Since Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France last year and also the success of Team GB in the Olympic Cycling getting on your bike has become a popular thing to do. Having cycled virtually all my life the phenomenal growth of the sport gives me a great deal of pleasure. As you know a group of us cycled from Mainz in Germany back to Tadworth in 2011 and raised £11,000 for the Centenary Fund. Well I am glad to announce that Team COGS are going to be on the road again this coming August - Sunday 18th until Saturday 31st, to be precise, when they will attempt to cycle from Lands End to John O’ Groats, just short of 1000 miles. The team contains two of the same members as in 2011, me and Ollie Garrett but this year we will be joined by Callum Hawker and Naomi Elfred. We have been building up the miles in training over the last few weeks and so hope to be super fit in the run up to the last two weeks in August. As previously, in this new venture, the team will be ably supported by Julia Elfred in the back up vehicle. Also as with the German trip we will be seeking sponsorship but this time for three charities, Cancer Research (in memory of Barry Coleman), Methodist Homes (in memory of Jack Elfred) and the NSPCC. You will be able to sponsor the team on line (watch out for further details) or by filling in one of the sponsorship forms in church and giving the form to either me or Julia. If you would like to follow the progress of the team in both the run up to the ride and during the ride itself you can do so by asking to become a member of the team’s Facebook page. Several people have asked if they can join in bits of the ride which is a great idea and I have published the itinerary below. However if you want to join us for part of the ride you will have to find your own accommodation.
The idea of taking an arduous journey has a long history in the Christian Tradition – these journeys are known as pilgrimages. Although pilgrimages are physical journeys involving strenuous bodily effort, that is in fact only half the story, for these journeys have a spiritual or internal element to them which is just as important, if not more important, than the purely physical element. The challenging physical nature of the journey tests and expands the personality thus it helps to build the soul. When we were on the Mainz trip we each discovered our limitations, had to incorporate disappointment into the mix as well as enjoying the sense of achievement at completing the journey, even though we got radically lost at the end of it and arrived back two hours after we should have! We also got to know one another rather well. We survived the things about each other that wound us up (my snoring was a particular trial evidently!) and also came to appreciate our very different personalities, skills and qualities. We were able to talk about and overcome difficulties and weld ourselves together as a team.
The other element about a Pilgrimage journey is it is never merely a self indulgent egocentric affair. St Teresa of Avila, the great sixteenth century Carmelite nun and mystic writer always reminded her sisters that true self knowledge and knowledge of God whilst obtained internally always turned back to the world and was manifest in good works. We are following in this tradition on our testing journey in August. We remember with thanksgiving those who we have known and appreciated in life who are now no longer with us; we ride in their name seeking to raise money to help those who are enduring similar trials to the ones they passed through. I hope I can count on your support this summer in our joint endeavour.
All the best – Fr Mick