adrenaline rush of moving here, getting unpacked, finding an apartment, long lists of to-do's, exploring my surroundings....it's starting to wear off and I'm faced with.....me, just me.

Every week my pastor at Augustana Lutheran (DC) sends out a mid-week reflection. Today's...well, you read and then I'll comment.

In years past, the Saturday preceding Labor Day weekend found me in Waitsfield Vermont for an annual high - the 105 mile Mad River Bicycle Ride. This Saturday before Labor Day weekend, my high came instead from a French Canadian movie – “Two Seconds”.

After flying down a mountainside in the opening scene, a champion woman mountain biker is pushed into retirement and becomes a bicycle courier. From that point on, great urban cycling scenes, wonderful bicycle shop culture, and attentiveness to technical detail, enthralled me. I rank “Two Seconds” in my all time top three cycling movies with “Breaking Away” and “American Fliers”. (It bumps out “The Man with One Red Shoe”, a DC staged film that features young performances by Tom Hanks and Jim Belushi).

Through it all, Charlotte Laurier humbly stays focused, emotes total pleasure in cycling, and stays positive despite pressure to crumble into bitterness. I found her so inspiring in this role, that I went out and did my fastest ride of the year – 26 miles averaging 17 miles per hour.

This was not my fastest ever ride. There have been years when I did the first twenty-mile leg of the Mad River Ride at over 20 mph. But this may be an apples-to-oranges comparison. The Vermont ride has more hills but the route has only one stop sign while my flatter 26 miler had five stop signs and a dozen traffic lights. Mad River attracts hundreds of riders and I easily joined tag lines to draft on but here I road alone. The aerodynamic advantages of riding in a group are enormous. In the middle of a pack, a rider uses 30% less energy to maintain speed than when riding alone. To really fly high, I need a good route to follow and partners on whom I can draft.

Flying high in worship also requires a good route and partners to pull you along. In the low seasons of life I lack the word and spirit for worship. I need the words fed to me but even then I can only follow. Others have to do the heavy work that pulls me along. In more flamboyant moments, liturgy’s familiar path rushes me along with exuberant confidence that all the notes and words are in easy reach and that kindred spirits will blend into harmony sublime and divine. And I too take turns spinning at the front of the pack.

Week in and week out, in good times and foul seasons, our liturgy offers a proven route that blends voices, words and notes in human aspiration that calls out to God -

“Hear our prayer.”
“Show us the way, Lord.”
“Inspire us to fly.”


What John talked about -- the feel of riding with a group, being pulled along by the group, even in liturgy -- I'm feeling this myself. After 3 weeks in Australia, I'm starting to flag. The initial exuberance (not to mention the ton of to-do's) is starting to settle down. And what I'm feeling is the lack of my pack -- the people I ride with, figuratively.

I ride with a pack every day, even when I don't physically see them. Sometimes I'm out front, sometimes I'm in the back, I'm often in the middle. Augustanans. The local massage therapy community. My housemate and neighbors. The sailing club. Co-workers. Former co-workers. Friends. Family.

My pack.

Australia is so far away, so incredibly far away. And I'm starting to miss my pack something fierce. I miss the feel of your wind around me, I miss the pull of your wheels humming along with mine, the sound of our breathing creating its own music.

So, slowly, I'm working on finding a new pack here, some people I can "ride" with. Other bodyworkers. Friends of friends. Neighbors who use the pool at the same time I do. The receptionist at the gym I might join just so I can meet some new people.

I'm surrounded by hordes of people every day because we're in the heart of the CBD but they aren't "riding" with me and I'm not riding with them. But, maybe, with time and the Spirit, I'll soon start seeing faces in those crowds who are part of my pack.

Soon, I hope.

Missing y'all at least as much as I expected to and maybe even some more.