Walking Away and Keith McKay

The plan for this morning is to get on my Shaman and head for the trails at Murphy but my legs are saying "not yet, please". Instead, I'll sit on the deck with the sounds of trash hauling trucks working the neighborhood and a woodpecker relentlessly trying to achieve its goal a few backyards away. A lone hummingbird darts into view and catches my eye to momentarily drink from a feeder before speeding away. There's both a low overcast keeping the sun at bay and a light breeze working in my favor. The only thing in need of my attention will be our deck plants that require daily watering but they can wait a little longer.

As I mentioned before, Tammy and I have found a new church home at Family of Christ in Lakeville. She had the women from their book club over last night to discuss their most recent read: Two Old Women. The church appeals to us both but my concern is mostly for Tammy because a church family is so important to her. She had that too at Hosanna but she was becoming continually more and more disappointed in the way too many there were being sucked into right-wing republican politics that bare such little resemblance to the teachings of Jesus. We both feel bad about that. These are good, caring people but the prevailing mob mentality there left little room for an opposing view. She had been biting her tongue for a long time but finally had enough and walked away.

Family of Christ is simply a much better fit for us both. Hosanna, where we'd been members since 1999, will soldier on just fine without us and our misguided left-leaning tendencies to be inclusive of everybody—kinda the way Jesus would want it (I think).

I honestly didn't imagine I'd ever involve myself in organized religion ever again after my fallout from Hosanna nearly 4 years ago. That experience left me so disillusioned with the entire process that I wanted nothing to do with it anymore. I was fine with Tammy continuing on but she would have to go-it-alone, and she did until recently. It feels nice to be sitting beside her in church again but I'm still too quick to take a pass and go riding instead. God and I talk a lot together while I'm on my bike.

Keith McKay was back in town. Keith and I worked together 20 years ago when he was a controller at Minneapolis Center before transferring to Albuquerque Center. I'd recently gotten in touch with him last Thanksgiving and we've since connected through Facebook and texts. It's nice having him in my life again. We used to ride together back in the day and once teamed up in a triathlon where the swimming leg was a 2-person canoe leg instead. I remember us portaging his canoe from where he lived in Burnsville along the sidewalk to Crystal Lake not quite a mile away for the few paddling workouts we did in the weeks leading up to the race.

A few of us met with Keith at the Hard Rock Cafe in Mall of America Tuesday night to reminisce about the old days and do some catching up. There was one story in particular about a DQ run for ice cream that stood out but I won't go into that here. Funny stuff!

I rode with Keith and some others (mostly Keith's family) Thursday for an easy-paced ride along the paved trails into St Paul. We had hoped to ride the river bottoms but heavy rain just before our ride kept us on more firm footing. Keith will be back in town in October and we hope to do some more riding together then.

And speaking of riding—my legs have just given me the go-ahead to fuel up and make tracks for Murphy.

God—are you listening? I've got some things to run by you.