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So once upon a time my playwright friend Monica, whom I met on a train coming back from the Stewart/Colbert Rally, suggested that zombies are a metaphor for task management: you can take one down and yet their is always another to take its place. The zombie metaphor is a particularly virulent one, because if you don't finish a zombie off just so, it will get back up independent of the one replacing it. So now you have two zombies in addition to any others there may be, which is to say, you've got an existential moment that is also increasingly stinky, ugly, and otherwise affecting your other senses.

This is kind of how second semester Div School is here at Duke. I feel so blessed, but at the same time feel I am just barely keeping my head above water or, if the zombie metaphor may be reapplied, barely keeping my brains away from hungry zombies. Right now it's Spring Break and, typically, I'm wondering how I will get my Church History, Old Testament, and South in Black & White papers done, in addition to Hebrew translations, but hey, God doesn't test us any more than we can handle, right? And when we're about at that breaking point, something comes to take us away from the zombies, right?

In other news, Colleen might chuckle at the first mention of zombies, but by this point she'd be giving that, "Where are you going, Adam?" look. It's a good look. Colleen is a fellow first-year M.Div, a feminist (which I consider myself as well), a marathon runner on break for second-semester Div School (paused like my triathlon hopes), and whom has been graciously dating me for nearly five months. Right now she's in Haiti with fifteen other Div School peeps serving with and learning about the nuns from Mother Teresa's order who work there. She's cool.

Bonhoeffer spoke of the seminary community as an exceptionally blessed one for those called, in that they get to live with other Christians similarly called, and for years! At no other time my life will I get to do this, get to serve this way, simply be with these people. Sometimes I feel strange: many of us will be senior or associate pastors, whereas I am currently feeling unspecified in my calling; but praise be to God that I am "unspecified" rather than "uncertain". It will contain some sort of ministry and also creativity, and doors are opening for me to write creatively, and even to make films. As those doors open, and I ponder the future, I can only be grateful for this gift of getting to be here. Also, the less news we read about Afghanistan and Iraq, the more I feel the need to be a military chaplain, as the--and this is pointed--opinionated populous continues to be unaware of those affected by its decisions. If we had to send our own children, wouldn't we want more news coverage so the country could know what was going on? To know what specifically they could be praying for as regards God's children on both sides of the firing line? Maybe this sharp discontent suggests I should be a servant to those who so selflessly serve us and those with whom we hope to reconcile.

I look forward to this all being wrote, to telling stories in hindsight whereby these sojourns seem like walks in the park as opposed to arduous trails to life decision, but this is where I am, and it's a blessed place to be in, arduous or not, and it's always in motion. It's not too different from looking at the country as it passes under your bike tires. Nevada seems like it's not even moving, but then you climb to Lake Tahoe and look back, shocked at how far you've come, and how much you've grown for all of those beautiful, tiresome miles.

Callahan [May 30]

The day is sunny, wide-open, and calm as we line our bikes up barefoot along the shoreline of Atlantic Beach. It is our "Wheel Dip Ceremony", the beginning of our voyage, and my folks have come and Anna, Kerrie, and Tyson have come, and we've got a full entourage as we prepare to dip our rear wheels in the Atlantic Ocean and begin our odyssey toward the frigid Pacific.

I have a combination of exhilaration and fear about the morning. Our pre-trip requirements tasked us to complete 500+ miles and a ride of at least 65 miles, but a well-placed nail, an out-of-commission tire, and the postal misplacement of my gear box left me to being 100 miles shy, with my longest ride the accidental 51 miler I did during my second week of training. It's sixty-something miles to Callahan, and I don't care how fast I go, I just want them in the bag. Mom wants more pictures and I go for the ubiquitous one of holding the bike upside-down in the air like He-Man.

The joy and pictures over--well, the joy continuing, especially with Anna and family waving there simply and saying of the Wheel Dip, "Of course I'm going to come"--we are on our bikes, tearing down A1A toward Mayport, the Ferry, and Hecksher Drive, the only continuously pretty ride in Jacksonville, into overhanging trees and water, far from box stores, risky drivers, and the side-effects of urban sprawl. I follow Alex at speeds I shouldn't be doing, 20-22 mph, whipping around small clumps and groups of riders as we crest bridges and leave the marvelous, blue-water Northside of Jacksonville with its craggy jetties and feasting shorebirds in our wake. We're among all of them for a moment on the Mayport Ferry before the ever-present fishermen and grassy sand dunes of Hecksher Drive and Hannah and Huguenot Parks--where, I tell my comrades, G.I. Jane--was filmed, until eventually we're in the foresty-rich Amelia Island and Alex and I stop for the bathroom and are led into a very exclusive country club gym for the deed and incur everyone's awe and jealousy.

Alex goes on after a while and I hang back with others; I'm not a racer, after all, and it is my longest day to date unless you count the MS150 when I was little when my dad basically pulled me the 85- and 65-mile days on the back of a tandem. We're camping in an RV Park tonight (over which flies the Confederate flag, I point out to our Northerners); someone cooks, and I'm sore and it's been a great day. Now to take that sixty miles and prepare for an entire summer of it. Bring it on...

...well, yes, bring it, but gently, and let me stretch first, ice, and do you happen to know a good masseuse?

Shakedown [May 29]

I've ridden 500 miles, Caroline, the racer from UNC, tells me she's done around 2,500. I think most people are in my boat, around the 500 line, where we are not ripped like Hans-the-triathlete with Godzilla calves... instead we are ripped... um... in our hearts?

We're diverse, with Spoorthi ("Spoo") from India who studies with Alia, the beautiful young Muslim woman who just performed Doubt at Carnegie-Melon. Leslie was on staff at the FSU Wesley Foundation -- the FSU counterpart to Stetson's Wesley House -- lost 40 pounds while training for this trip, and lived with a girl I grew up with. Zhiguang ("Z") from Singapore studying at NYU, Annie the New Jersey med student, Agata the Polish-American medical translator in Chicago, Alex student of Israeli-Palestinian relations who ran the Boston Marathon, Brandon the bearded, Floridian sailor going to study maritime law in Rhode Island. Cory, who hears about Bike & Build from Meira, while couch-surfing on her unknown couch. Kate and Anna, North Carolinians, Kate an engineer and Anna the french horn music major who is slowly learning to play all the bluegrass instruments. Hans the cabinetmaker/triathlete beast and Colin, our other male leader, a cycling guru from Durham. Chelsea, a North Carolina fine arts dancer, Luke "the machine" one of four chosen for a University of Chicago Masters-to-Ph.D study program in Greek philosophy. Cassie the indefatigable service leader from Wisconsin and Texas. Justin and Rebekkah, hard-riding Harvard students. Jill, the photographer and published poet who graduated from Flagler in St. Augustine, the oldest continually-occupied settlement in the United States. It will be a good summer.

My bike gear has finally arrived from my place in DC, having spent a few days there after my kindly former landlady thought, "Oh! Adam must be coming to visit!" So when I call about the misplaced shipment, she alerts me to its having been at her house for a few days and then zips it down via UPS to get to me during orientation. V helps me get my clipless pedals on, loosens them quite a bit, then holds onto my bike so I can clip into them, then clip out; a simple motion, but one I must do on the fly, unconsciously, or fall over.

Before we run safety drills -- quick stops, rock dodges and stuff -- Kristian, our boss here until he goes back to the office in Philly, asks if he can make a video of me while I use my clipless pedals for the first time--everybody falls, I keep hearing--"And the video would say to new cyclists," Kristian continues, "'Look! Be encouraged! Not everyone on Bike & Build is experienced!'" But before he can get the camera out I own those pedals and the drills, not falling once (though I do pedal almost halfway across the parking lot before I figure out how to clip in), and unclipping after those quick stops like a boss. Even on the shakedown ride, going through beautiful Ponte Vedra (the ride I always wanted to take, so far away and disconnected from the city with its rich golf clubs, resorts, and beachfront houses), I own the pedals and feel the bike connected all the way through me from my cleats like a good foot massage.

It's a ride most of us don't have access to in Jacksonville: small roads, not too busy, with sights and sounds and happenings instead of the box stores and conformity of car-driven, suburban America and my training. It's such a joy to be on this road, far from the bridges that would get me back home, where Cory tells me about rap artists to which he gives kudos and Alex and I talk at length about the Gaza War and John Wesley, topics on which we've individually spent an overly long portion of time. And at night, waiting for the shuttle from dinner at a local church, we monkey over playground equipment and, in a quieter moment by the slides, Agata asks me about this strange story she heard about a werewolf destroying New York...

We build [May 28]

Colin and Alex have looked at my unshaven face and declared that we will have a manventure this summer: we will not shave the entire time. Now while I have a beard of sorts, it is unintentional: after trashing my last disposable razor, which I brought with me to Europe and made me for the first time fall in love with straight shaving, I went to the store to buy more... but they were lame. Cuts and rookie marks no matter how deft I was with them. So I went to the store to buy a Mach 3, which I recall being a weapon of choice against facial hair, but Publix was out. So, frustrated, I kept growing a beard until next the opportunity to get a good razor befalls me. Alex and Colin have a good question: "Why didn't you just go to another store?" I don't know, guys, I don't know.

So we take our stubbly faces to Atlantic Beach Habitat for Humanity, the neighboring program to Jacksonville's "Habijax", the biggest Habitat for Humanity affiliate in the world, yet nonetheless Atlantic Beach works its strip of land between the Atlantic and the Intracoastal Waterway efficiently and well in a way that consistently wins them national awards and attention. We join several motivated retired folks on a big duplex, fastening vinyl siding up the walls, sliding the pieces together carefully so hurricane and other high winds won't rip them off. Josh and I work with Ron, an enthusiastic Philadelphian in his mid-60s who still sweats profusely despite living down here for the past eleven years. As we dodge around the scaffolding to the wall, I don't know how it starts, but I tell him of Europe, and he launches into his own grand tales of traveling, which are vast and, perhaps one day, comprehensive. In Transylvania, he says, the castle that is really Vlad the Impaler's castle is way off the beaten path (because he's been there), but everyone else seems to settle for the one they see in the Dracula movies, the vampiric character based on one of Hungary's national heroes who, Ron says, simply turned the invading Turks' own tricks against themselves. "A Hungarian George Washington", he says.

Josh, our laser-eyed Americorps site leader, detects the slightest defect in the vinyl siding as if he were Stevie Wonder trying to pick out a note on the piano, or Zatoichi, the Blind Swordsman beset upon by some angry ronin. It is as if he feels it, and as soon as he feels it, he harps on us to take it all down and put it back up correctly. "A hurricane would rip that straight off," he says, and has a point. He brings us popsicles in the hot, Florida humidity, and everyone is excited, but I tell him I can't have them, as strange as it is, because of sensitive teeth. "Even if my teeth barely touch the ice, I get shivers up and down my whole body," I say, which is true. I can hardly look at popsicle-consumers during ingestion of the things. He gives me a cockeyed look: "I can't eat them either," he says, "I do the same thing." We are not alone in the world. Soon, during the break, we all come down under the shade of a tree and drink from our Camelbaks, hanging on posts, the water-filled tubes reaching around to wherever its owner is standing and drinking from it. I can't shake the idea that we all look strikingly like funny-looking elephants.

Perhaps the coolest thing about Atlantic Beach Habitat isn't just their efficiency or the passion of their volunteers, but that now that those two things have been developed, among other things done well, they can use their funds to expand into other things to fight the affordable housing crisis. Now, for students who grow up in a Habitat house, they have a large endowment that will send them to college at FSCJ (Florida State College of Jacksonville) or UNF (University of North Florida) for four years. They will break the cycle of poverty in Atlantic Beach by giving students the tools to move out of it.

I should say that lately I have heard a particular conservative commentator railing against social justice. He says we should have "equal justice", not "special justice" or "social justice". While equal justice may be a great idea -- that everyone gets justice proportionally and we move forward together -- it's unrealistically idealistic. It's easy to say we want equal justice for everyone when we, like he and myself, have grown up in a life of privilege. Social justice is, in part, giving a fair shake to people who, by circumstances often historical and out of their control, have not received a fair shake. Certainly a student could "pull themselves up by their bootstraps", so to speak, and get to college without aid, but, as a grad student with good credit can attest, sometimes the only way to get this education is to have aid. It is accessible to me, it should be accessible to all who can put in the work. That, to me, is social justice, the kind exhibited by Jesus when he hung out with all sorts of people the Far Right of his time avoided, and anyone who fearmongers about social justice saying it reeks of Nazism and Communism despite it being so much a part of the life and teachings of Jesus like oh you so misguided and destructive Glenn, well... we always get bent out of shape when most of what we think of is ourselves. No wonder he's angry. Giving a hand to another can be uncomfortable. But we are made to give a hand, and we feel the joy in our hearts when we do. After loving God, Jesus says the second greatest commandment is loving one's neighbor as one's self, and then he talks about who that neighbor is, and, in a modern sense, that reeks of socialism. But we're talking about an interpersonal socialism, let's call it community, that we're made for. If it bugs you, it's a reality of our human selves; get over it.

Beginnings [May 27]

Lizz's dad stays around and we shuttle people, bikes and totes and bags and all, to orientation at Sunrise Community Church in Jacksonville Beach. It's been a chill morning so far, with people waking up when they want to, though I am hurriedly packing my bin, keeping this, casting out that -- Paul Tillich and Thomas Merton lay dejectedly on the ground, but I get to take Keroac's On the Road, which I bought for this trip, on the road with me. The shuttling across Jacksonville's great suburbia takes a while, but we all get there in time, and I have asked the first wave to bring a good book.

The church building we inhabit is a fellowship hall with all the chairs removed, this big, empty floorspace. Which is good for us. A tarp is spread out while mechanics from a local bike shop who donated their whole day to this tune up our steeds, there's a stack of bikes, people, people, a computer station to process our information. I'm additionally high-strung because my ordered bike gear was mistakenly sent to DC and is getting sped here by UPS, my insurance card, which should have been here last week, arrived today while I was shuttling people, etc. and I'm frantic... until in the company of life-filled, organic people. All of that busyness is taken care of up front, and I shall not worry about it for two months.

We orientate, do skits about rules (including, for "don't speak ill of a person behind one's back", we make fun of people with glasses and from Massachusetts -- I wear glasses and almost went to school in Boston), learn the rules of the road, etc. Tomorrow we build, but for now we gather our donated green Thermarests and lay in the open space surrounded by new friends and snores at the dawn of new things.

Beginnings (T -1) [May 26]

A day before orientation and people are already arriving at my house. Having a big homestead, situated as it is cut into a hill in big, three-story brick and wood that we fixed up and continually refurbish, it is a large place for two people and two dogs, and still quite large when I come to visit. In as much, the parents are incredibly kind with their space, encouraging me to bring people in to share it (so long as I do the work). So, instead of requiring Bike & Builders, if they come early, to stay in a hotel or the airport, why shouldn't they come here to San Marco, in the shade of our big, front yard oak tree?

Keri comes days before and it is maddening how much we clean my room and square things away. Items from Europe aren't even packed yet. My mostly unpacked rucksack lays there in the open, folded clothes sitting in a basket, not their armoire, etceteras: things left out for a month in the haste and focus of fundraising and training. And now I have reached my goal, and now my dear friend hurriedly slaves with me to get everything ready before she heads off to her next thing, and leads a mission group to Jamaica soon after that.

There are eight people staying: Chris & Lizz from Virginia Beach (who are engaged to each other, and Chris used to be the mascot at UVA), Zack & Jenny from Kalamazoo, MI, Victoria & Allison, from CA and MI respectively, but met at Syracuse, then Scott (another Syracusite) and Christina from New Jersey who, like me, didn't know anybody. Christina comes first. I'm swinging by the airport looking awesome in a huge minivan and I can tell it is her by the huge bike box. She's never been away for this long, she tells me, and I feel bad because I have to dump her at home and double back to get the others, as there will be no more seats available. So I hastily draw her a map of San Marco and send her on an adventure, realizing I kind of look like a jerk, but there's not much else that can be done. And San Marco is a cool place.

Once everyone gets in my dad has taught Christina how to pick oranges from the tree and juice them. It's a novelty for everyone, I think, as it always is for me when I return here. There are beds and mattresses strewn all over the house to make room for people and Lizz's dad who has so graciously driven them down from Virginia. Scott wanders up to my church to get things notorized, Zack & Jenny are watching my Wholpin Magazine experimental films, and I'm dashing and packing while Lizz presides over the stove and dad ferries people to Publix and everyone is working together so that, when the momma returns (my momma), she who could be the most stressed simply gets to go with the flow and eat our food and relax. As expected, Sasha dashes this way and that, and Hank, old brown-dog man that he is, just chills.

Follow us (on a slight re-route)

Dear journal readers,

Due to the winding asphalt of the road and scanty internet contact, I will not be able to update this blog as much as I'd like to. However, whereas I could only do it every few days or so, my Bike & Build team posts a, um, post every day that we have internet contact, charting every day of our trip. If you'd like to follow us this summer, I would be honored if you visited this page http://bikeandbuild.org/rider/route.php?route=SUS&year=2010 and tracked us as we cycle across the country for affordable housing. Additionally, the pencil and camera icons adjacent to the map will take you to our trip journal, written by a different one of us every day, and all of our pictures from the road.

Thank you all for your support. And as for me and my stories, some of them are contained within the stories of my comrades, some I'll just have to type up from my handwritten journal when I get back.

But for today, one thought: the Gulf of Mexico alongside us, in its slight color and quietness and elegance, and 33 people determined to make a difference in the world setting out, chatting with everyone under the sun, their bikes and Camelbacks so hardcore in the Panhandle sunshine.