This Post Is About Lyrics

I've been on a huge Make Do And Mend kick lately, as well as a Being As An Ocean kick. Two songs have really stuck out to me lately: Stand/Stagger by MDAM and The Sea Always Seems To Put Me At Ease by BAAO. Stand/Stagger because of the music and I like yelling along, and TSASTPMAE (way too long to type out more than once) because of the poetry. Then one day I listened to the lyrics of Stand/Stagger and I realized how starkly these two songs stand in contrast with each other (lyrics and embedded videos at the end). Stand/Stagger is basically Ecclesiastes without God, and TSASTPMAE is basically J. D. Greear's Gospel Prayer. Once I realized that, it was sort of like that one thing you read one way and it is all pessimistic, then you read it the other way and it is all optimistic. Here, I took the trouble of finding that for you:

pic.twitter.com/q3BReodddw

— Ronnie Joice (@ronniejoice) July 22, 2015

Now, of course, it isn't exactly like that, because these are two different songs, not the same little poem thing, and playing Stand/Stagger backwards would just sound bad. But I listen to Stand/Stagger and just feel sorry for the song-writer because he feels there is nowhere else to go. He feels that we can't earn the favor of others, that the future isn't worth it because we won't be able to earn anything and we will just let people down. Then I listen to TSASTPMAE and can feel a real hope for the future, just the opposite of what I feel from Stand/Stagger, that there is nothing I can do to make God love me less. Part of this comes from the line in S/S, "I'm finding out that all this means is that I'm coming apart at the seams." Part of the reason the song-writer feels that everything is coming apart at the seams is because he is relying on himself. Really, though, all we can do is rely on God. Because we will never be able to live up to others expectation, which means that we will always disappoint others. And as we realize that we can't live up to others, we can realize that we can depend on God. Not on ourselves, not on our family, not on our friends. Just God.

God puts strength in our backbones, knowing that we are going to fall. But that doesn't change how He loves us. He doesn't say, "I raised you better to be healthy and strong!" He says, "I raised you, I knew you would fall, but that doesn't change the fact that I love you. You don't have to feel ashamed around me. I won't stab you in the back. You can mend. You can recover. I have redeemed you already." That's powerful. And that is the hope we can have under God.

We get lost when we rely on ourselves to earn the favor of others and the favor of God. But the definition of grace is that we cannot earn it. We cannot earn God's grace. We cannot earn the favor of others, because we are all part of fallen humanity. But the glorious thing about Christ is that it doesn't matter, because He has already redeemed all of this. All we have to do is accept that redemption, we cannot earn it. A truly glorious thing.

[Videos of songs and accompanying lyrics]

There must be perfect words for feeling alone around the people that love you. They hide their concern, and keep their mouths shut while they watch you come unglued. “You are their oldest son! They raised you better to be healthy and strong!” I haven’t felt that way in so long. But I’d be fine if I could just shake this feeling that all I am is spinning out of control. And it’s slowly becoming clear that your friends and your family can’t bear to tell you that they’ve been watching as you get worse all these years. And it’s still there, the rising fear that your dependence is more than your share, and you’re one step closer to nowhere near. But I’d be fine if I could just shake this feeling that all I am is spinning out of control. Tonight it’s hard not to feel like a failure when I count the scars on my fingers and know there’s nowhere else to go. I’m finding out that all this means is I’m falling apart at the seams. But I’m coming clean. And there’s not much room to breathe between my inconsistencies and the constant reminder that I’ve always been this weak. But I’d be fine if I could just shake this feeling that all I am is spinning out of control. Tonight it’s hard not to feel like a failure when I count the scars on my fingers and know there’s nowhere else to go.

You are the topic of every epic we have ever been told. And as I stand on this cliff, the wind whips through me and I am made bold. Once again, Your presence creeps into my consciousness. Grace made tangible in this newly anointed place and I am brought to my clear senses that none of my perceived failings or disgrace has ever touched my being or inheritance. I am whole, I am clean, I am free, and I brought to my knees. Sink in; permeate this weary flesh. Breathe; life as clean and fresh as the salt-seasoned breeze. Please Father, pull me to my feet. ‘Why are you kneeling, my son? I put strength in that back-bone knowing that you would fall but I promise, you will never taste defeat. You are whole, you are clean, you are free. Get up, rise from your knees!’ We can no longer linger in the shadows of our shame and brokenness. For as sure as the wind blows He has already redeemed all of this. Live as whole, live as clean, live as free. Everything you were made to be standing at the edge of self-discovery. Tired and weary. Our body trembles, buckles. We are afraid of being hurt again, been stabbed in the back by our own friends. We don’t know if we can mend. Minds riddled with unsuccessful recoveries. We’re scared, Lord, we’re terrified. But dive in we must. Cause there has to be something better than this. For we see testimony of You in the sea, Your creation, all of nature. So with a sudden rush we abandon our solitary perching place and as we wash away the mourning dust Immersed; we see Your face.

Winchester Applecross Day 1

I only got to do "Day 1" of Applecross, because church and grandma. But that was as good to me as racing again.

Anywho, Cat 4/5 again, but this time it was the last race of the day, instead of the first. So my start time was 3:15. My other two races were at 9, so I hardly knew what to do with myself! I didn't even leave for the venue until 11, it was great. I got there around 12, got my number and all that jazz, and watched a bit of the Masters going at it. Went back to the car, changed, ate a little, hopped on the bike and got a slow pre-ride of the course in between the Masters and the Singlespeed. I watched the start and barriers for a while and then went for a slow bike ride around Jim Barnett Park to take in the sites, then came back to the car and ate a little more. Then I got in a hard pre-ride lap in between the Singlespeed and Womens. Watched the first bit of the Womens, then did some more warming up rides and some sprints and stuff, then I staged. All that free time was amazing and I felt so ready at the start compared to my previous races, it was incredible.

Anywho, I'm riding my 2014 Trek Crossrip Elite again. Nice little bike. With used Ritchey Speedmax tires I bought very cheaply off Ebay, 32c in rear, 35c in front, about 40psi (this comes into play later (foreshadowing)).
I really loved the course, I had a heck of a lot more fun this race than my previous two (and those were a lot of fun as well). Maybe just because I felt more confident, but I attribute some of that fun to the course. I staged in the last row all the way to the right, there was a long paved start/finish stretch so bottlenecks were scarce, a few twisty's, then a nice off camber drop-off into a quick run-up. First lap a couple guys tried to dismount and run down the off-camber (it was pretty sketchy looking for a newbie), but we were so packed together that we sort of just carried them down with us, then they fell at the bottom because they were half off their bikes. It was mildly humorous. I was able to make up quite a few places here, because I was on the outside and could just run by all of it. Then there were a few off-camber turns and stuff. Lowering my tire pressure from ~50 to ~40 made such a huge difference on the off-cambers. Rocktown CX was basically entirely off-cambers, and I had 0 confidence and slipped and slid and wiped out on them. This race I felt extremely confident on them and was able to rail them pretty nice. Except the 2nd lap, where I thought to myself, "If I pedal here, I will strike my pedal on the ground and fall over, but I would also be able to pass this guy." Apparently I forgot that I can't pass somebody whilst I am laying on the ground.
After the off-cambers, there were a few pavement crossings, then a nice deep mud pit with standing water and everything. Then the barriers and a dip through a similar mud pit, then a long, very fast paved descent, which was awesome to recover on.
Back to the mud pits: My first pre-ride lap I opted to walk next to the pits to keep my travel clothes clean. But seeing as I had never ridden in mud before, I knew I had to go through it next time. So I hit the first one, but the rut was really wide and it was very simple. So I came to the second pit expecting the same treatment, but there were no ruts, and I hit the mud and immediately went flying off my bike into the middle of the pit. Mud everywhere. That was fun. I hosed the bike (and myself) down before the start of the race, and was sort of embarrassed.
Back to the race: After the paved descent, there are a couple twisties, then the "Belgian Wall." Which is just a very steep run-up, which was super fun. It was nice and muddy and slick at the bottom, which made it nice and interesting. After that is a nice off-camber section again, then it goes up intot the woods, a couple log barriers (I bunny-hopped them in practice, but when I tried during the race I just crushed my bottom bracket on the logs and almost went over the bars... I guess the adrenaline makes a difference. I decided to run them instead after that).
On the second lap, shortly after I fell on that off-camber, I hit a pavement crossing pretty hard, but my bike felt fine and the tire looked good, so I rode past the pits. Move forward 100 yards to the paved decent, and when I hit my top speed my back end was all sorts of squirrelly, so I looked down and sure enough, the back tire was flat. I rode it to the Belgian Wall, then tried to ride some of the off-camber, but the back end just slid out and there was nothing I could do. So I had to run 3/4 of a mile to get to the other side of the pit. I made a lot of supporters during my run, which was nice. And I was very happy I threw my extra tube in the pit (I never put anything in the pit before...). At the pit there was a neutral mechanic, and he changed my tube in about 2 minutes and I was back in the race (1 lap down). After that I stopped worrying about how well I was doing and just enjoyed myself, and ended up having a ton of fun. I got a lot of practice passing people, cornering in the mud, and sprinting out of corners. I also learned what happens when you are looking down and you forget to turn and go through the tape. Also fun.

Over all, I got 34/44 in my race, and there were 79 guys total. So I didn't do too bad, considering I ran half of the course. I'm excited for next season. Hopefully I will be in better shape by the time it comes around, since I'm not starting from scratch this time around.

Update: Pictures of me have surfaced!

From Cedar Meade Studios.
Flat Tire Running

Mudd

Rocktown CX (Bike Race #2)

Second bike race ever: Rocktown CX in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. I live a couple blocks from the race venue, and we had some old friends staying with us so I told my wife I would just ride over for my warm-up so she could spend some extra time with our friends, then she would bring my tools and tire pump over closer to race time. It was 28 dgrs F when I rolled out in the morning, the first time this year it went below freezing. I apparently went way too early, because they hadn't even pounded the barriers in when I got there (too cold?), so I just rode around town a bit to keep warm. As soon as they got the barriers in I pre-rode one lap to get a feel for the course. A lot of off-camber stuff and ziggy-zaggy turns. I'm not good at turns, but I love 'em. I basically just commute to work, which is pretty straight, so I enjoy turning back and forth for some variation. You climb the entirety of the course in about 1/8 of the course, then slalom down. I stood in line and registered, and gave the course 3 more laps. I think I was the first person to fall on the course in pre-ride. Wiped out on the corner before the barriers because there was a tiny patch of mulch there, but I think everyone fell there at least once when they hit the mulch. Then I wiped out after crossing a deep gravel turn. I was able to stay up past the gravel, thankfully.
My last race I had a goal just to finish the race. This time I had a goal to finish well. So when we lined up to start, I went as far forward as I could. Got second row, which was nice. But then I was all flustered because I had pinned my number on upside down and had to scramble to flip it over before the start whistle, and I barely made it. And I even had the presence of mind to put the bike in the right gear for the start! Whistle blew, and I was 4th or 5th (24 riders) into the first corner and hit the gravel climb. I suddenly realized I was in way over my head so I sat back a bit, fell back to about 10th, but halfway up the climb I noticed I was feeling good and everyone else was fading fast, so I stood up and hit it again and finished the climb 3rd. Felt great to pass all those guys on the climb (my first time passing anyone!) Got passed at the top on some of the off-camber stuff, and made it to the barriers (halfway) sitting pretty in 5th. Then came more nutty off-cambers and I got passed more, then I got hit by a big thing of sticky spit. Not sure if I wasn't hydrated well or ate wrong, but every time I swallowed I would gag because I couldn't get my spit down, and that slowed me up a lot. But I just kept fighting. I passed a few guys, got passed by a few guys, and at the end of the second to last lap I was sitting exactly at halfway (12th, my actual goal was top half, so I was happy). Then I hit an off-camber turn too hard and slid out. Got back on my bike after about .5 seconds and started pedaling as hard as I could: no resistance. Chain was off. So I put it back on as quick as I could in my thick gloves, getting passed by two guys in the meantime. I jumped back on and set out to chase them, and I had one full lap to do so. When I got to the bottom of the climb they were just getting to the top, and I figured there was no way I could catch em, but I went anyway. I railed the downhill turns, pushing as hard as I could, sticky spit and all, pedaled through all the corners, head down, chugging away. Come to the barriers and I finally look up to see how far ahead of me they are, and they were only one turn away, but it was at the nutty off-camber section, where I sucked. But I just went for it. The finish was halfway up the course, right between the two big climbs. The first big climb had a really tight S-turn onto the hill to try and make it a run up, and I caught the boys on the S-turn. I was in utter amazement that I caught them, I stopped feeling any pain in my legs, stopped noticed the sticky spit, I just want to beat these guys. We pounded up the climb and crested the hill 3 abreast. There were a couple S-turns (including one off-camber) before the finish sprint, and I knew they would drop me a bit on the off-camber turn. I tried to rail them, but it was just too technical for me. We hit the finish sprint single file, I was barely off the back. But they hit the sprint and I realized I have never sprinted before, didn't know what to do, and was way too late hitting the gas, and I had no energy stores left. 
It was an awesome race, and I felt insanely gratuitous that I caught those guys, but I am still disappointed in two things. A: I fell on the off-camber, causing me to lose my coveted "Top half result" (I finished 14/24). B: I don't know how to sprint. But I'm building for next time. It's a lot of fun.

Black-Eyed Corn Chowdah

Bring 3-4 cups of water to a boil.
Add 2 cups of black-eyed peas
Add small to medium chopped onion
Add 1 garlic clove
Add 3 to 4 small, chopped potatoes
Add 1-2 cups of chopped celery
Add 2-3 cups of chopped carrots
Add 2 or 3 chicken bouillon cubes
Add 1-2 quarts corn
Add 3-4 T of flour, stir until all flour is absorbed.
Add 1 bayleaf
Add 1/4 t thyme
Let simmer for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally
Add a spoonful of sour cream, stir it up.
Salt and pepper to taste
Eat (with tortilla chips, if you so desire)

Optional: Add some sausage
If you really like corn, eat with cornbread

Luray Caverns CX (Bike Race #1)

So I hit my first race last weekend. My first ever bike race. I have done some runs (mostly 5k's with a half marathon and a couple 10k's sprinkled in), so I knew what a race atmosphere was like, but I have never ridden bike around other people competitively. Heck, I had hardly ridden my bike around other people. My wife and I get out and ride some, I rode with my parents once, and I went for a casual ride with a few church friends. Nothing close to a mass sprinting start with 66 other dudes on a slightly uphill gravel road with rain drizzling and no familiar faces around, save my wife on the sideline. I had also only ridden in wet conditions once or twice. I had also only ridden off-road twice on my Walmart mountain bike. I had also only practiced remounting and dismounting my bike once two days prior, and never practiced barriers. I had also basically only ridden my bike on my work commute, save a few odd joyrides here and there. I had also only really been riding bike for 6 months.

But I was pumped. I think I started out 4 rows back, so the start wasn't too much of a quick sprint, but we ended up getting there. I learned what it is like to be bumped and rubbed and do some bumping and rubbing and trying to predict what the rider in front of you is going to do. The first turn was a wide right hand with a weird-o hump in the middle, and I panicked thinking that I was going to slide out and get run over by the 20 guys behind me, so I took it wide and safe. The next turn I had practiced keeping my speed up in the pre-ride, so I rode it harder and passed a few guys.
The coolest feature of the course IMO was a cool S-turn up on some hills, but it was so close to the start that we just sort of walked it because of the bottleneck. There was a sharp 180 then a straight before the S and somehow I nailed the inside of that 180 and rode past about 4 guys that were struggling to stay on their bikes. I jumped off for the S (because ain't no way I can ride that) and exerted a little extra energy, climbed a little higher, and was able to keep some momentum going and pass the guy inside of me. Then everyone else started jumping on their bikes and I remembered it is sometimes good to keep running, so I set my bike down and took off, leaning on the bike to give me some more support around the corner, and passed every guy who was trying to mount back up. Victory.

From there to the barriers we stayed pretty steady and a tiny bit strung out, and then the barriers came and I went at them as hard as I could, and ended up passing the two guys ahead of me! Who knew that the barriers would be the strongest part of my racing skills? Anyway, I botched the remount (missed the seat and landed on the top-tube) but still managed to pull away a bit. From there on the rest of the race stayed pretty steady, I maybe passed two guys and got passed a few times. We got pretty strung out. My main goal of the race was just to finish and not run out of energy, so I sat up quite a lot. My best (read: worst) moment was on a very tight and muddy left-hand 180. I had been hopping off and running it since I don't know how to turn very well, let alone in mud, but my left cleat got stuck. I had been going pretty hard into it because I wanted to pass the guy in front of me, so I had some speed. Then my finger slipped off the brake and I stopped losing speed, and tried to choose my best demise. I could go straight and T-bone my competitor at 10 mph, cut left, break through the tape and go down the back side of the hill and try to stay close to the course, or go right, fly down the very steep embankment, and probably die (jk, I would just have to climb back up). I chose left. As it happens, race tape is much stronger than I thought and it seemed to slow me down quite a bit. The guy in front made it around the turn quicker than I imagined, and instead of going in front of him I just rammed his back wheel pretty good. He didn't like that, so I yelled "Frick" and apologized. I passed him soon after, and I honestly don't think he finished. Oops, hope it wasn't my fault. The guy behind me said I had a nice recovery, though, so that was cool. But I didn't hang with him, I just dropped back a bit.

That gravel section where the start was really killed me. The gravel just sucked my tires in and it just felt ridiculous. I found a reasonably packed line on the edge of the road, but I still didn't appreciate it. It was about golf-ball sized gravel, probably a little smaller, but deep.

At the end of the race I still had a lot of gas in the engine, so I could have definitely gone quite a bit harder. My arms were killing me, though, I guess I need to do push ups or something. I'm excited for my next race (Rocktown CX here in Hburg). This time I am going to see how good of a position I can get, instead of just finishing, and try and use up all the gas in my engine (i.e. energy). I think I need to think about what I eat, though, because I felt like I was going to throw up after every run and hill, but maybe that is just part of CX. And I need to practice some technical turns and all that.

Oh, and I got 34/66, almost halfway through the field!