Happy Leap Year! Usually I’m all about training and continuous, incremental improvement. Keep riding, running, walking, talking to God, day by day, and over the long term big changes happen. Yesterday, on Leap Day, I looked back at my life and noticed a few points at which the move from Point A to Point B required […]
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Why It’s Never That Simple
“My life is over.” When doctors told me the reality of my injury–spinal cord damage and paralysis–I absolutely knew my life was over. I couldn’t walk, run, ride a bike, or do any of the things thirty-six-year-old men were supposed to do. I’d lost everything, and my life was over. It’s easy to understand my immediate […]
Continue readingMore TagBack To The Chain Of Rocks
FRONT RANGE FREEDOM TOUR has its roots in a crazy dream. In 2011, Becky, Monte, and I did a 1500-mile handcycle journey along the length of the Mississippi River. Here’s one of the iconic incidents from that journey. # # # # # I looked forward to Old Chain Of Rocks Bridge from the beginning of […]
Continue readingMore TagIs It Okay To Dream For Yourself?
“So are you saying we can’t dream for ourselves?” I told them that a dream worth following has to be about a story bigger than ourselves. Following a dream just for yourself will eventually leave you with a sense of emptiness. He kept going. “That’s the problem with religion. Everything I want to do…I can’t.” […]
Continue readingMore TagHere’s How We Really Change The World
I taught math to teenagers for thirty-five years. I enjoyed my teaching career. My students left me with a bald head and a number of valuable lessons. Among them: Kids may be reluctant to believe what you say, but they’re always ready to believe what you do. It’s a life principle; talk is cheap. Words matter little […]
Continue readingMore TagWhen Equal Isn’t Quite Equal
I’ve been in a courtroom a couple of times in the past few weeks. Observing a friend’s partial journey through the system, and surveying other cases while we waited, got me thinking about fairness and justice. It’s interesting to watch judge and attorneys work together to apply the law equally while accounting for each person’s […]
Continue readingMore TagOn Second Thought, I Wish I Would Have Said…
“What’s your advice for us, for people our age?” They were mostly twenty-somethings. I told them about the FREEDOM TOUR and the kids at the HOME OF HOPE. The theme was mission and community, the notion of seeing a need and doing something to meet it. Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. […]
Continue readingMore TagA Good Time To Reset The Odometer
Do you make Yew Year’s Resolutions? Eat healthy. Lose weight. Less TV. Read more. All those would be nice, I suppose, but for me there’s just nothing magic about January 1st that imparts a sudden burst of desire to do big, life-changing things I wasn’t doing before. While every day’s a new beginning, a New […]
Continue readingMore TagWhen Plans Become Expectations
On Day One of our long-awaited Mississippi River trip, everything went precisely according to our carefully crafted plan–until we actually started riding. Perfect weather, a beginning prayer with friends and strangers, a crash, a wonderful ride through pristine north woods country, and a meeting with Paul Bunyan and a big blue ox. Did you catch the “crash” part? Yeah, […]
Continue readingMore TagMaybe It’s More Than Sticks
“To the uneducated an A is just three sticks.” — Eeyore (A. A. Milne) I receive all sorts of comments when I’m riding my bike. Lots of “thumbs up” (at least I assume they’re thumbs) and a ton of encouragement, but occasionally someone tosses out a comment about how “easy” my ride appears. “Wow, I wish […]
Continue readingMore TagAbout Those Stories
So I wrote these two books. I never intended to be a writer, but God leads me in some crazy directions. Seems like one day I was helping kids learn math and suddenly we were opening a carton of books titled Relentless Grace written by some guy named Rich Dixon. Not exactly certain how that happened, but it sure wasn’t […]
Continue readingMore TagRevisiting Hope On Wheels
The FRONT RANGE FREEDOM TOUR is forever linked to the story of RICH’S RIDE. Four years ago, Becky, Monte, and I were in New Orleans celebrating the end of our original 1500-mile journey. We thought that ride was a one-time deal. We had no idea what God had in mind, but the “trip-of-a-lifetime” turned out […]
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