kar0ling

There was an irritating wobble in my pedal. Then a wobble and a catch. Then a wobble and a catch and a clunk from the crank arm hitting my kick stand. Then the crank arm fell off with a clatter. ...good thing I was on a deserted street less than a block from home. This little anecdote actually dates from early winter, before the snow fell, in the first days of riding my winter bike for the season -- I just didn't want to lose it in the backposts of my Facebook.

Continuing to be the poster-child for singles in Mennonite churches, I was invited to share my testimony at a local congregation as the pastor preached through 1 Corinthians 7. Below is my script, mainly recut from earlier versions. British author Rudyard Kipling tells a story about how several of the wild animals become tame. The dog and the horse are lured out of their wild-ness by promises of food and companionship but the cat stays aloof, declaring, “I am the cat that walks by herself and all places are alike to me.” I’ve always identified with that cat. I’m independent – I can recaulk my bathtub by myself, navigate a strange city alone, and make my own schedule. I’m single – I’m don’t have a husband or boyfriend or children to come with me or ask me to go there. “I am the cat that walks by herself and all places are alike to me.” As the demographic of single adults becomes an increasing part of Canadian population, I suspect there are many others who feel the same. The lin...

Well, that was a day! If it had been any other morning, an unexpected omission with my transportation wouldn't have been of so very much account, but this morning, I was supposed to be at a meeting in NK at 9 a.m. So I was displeased (and flabbergasted) to discover my stem missing when I went to unlock my bike this morning. It's a tad difficult to ride like this. I rushed upstairs to my winter bike, hoping, after a conversation with a bike-riding (and bike-fixing) coworker, that a simple application of grease would partially address the problem that caused me to park the steed. After some lubrication, the chain was sagging like a plumber's pants and I realized the pushing and pulling in my drive chain was caused by the slack catching up with a start. In the drizzly back alley, I finally realized my rear derailleur was at fault for shifting forward, got my fingers good and greasy fiddling with the chain, and, after a few false starts up and down the street second-gues...

That I was blogging through April last year is quite helpful to gauge expectations and precedent for bikeable weather this year. Thus, this seems a good place to note for future reference that I took out my 3-season bike on Thursday, April 17. I'd dropped it off at Natural Cycle for a tune-up at the end of March, so it was ready Apr. 1 already, but, the roads still having some slippery spots and a whole lot of gravel, I decided to stay on the winter bike a while longer to spare my lovely from the worst wet and grit. Then it was hard to gauge when would be an appropriate time to make the switch. In the end, my bike made the decision for me. A month before, I'd had a bizarre incident with my drive train where my chain was tugging and pulling and catching and simply feeling wretched. With no measures to fix it, the problem disappeared. A few days before the fateful Wednesday, I'd been feeling some wonkiness in the drive train but it felt like my right pedal -- which ha...

Once again, some advocacy group has declared April "Bike Every Day" month, a group that obviously doesn't live in Manitoba where fair weather bike riders only begin to think of hauling the two-wheeled conveyance out of the shop part-way through the month. So numbers for Bike Winnipeg's annual spring bike count were pretty low this sunny but brisk morning. I learned something, though, and not about the demographics of Winnipeg's active transportation participants. I found myself tensing up when an approaching person's appearance suggested a life on the street. Thoughts like, "I wonder what it's like to get mugged" reared their ugly head, and, selfishly, "how will I extricate myself from some awkward conversation with someone who may not be fully in possession of all mental faculties?" On average, these persons of whom I tended to be apprehensive were the friendliest passersby of the morning. Given my previous post on how I see ...

Horse and buggy Mennonites don't love horses, says Mennonite historian Royden Loewen; it's suffering. I suspect it's not that they don't like their horses, nor that they don't find some parts of the horse-dependent existence enjoyable, even preferable to mainstream society's ways, but it's not some horse crazy notion that leads them to that choice. They're under no illusion that their simple life is necessarily easier. It would be more comfortable to have cars. It would be more comfortable to have electricity. But at what cost? It's not financial cost at issue, but the cost to souls. It's hard to be mindful when life is easy. It's easy to become independent and preoccupied with leisure. It's hard to keep God in his place and us in ours. Suffering -- no, not a mortal suffering, not the pain of broken relationships, nor a masochistic infliction, but a choice to do things the hard way for the greater good -- that's the saving gra...

I’m a word aficionado, a trivia collector, an all-season cyclist, a homework tutor, an editor, a worship team leader, a daughter, sister, aunt. But most importantly, I’m a beloved child of God. And I’m single. Is there a place in your church for me? Or will I be alone in hostile territory? God has opened doors along my path to study language, and teach English, and live and serve with Mennonites of many stripes, and teach school to MKs. Now I write and edit for the denomination, and I study, and I tutor children, and I sing at church, and I sit on committees. But sometimes, it feels like I haven’t graduated yet. Because in the church subculture, the entry requirement to sit at the adult table seems to be marriage and children. Recently, I had the honour of writing about the experience of being single in the church. I offered a challenge to our churches to emphasize the right thing – discipleship, not family. I received a tide of personal responses to that piece, and I’d...