{"id":1748,"date":"2007-08-20T21:42:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-20T21:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels.html"},"modified":"2007-08-20T21:42:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-20T21:42:00","slug":"taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels.html","title":{"rendered":"Taking a different road to God…on two wheels"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>An old joke asks: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” <\/p>\n

Answer: “Practice.” <\/p>\n

This story asks: “How do you get to a monastery?” <\/p>\n

Answer: “Peddle.” <\/p>\n

There are many ways to discern a religious vocation, and the woman in this item decided the best way was to use her legs. This comes to us from The Catholic Spirit<\/a> in St. Paul: <\/p>\n

Stephanie Hart is on the road to discerning whether she has a calling to the religious life \u2014 both literally and figuratively.<\/p>\n

That road will take her about 650 miles across four states, as the 27-year-old massage therapist bikes from her home in Miles City, Mont., to St. Joseph, Minn., where she will join the Sisters of St. Benedict for a yearlong postulancy to discern whether she has a permanent call to religious life.<\/p>\n

It may be an unusual way to embark on a vocation, but Hart said she is looking forward to traveling on the open road.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess what I\u2019m hoping for myself during this time is mostly to just be \u2014 to allow whatever thoughts to come that need to come,\u201d said Hart, who left Aug. 11 and hopes to arrive by Aug. 24.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to this time and the slower pace of this transition,\u201d she told The Catholic Spirit in a telephone interview Aug. 9. \u201cI have about two weeks, pedal stroke by pedal stroke, to begin to acclimate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hart, a 2002 graduate of the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, said she also plans to pray and enjoy the scenery as she journeys from Montana through the Dakotas and into Minnesota. Along the way, she will post reflections and photos on the blog she created<\/a> to document her adventure. <\/p>\n

In her first entry, posted July 30, Hart said her family has been supportive of her decision to move to the monastery, but her father, Dean, wasn\u2019t enthusiastic about his daughter biking solo in the dog days of August along long stretches of open highway.<\/p>\n

He suggested that Stephanie\u2019s mother, Ellen, an avid biker, join her. Then younger sister, Cindy, wanted to participate, too. The three trained for months by doing practice runs.<\/p>\n

Hart biked to the monastery from the Twin Cities, where she moved to enroll in massage therapy school and lived until last month. During that time she attended St. Stephen in Minneapolis and often assisted with music ministry at St. Frances Cabrini, also in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

While they\u2019re on the road, Dean will ride behind in a camper and serve as their main cook and general support crew.<\/p>\n

Hart said she got to know the sisters at the monastery pretty well during her time at the College of St. Benedict. She attended Liturgy of the Hours in the evenings and sang in the monastic choir.<\/p>\n

What attracted her to the sisters\u2019 way of life? \u201cI think it\u2019s the primacy of the prayer life \u2014 that the prayer feeds their work and then their work feeds the prayer,\u201d Hart said. \u201cThey aim for that balance. These are women with very full lives.\u201d <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Women with very full lives, soon to be joined, it seems, by a woman with very strong legs. Good luck, Stephanie! We’re praying for you. <\/p>\n

Photo: Stephanie Hart (on the right) from Biking To The Monastery <\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An old joke asks: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Answer: “Practice.” This story asks: “How do you get to a monastery?” Answer: “Peddle.” There are many ways to discern a religious vocation, and the woman in this item decided the best way was to use her legs. This comes to us from The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTaking a different road to God...on two wheels - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Taking a different road to God...on two wheels - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An old joke asks: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Answer: “Practice.” This story asks: “How do you get to a monastery?” Answer: “Peddle.” There are many ways to discern a religious vocation, and the woman in this item decided the best way was to use her legs. This comes to us from The…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-08-20T21:42:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/RspHnfw6d9I\/AAAAAAAAAqM\/Ig-rkSZGSQ0\/s320\/IMG_0714.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Taking a different road to God...on two wheels - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Taking a different road to God...on two wheels - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"An old joke asks: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Answer: “Practice.” This story asks: “How do you get to a monastery?” Answer: “Peddle.” There are many ways to discern a religious vocation, and the woman in this item decided the best way was to use her legs. This comes to us from The…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2007-08-20T21:42:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/RspHnfw6d9I\/AAAAAAAAAqM\/Ig-rkSZGSQ0\/s320\/IMG_0714.jpg"}],"author":"deacon greg kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels.html","name":"Taking a different road to God...on two wheels - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/RspHnfw6d9I\/AAAAAAAAAqM\/Ig-rkSZGSQ0\/s320\/IMG_0714.jpg","datePublished":"2007-08-20T21:42:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-08-20T21:42:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/RspHnfw6d9I\/AAAAAAAAAqM\/Ig-rkSZGSQ0\/s320\/IMG_0714.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/RspHnfw6d9I\/AAAAAAAAAqM\/Ig-rkSZGSQ0\/s320\/IMG_0714.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/08\/taking-a-different-road-to-godon-two-wheels.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Taking a different road to God…on two wheels"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10","name":"deacon greg kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","caption":"deacon greg kandra"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}