Preparing to Bicycle the Erie Canal

 Buffalo to Albany, 360 miles, 7 days

I’m getting my Surly Long Haul Trucker bike ready. Assembling essential—minimal—gear. Checking out electronic gadgets. Double checking travel accommodations. Riding hours in conditioning.

On Saturday, September 28, I fly to NYC. The next day a friend and I will drive to Albany and board an Amtrak train to Buffalo. On Monday morning, September 30, we will set out for a 7-day, 50-70 miles per day eastbound adventure along the historically significant Erie Canal.

A few things I’m reflecting on as I prepare:

1. This ride covers terrain and a trail/tow path that is well settled and populated, retracing an early 19th century industrial endeavor that opened “the west” for goods and hundreds of thousands of people. Like most of my cycling adventures, I will be traveling well-established, historic terrain. It’s not new, but it is overlooked and currently undervalued in significance.

2. I think of my ride along another well-established path a few years ago: The Great Allegheny Passage from Pittsburgh to Washington, DC. Part rail trail and part C&O Canal tow path, it took us back in history and showed us industrial and mindful feats that date back to George Washington.

3. Thousands of cyclists have covered this distance along this trail, but it will be a revelation to me. I have hardcopy maps and online GPS guidance. I have recommendations for lodging, food, sites. There is no mystery. And, yet, there IS mystery and revelation and wonder to be anticipated. What will I experience for myself, for my life, that may help me see differently, better, deeper? And how may this experience contribute to me that I may contribute to others and the community?

4. I am riding 360 miles this coming week aware of a critical juncture in my life: I am 65. I have announced my retirement from leading a local nonprofit. By year’s end, I will be anticipating a next chapter of work/service (what Bill McKibben talks about as a “third act”). I will be reflecting on this transition and an unknown future as I crank along. May fresh openness, perspective, insight, and clarity emerge along the way to Albany.

5. It’s been five years since I attempted a multi-day, long distance ride like this. In 2019, I pedaled over 300 miles in Ireland. That was pre-pandemic. So much is different now. The world seems to have changed. I have changed. I am full of anticipation and hope for good ride—uneventful physically and positively eventful emotionally. I’ll lean into the experience and dare to embrace what it brings.

I intend to post periodically along the journey. Stay tuned.

Bigoted Roots, Other Fruit?

One side of my Indiana-transplanted Kentucky forbears were moonshiners, drug runners and KKK members. 

Embarrassing. Terrible. Wrong. Evil. Lamentable. 

Aware of this, I continuously examine and challenge my outlook, attitudes, words and actions, endeavoring to identify and root out bigoted assumptions and norms I may have inherited and unwittingly embodied.

Aware of this, throughout my adult life, I have tried—by action and leadership and influence—to counter their bigoted attitudes, toxic shenanigans and prejudicial decisions.

Every generation has an opportunity and responsibility to do their best to challenge and counter familial and systemic evil.

This is an ongoing challenge. Every thought matters. Every conversation matters. Every action matters.

It’s worth whatever it takes.

Something There Is That Doesn't Love a Wall

Robert Frost challenged the validity of wall-making and mending

I read anew Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall." 

In light of an ongoing political obsession by some for a wall across the USA southern border and isolationist boundaries in general, this 70-year-old poem takes on fresh meaning.

In the poem, Frost challenges the worn-out adage that "Good fences make good neighbors." He tells how he and his neighbor mend the stone fence between their properties each spring. He ponders why they bother, for neither keep animals. His neighbor, however, is insistent on the practice and repeatedly quotes the dictum.

But Frost suspects there is perhaps a divine or natural power that brings down parts of the stone wall each year.

I especially note the following lines:

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast..."

"Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was likely to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down..."

Frost reflects on his neighbor's quoted phrase and stolid actions:

"...I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees..."

There is a sense that larger-than-life or deeper-than-natural forces are at work in and through Frost and his  neighbor and the repeatedly self-dismantling wall that separates, divides.

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down..."

Consider: Why walls?

And: What--or Who--is it that wants the superficial walls between us down?

Seems to me it would be wise to cooperate with that "Something."

Wake Up, Sleepyhead

 When you’re trying to get your aged mom awake and out of bed like she tried to get your sleepy bones awake and up and at ‘em when you were a kid.

Tables turn.

She’d rather sleep; I want her to be awake. She weakens; I lead her through physical therapy exercises. She doesn’t care to eat; I insist on a cup of ice cream or cheeseburger or junk food.

I have lots to learn in this stage—about mom and myself and our family dynamics and the fragile edge of holding on and letting go.

Is this just a momentary low phase or are we nearing the end? How much should I endeavor to inspire her to live on? Or should I accept her apparent resignation and cooperate and assist?

Whichever or whatever the direction may be, she just likes me being there whenever I can.

Life is precious. And in this stage the line is thin.

Sigh.

John Franklin Hay

Indybikehiker@gmail.com

Instagram.com/johnfranklinhay

Community and Grace

Twelve ways I recognize grace as I practice community-building in urban neighborhoods

I’m privileged to work in a community-building context. For most of my adult life, the matrix of core urban neighborhoods that comprise the Near East area of Indianapolis have been—and continue to be—the learning ground of my faith. Here is where I have been most spiritually formed. Though I was raised in a conservative, fundamentalist Protestant pastor’s home, am seminary-educated and ordained clergy, and consider myself a recovering evangelical, the adventure of community building is the cutting edge of my faith.

Here are a few things I recognize and practice as a person of faith in a community-building context:

1. I try to express my faith by what I do. What I believe is very personal; what I live out is quite public. Most people could care less about the nuances of my particular religion; they care about my influence, actions and impact in the community.

2. I distinguish between beliefs and faith. There is an inextricable link between beliefs and faith, but here’s how I distinguish them in community life: beliefs reflect an assent to religious teachings and doctrines; faith acts in transformational confidence together with others, often against the powers that be. Beliefs are nouns; faith is a verb. In a community-building context, leading with beliefs—as dynamic and personally meaningful as they may be—tends to divide people and derail helpful action. Leading with faith pulls people together in common actions that reflect hope.

3. I recognize that, like me, others live their faith by what they do—and I salute this. I’m not the only one doing what I’m doing out of a heart of faith. Many are motivated and undergirded by faith—we just don’t know it because they don’t wear it on their sleeves.

4. I recognize that some neighbors live apart from religion or claim to have no faith at all—and I try to understand this. I try to explore beyond typical reasons for unfaith that are surmised within circles of the faithfully churched. I've let go of judgement and noted my hypocrisies. In community-building terms, some very-churched citizens can express high levels of community cynicism—which expresses, essentially, lack of faith and hope that grace is at work beyond the walls of the church.

5. I consider myself part of the problem in authentic community and I go to work on it. I undermine community with suspicions, presumptions, prejudices, fears, knee-jerk reactions, side-taking, horrible-izing, standoffishness, etc.—whether acted on or not. When I recognize incipient thought patterns, notions, and attitudes like this, I try to challenge them, reflect on them, and act to change. I think this is as much a part of building community—and serious faith formation—as anything else.

6. I recognize that grace is at work in and through people and situations that churches and orthodox doctrine don’t recognize. While this wreaks havoc on the teaching of my upbringing, openness to this possibility and being ever on the lookout for it is one of the rich privileges in community life.

7. I am here to learn and grow as much as to share and sow. I am called to listen and seek to understand. I have to keep peeling away my church filters, upending social class presumptions, and dissolving my litmus tests. I keep challenging myself and keep opening my eyes and heart even as I contribute as well as I can.

8. Communities and neighbors receive myriad invitations from faith groups to gather for worship or support their cause, but suffer for a lack of basic solidarity and justice-making from those same faith groups. Preaching grace and doing justice are inseparable and equal in necessity and power for effective witness. If you're preaching grace without doing justice in the community, you distort or compromise the Good News.

9. I constantly monitor and modify how I talk about faith, God and the church. I'm convinced we make the Gospel unnecessarily offensive with words, or offensive for the wrong or superficial reasons. If grace is reaching out to all—inviting all, drawing all, working in ways we cannot see or understand—why do we persist in talking in ways and with terms that preempt it, make it difficult, and inadvertently inoculate people against our expression of it?

10. I’m learning to appreciate small change in people and situations. While aiming high, we can—and should—celebrate every small breakthrough.

11. Little happens that lasts outside of authentic relationship. I long ago let go of the illusion that programs or institutions produce lasting positive change in people or communities. Real relationships as neighbors--that's the thing.

12. Separateness and exclusivity is anti-faith in community building. In an urban community context, those who separate themselves or become nonparticipants in the larger community miss much of the inspiration that comes as neighbors grapple with tough issues, come up with hopeful solutions, and enact them—in faith. Exclusivity is anti-faith. Separateness is anti-faith. Dare to come out of your cloister. Dare to listen to others. Dare to link arms with neighbors and move toward some breathtaking outcomes.

John Franklin Hay

Indybikehiker@gmail.com

Instagram.com/johnfranklinhay

A Few Notes on Living with Love

I found these notes scrawled on one page in my journal from some time earlier this year. Honestly, I cannot remember the context. I often write during church services (riffing on a sermon point or quote) or between appointments. Most of my journal notes are to myself.

I'm mulling over these somehow connected expressions. After writing them down, I apparently went back and numbered them with a different pen in order of the logic I was bearing at the time. 

Maybe putting them out there will help me or someone reflect bit on what it means to live with love in the face of conflicts or conflicted situations.

1. You are loved with unconditional love.

2. It feels good to belong and be looked out for--and to do the same for others.

3. As flawed as we are, we have the capacity to love and forgive and offer grace to our loved ones and neighbors.

4. We don't set aside the truth to love. We set boundaries based on the truth so love can be lived and known distinct from manipulation.

5. We don't have to live down our past. We are invited to start anew today for a future defined and guided by love.

John Franklin Hay

Indybikehiker@gmail.com

Instagram.com/johnfranklinhay

Renewing Urban Neighborhoods from the Inside Out

Principles for comprehensive community development and urban neighborhood renewal

I wrote this piece over 11 years ago, as I was beginning to serve as director of a local community development initiative. I'm placing it here as a touchstone or reference point for a reflection that may follow. Much has changed and I have learned lots during these 11 years of working in the trenches for affordable housing, neighborhood renewal, economic development, and connecting neighbors one to another. Obstacles--expected and unexpected--have been faced and addressed. It's been a journey worth reflecting on.

But the following notes reflect some principles and convictions I started with in this 11-year chapter. They build on what I had already experienced and learned in 30 years of serving in the city. More later.

____

I’m convinced there’s never been a better time to invest in urban neighborhoods. Having served in a range of community and faith-based organizations in urban communities, I recently delved afresh into readings, research and conversations related to urban community revitalization. I am inspired by emerging possibilities.

Urban community development is a fascinating arena, full of hope and challenge. For all its promise, it's not an arena for the faint of heart; lots of crosscurrents are at work in the polis. At the same time, organizations, communities and individuals are attempting and expressing the very best in urban community development.

As I’ve examined the underpinnings of organizations and initiatives that are attempting to revitalize urban core communities, and as I’ve explored best practices resources, a few principles emerge for me. I hope to have further opportunities to articulate and shape these in practice, but I want to share them here--even if in embryonic form. It seems to me that these ideas apply not just to urban neighborhoods, but to more difficult and complex suburban ones. This is about as close to a community manifesto as I get.

1. All who desire urban community renewal and vital neighborhoods should consider the significant non-monetary costs and investments: relationship building, careful process, time, personal challenge, disappointments, agitations. These investments payoff well, but they should not be overlooked or avoided.

2. There is a way to rehab and build houses that brings neighbors into emerging relationship and grows healthy neighborhoods. If houses and landmark buildings are going to be rehabbed and restored anyway, why not do so in a way that builds relationships and makes community itself a landmark? Instead of following the pattern of most real estate developers, follow--and insist on--a process that reflects the community-building mission. 

3. It is easier to build houses and buildings than build enduring relationships and integrity with neighbors. Without these, community is just a place and a concept, not a relational reality. Investment in urban neighborhood renewal needs to account for and give attention to good process and relationship development with and among neighbors and organizations.

4. Good design and master planning can go halfway to develop inviting and livable urban neighborhoods, but it needs to be met halfway with relationship building. We like the aesthetics of well-designed structures in relationship to others. But it is the aesthetic of caring neighbors makes a community shine.

5. More people than we care to admit have lost their sense of place and community—and not just in urban neighborhoods. Being a consumer, patron and spectator doesn't begin to satisfy the desire to belong, contribute and shape the future that lies at the heart of all of us.  The continuing effort to include, invite, welcome, make room, recognize and celebrate—drawing the circle ever wider—brings all into a new and hopeful social reality.

6. Organizationally, nonprofits gain trust with neighbors and stakeholders when they act with humility, gratitude and creativity. These trump the hubris, expert-itis and authority plays that too frequently spill over into the arena from bad for-profit and public sector actors. Community-based organizations are most effective when their collective way of being is reflected in an “alongsideness” with neighbors and neighborhood groups.

7. Government and for-profit sectors can be good partners and stakeholders in urban community revitalization. As neighbors dream of community, look out for it, or seek to preserve or restore, they need critical stakeholders whose self-interest may be different than a neighbor’s or neighborhood’s. If urban communities are to be restored, community and faith-based nonprofits and fourth-sector associations of neighbors must articulate and fight for their dream. They can welcome partners, but they must lead the way.

8. Doing the right thing in the right way is one thing in the for-profit and public sector, but the “right thing” (leadership) and the “right ways” (management) may be quite different in an urban community redevelopment setting. It is a mistake to impose a “business knows best” grid on community-based initiatives. Instead, look for collaborations and partnerships in which all sectors learn from each other in this fascinating arena of urban community renewal. Though the process and path may be different than the one for-profit or public sector partners would prefer, the mutually-desired outcome of invested, livable, sustainable urban communities are the better, long-term outcome.

9. Renewing and taking seriously the principles and practices of Asset-Based Community Development can reinvigorate urban planning protocols and practices that say “asset-based” but may have deteriorated into satisfying report forms and getting projects completed on time. Recovery of rudimentary ABCD practices catapults community development toward its intended reality.

10. Organizations, partners, neighborhoods, and neighbors find synergy when they cross borders and build bridges between and among themselves. Connecting in every direction, like learning in every direction, creates common ground and possibilities for community realization (with its natural efficiencies and power) that could not otherwise be attempted.

11. Pressing challenges of urban neighborhood revitalization remain: (1) grappling head-on with the sources and impacts of economic poverty, (2) access to livable-wage employment and the education, readiness and advocacy which make that possible, (3) addressing reentry for thousands of ex-felons in a way that offers livable-wage work and reintegration without unreasonable life-long barriers and stigmas, and (4) cooperative and responsive public safety. I am convinced that creative solutions and pathways forward will be found and best shaped from within urban neighborhoods who put ABCD to work.

John Franklin Hay

Indybikehiker@gmail.com

Instagram.com/johnfranklinhay