Hitting the Road!

Reflections on the Ride

Another Youth Bike Tour is just around the corner…  As I have been working on the “Reflection Newsletters”, our daily, themed sheets for spending 20 minutes off our bikes in the morning and considering all of God’s gifts to us, I’ve been moved by the working of the Holy Spirit in my life.

This Day 2 reflection, for instance:  how to find a way to express that grace of God within us, connecting with young people and sparking some discussion in our groups?  The parables of the buried treasure or the pearl of great price did not immediately come to mind. And yet, as I worked through the events of the upcoming day, the theme of the tour and the need to push each cyclist to consider the “hidden beauty” of each person, the Gospel of Matthew was right there for me.

Here’s the full pdf of the Day 2 Reflection Cyclo News. Let me know what you think! tour-down-under-2008-day-2

Guidelines for Living

The Parable of the Sower is truly the filet mignon of the Gospel message—the short version is perfect; all the fat and bone has been trimmed off, leaving us with the “finest cut” the Good Book has to offer.   Its basic meaning is understood easily.

[Continued in Ministry...]

An ode to simplicity on Bastille Day

Back in 1999 I participated in the Glimmerglass Triathalon in Cooperstown, New York.  At that time, the event consisted of canoe, cycling and running legs. I rode the 26-mile cycling leg around scenic Otsego Lake. Our mixed 50+ team finished 3rd.  Great day, event… and ride, with one exception:  on the biggest downhill of the ride, pedaling as fast as I could, other cyclists just screamed by me!  Why?  My vintage Peugot PX-10 10-speed (pictured on the left) couldn’t go any faster.

A year later, after encouragement from my wife, months of research and test rides, I’d settled on the Lemond Zurich pictured in some of my cycling posts, like last summer’s cycling retreat.  I love the bike. A quick ride on the Zurich is a 35-mile pickup, even on our upstate NY hillsides. But it has a problem:  even as well designed as it is, it’s inherently more complicated than the PX-10.  27 speeds, STI shifters, carbon fiber forks, reduced spoke wheels… you get the picture.

My friend Ken has a fondness for old French bikes and shares my belief that life is simpler with fewer gears and less stuff. Ken also has an old Compte bike that has various dire problems including a headset with a deathwish. Even Ken has finally admitted that his Compte is too hazardous for him to ride.

Ken needs a bike and I’ve got at least one bike too many right now.

He’s picking up the PX-10 on Wednesday.

(Kent’s Bike Blog)

Well, I pulled the Peugot out of storage this past weekend, seeking a simpler, less complicated ride. The Peugot came through!  A bucket of sudsy water removed most of the dust from being stored in the attic of the garage.  The solid leather Brooks saddle was as good as ever, as were the Simplex derailleurs.  Wow!  I’m with Kent and his friend, Ken:  something about an old French bike does speak to the simpler side of life.

The PX-10 is with me today on my overnight at work… I’ll be squeezing in a 10-mile loop in the scenic Catskills before dinner and loving every minute of it on this Bastille Day, 2008!

Any sound tree bears good fruit…

Hypermiling: it’s not about the mileage… or saving money at the gas pump either. I think it points to something much, much deeper. A co-worker and I were recently talking about how irritable everyone at school is. Sure, it’s the end of the school year and teachers are a bit frazzled as they complete grading tests; office staff and administrators are more than busy dealing with students who would rather be anywhere… but school.

Yet, it seemed like more than that to us. Something just wasn’t right about the end of school this year. What was it?

The answer was right in front of us: people feel as if they are losing control. It’s not just the skyrocketing gasoline prices on stations everywhere. It’s not the incremental increase of EVERYTHING. The world as many thought they knew it has changed… and few seem to have any confidence that it will ever return.

And what was that world? For many in our country, it was a world of comforts… most taken for grant. It was a world of unacknowledged DEPENDENCIES. Folks had lost sight of just how they depended upon others for even the most fundamental needs in life.

The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country’s sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance. AP, 22 June 2008

So, hypermiling is about perservering in the face of powerlessness and regaining control of something in life. A very small consolation in a very large stew of challenges facing us now! Are we waking up? Taking control: if the backyard garden is now becoming more than stylish–it may well be a necessity! Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) supports community, if a person can’t have a backyard garden. Taking control of our lives and becoming more self-sufficient and having faith in each other–this is what we need most right now. I’ve been recording fill-ups on my little Hyundai at 47.9 and 48 miles per gallon in the past few weeks–a small step, but a huge shift in thinking about doing more with less.

This has been on my mind a lot lately, and in preparing my weekly Wednesday morning Communion Service homily on the day’s readings, the Holy Spirit urged me to consider what I already had learned early in life but had set aside: that self-sufficiency is an attribute to cherish; that community–particularly local community–is a prize that we too often look right past.

As Jesus spoke to the twelve, he urged them to “be on your guard against false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but underneath are wolves on the prowl.” [Mt 7:15] He tells them that “you will know them by their deeds” and then gives the lesson of the fruit tree… the title of today’s post. [Mt. 7:15-20]

I truly believe that any sound tree bears good fruit and that there is much about our country… our world, that is sound. But we have also been looking head on at decay and not seeing it for what it is. We have been listening to voices that convince us to consume… consume… consume. These are the voices of the false prophets. Time to turn aside from their empty words and return to the essentials: holding our neighbors in the highest regard and loving them despite their failings. Now is the time to be working together… not the time to be clamoring for scarce resources.

Revisiting sagging fences… battered walls

My musings on laid stonewalls and the bucolic countryside in our area of upstate New York have been among the most popular posts that I’ve ever written. This photo of the stones we’d gathered, the tarped sand and used landscape stones we’d removed from the old garden wall opened that post. Clearly, I am not the only one who is seeking simplicity…

This past weekend, Linda and I finally cleared our calendars to begin working on that long-delayed “hardscaping” project. We’d checked the how-to books out of our local library once again, gathered our tools and dug in! The initial results have been more than rewarding.

No real musings at this point: it’s hard work that brings one closer to nature and the awesome genius of our Creator God!

Enjoy the photos below from our project.  Updated 19 July 2008

Stone Wall Construction

Too busy to blog?

Oh, my gosh! I now have at least 5 great posts drafted and in the queue… but not published. The juices are flowing, but “seat time” at the Mac just hasn’t been there. Here’s a glimpse of some of the musings that are percolating:

• Natural gas exploration? The new stone fences of rural America.
• Let ‘er roll update: they call it “hypermiling”! (A Teaser: my last fill-up at $4.15/gal. yielded 47.9mpg! )
• Rock walls - up close and personal
• Beyond the pulpit and the pews - defining “new media”

Stick with me… a lot more is on the way!

Celebrating community…

“Tim, the reason we begin the diaconate formation with a new group of men every two years is simple: whenever a new group of men is brought together in formation, the group must be large enough to build community among them. Without community,” Fr. Lou Aiello continued, “these men would not have the support and collegiality to sustain them through the ups and downs of the four year program of formation.”

At the time I was exploring the possibility of applying to the Permanent Diaconate program in the Diocese of Syracuse. Honestly, the concept of “community” seemed a bit foreign to me. I knew what Fr. Aiello meant, but I didn’t really understand how essential to diaconal formation our bond as eight very different men, with one very common pursuit would be. During this past four years, we’ve faced academic, logistic, spiritual, family and parish issues that challenged us. Through it all, our community as “deacons in formation” provided encouragement, guidance and genuine love for one another.

As we wrapped up the four years this past weekend with a chicken barbecue lunch for the men now moving up to their third year, our group of eight deacons understand just how important Fr. Aiello’s comments had been. And we also understood how important our wives had been, both as participants with us in the journey, as co-partners in community, and as a group of spirit-filled women who also formed their own community over the duration of the formation process.

Thank you to everyone who has made “celebrating community” so easy to do. The support, guidance and vision of so many made completing this journey be that experience Fr. Aiello had described to me so many years ago.

Deacon Tim McNerney

Let ‘er roll!

OK, so it began as a bit of a lark: gasoline was hovering near $4.00/gal. and living in rural upstate New York–well, I drive a lot. I wondered: “Can I improve my gas mileage a bit?”. I’ve been driving a “vintage” 2001 Hyundai Accent GL, 3-door hatchback for two years. It’s a small 1.6l manual 5-speed, with NO FRILLS–I still have crank windows and no A/C.

During my past two years driving the car, I’ve come to appreciate its fundamentalism but I could never seem to do much better than 39 mpg. However, I had an incentive to try a bit harder to milk every mile out of the vehicle. As the EPA sticker comparison indicates, I was hitting the top end of what drivers had experienced with the car. In fact, as I began this “experiement”, I’d just driven for 320 miles at an average of 40mpg.

Well, here’s what happened when I started driving with a different frame of mind:

STEP 1: Use the terrain and the car’s manual gearing

• I began shifting into higher gears much sooner than the manufacturer’s recommendations.
• All of my startups were deliberate, slow and smooth.
• I always stayed at or slightly under the legal speed limits.
• If the terrain provided a safe coasting area, I shifted into neutral.

STEP ONE RESULTS: 42.5 miles per gallon

Well, that was encouraging! After comparing notes with my son-in-law, who drives a 55mpg + Honda Insight, with low rolling resistance tires, I stepped up the “modifications”:

STEP 2: Increase tire pressure and reduce idling

• I increased my tire pressure all around from 32psi to 40psi.
• When sitting at stop lights or other hold-ups, I turned off the engine if I determined that I would be at the light for 60 seconds or more.
• During the addition of these measures, I continued all STEP 1 changes

STEP TWO RESULTS: 44.7 miles per gallon

Seems almost too good to be true?? It’s not. However, consider these factors:

1. I drive alone.
2. I don’t carrying any heavy items.
3. I drive the same rolling hills in a rural area all the time.
4. I have not driven on a highway with speed limits higher than 55 since I began these changes several weeks ago.
5. The weather is normal for this time of the year; it’s warm and the car does not need to idle high at startup.

The question now is simple: “How long can I sustain this and can I improve the mileage even more?” I’ve increase my mileage nearly 6 miles per gallon over the best averages I normally get during the spring/summer/fall months.  I haven’t done anything too radical, except to add a bit of air to my tires, slow down and using the car’s gearing and earth’s gravity to improve the economy of running the car.

I’m hearing a lot about HYDROGEN BOOST:  do I want to be the next Hinddenberg?

Beyond the Pulpit & the Pews: Evangelism in a Digital Age

“There are precious few resources on the web for men who are discerning the call to this particular vocation. Which is a minor scandal. This ministry is growing by leaps and bounds — the Permanent Diaconate is, arguably, one of the few vocational success stories to bear fruit after Vatican II — and it is attracting men at such a rate that in many dioceses deacons have begun to outnumber priests.”

(from The Deacon’s Bench blog, Sunday, May 18, 2008, “I want to be a deacon…”)

Deacon Greg Kandra’s lament may very well embody the feeling of many who are searching for something… and not finding it. In our postmodern era, church communities of all denominations are struggling to meet the needs of their members. Whether it be men called to vocation, as Dc. Kandra points out, or those men and women who don’t even realize what it is that they are searching for. They just “know” that what they have isn’t enough.

Today begins a series of posts examining the New Media: Internet-based and wireless communications and how they are being employed to evangelize in effective ways locally, regionally and globally. And in the process, I invite readers to contribute and participate in the discussion, because the New Media does indeed encourage a collaborative meeting of the minds, hearts and souls.

Coming Next: defining “New Media”

“They presented these men to the apostles …”

“They presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid hands on them.” Acts 6:6

This was the second time during the ordination liturgy that I approached the bishop, Most Reverend Thomas J. Costello. The first time had been 10 minutes earlier, when each of us knelt before him, hands together as in prayer, making our “Promise of Obedience” to the bishop, his hands firmly covering ours as he read the promise. Seated in the Cathedra, the Bishop’s chair, the five or six steps I took toward him seemed like a hundred steps. I knelt before him… then silently he placed his hands firmly on my head. Stiff at his first touch under the weight of his hands as he wordlessly called upon the sacramental graces of Ordination from the Holy Spirit, I relaxed and opened myself to the moment.

As he lifted his hands from my head, I looked into his eyes… and quietly said “Thank You”. I stood, stepping to the right as my brother in formation, Anthony, stepped up to the Cathedra. We bowed toward the bishop, I turned and walked back to my position in the Sanctuary and then it was Anthony’s turn to experience this essential act of ordination that signifies the special conferral of the Holy Spirit upon the ordinand.

In just a few more minutes, the bishop completed the Sacrament of Ordination with the “Prayer of Consecration”. It was over… or was it? The actual sacramental rite was completed. I WAS A DEACON, sealed with the sacramental grace of ordination, but…

It was just beginning. A new life–a life in ordained ministry. A life that is unfolding even now as I write this post.

PS - Interested in the Permanent Diaconate? More photos and information are at Deacons USA.