Passing on the passion

Have you ever experienced the joy of seeing your kids take on your passions and make them their own? I love it when Emily and James display a desire for the things that are important to me.

Both of them have an interest in matters of faith and spirituality, in music and even in cycling.

Emily and I have ridden to church a few times in the past but yesterday was a big event as James joined us for the ride for the first time.

We’ve cycled together around the local park before but this time we were actually going somewhere on our bikes together.

Most of the way we were on bike paths with only a couple of roads to cross so it’s a safe trip. Both kids did very well.

One of the first questions from James when we got home was, “Can we ride to church again another time?” Yes James, we can ride to church again …. and again …. and again. We can ride all sorts of places together. Maybe one day we’ll even ride right across Australia together.

(This photo shows me third from the left on my most recent trip across Australia. It was in 2003 and leading us on this stretch of the journey is regular commenter on The Journey, Bruce Anstie. Bruce and I have a loose arrangement that we’ll cycle right around Australia sometime after retirement.)

Posted by Rodney Olsen



Do you think some of your friends would enjoy reading Passing on the passion? Please use the buttons below to share the post. Thanks.

About the author

Rodney Olsen

Rodney is a husband, father, cyclist, blogger and podcaster from Perth Western Australia.

He has worked in radio at Perth's media ministry Sonshine for over 25 years and has previously worked at ministries such as Compassion Australia and Bible Society.

The views he expresses here are his own.

View all posts

3 Comments

  • Woah! My 15 minutes of fame?
    I liked your post Rodney. I am looking forward to the time when my children are old enough to come riding with me. I am hoping that they will share my passion, but probably like yourself don’t intend to force it upon them. . . . gently encourage maybe 😉
    I am still in training for the retirement ride, and looking forward to it!

  • Hah! We’ll see if you still feel the same way when Emily and James drop you on whatever big climbs there are in the vicinity of Perth. 🙂

Join the conversation

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.