Some Statistics, Some Books, A Bike Ride

It’s time for another splendid edition of Pleasantly Disturbed Thursdays, led by our fearless (and now engaged-to-be-married) leader Duane Scott. So here we go.


My five most visited posts for the month of August:

1. The Degrees of Wind (Aug. 10 for One-Shot Poetry). It was the most viewed and most commented upon.

2. Did Jesus Laugh? My post for Bridget Chumbley’s One Word Blog Carnival on laughter (Aug. 9).

3. Saturday Good Reads for Aug. 7.

4. I Fix Mess, my post on L.L. Barkat’s God in the Yard for Aug. 4.

5. Do Church Signs Lie? My post on Michael Spencer’s Mere Churchianity for Aug. 16.

In the next group down, four of the five were poems. It’s interesting. When I started this blog a year and a half ago, I wasn’t even thinking about writing poetry.

I read Rooms by James Rubart this past weekend. Yep, it was one of those “can’t put it down” kinds of books. And it finally moved me to read The Shack by William Young. I bought it two years ago and let it sit on the shelf, resisting reading it because of all the hoopla over how it got published and all of the hoopla over whether or not it’s theologically correct. But the Rubart book finally convinced me to read it, and I’m almost done. I’ll be writing about the two books together.

I was doing my usual 20-mile bike ride on Grant’s Trail Tuesday evening, and it was crowded – a lot of walkers, bladers and bikers preparing for the MS 150. At one point, I found myself being followed, then engulfed, then passed by a group of eight bikers, who were blowing past everyone. Group rides can be a problem on a crowded trail – groups like to bike together and they pass you as a group and will often disrupt everyone else’s ride. Sometimes they blow right through stop lights at cross-streets. Sometimes they ignore trail etiquette and pull ahead of everyone else at waiting lights (you’re supposed to line up in the order you arrive). And sometimes, like Tuesday night, they have “Christian Cycling” printed on their biking shorts.

My expectations for behavior, on a bike or otherwise, are higher for Christians, and especially when they advertise who trhey are. This group of Christian bikers left a lot of aggravated people in their wake. And one embarrassed person: me.

If he’s recovered from his recent auto accident (a car accident and and getting engaged in the same week!), you can find links to more Pleasantly Disturbed Thursdays at Duane’s place.