cycling
I LEARNED HOW to bike relatively late in life. I was 23, and it cut my commute in half. Since I’d been walking an hour each way for a night shift that started at 11 p.m., that meant a lot. My guru was an elder from my local church who lived across the alley. He taught me how to change a tire, gears, and my life. He showed me hospitality by teaching me about my bike, but it extended much further than that.
UCC minister Laura Everett does much the same thing in Holy Spokes . She uses the metaphor of a bike as a lens to discuss the broader issues of how to relate to people, the Earth, and God: Mostly how, to use Brother Lawrence’s term, to practice the presence of God.
Photo via LoloStock / Shutterstock.com
Nearly every issue of national concern — from prison to education to tax reform, from healthcare to LGBT rights — has become so polarizing that otherwise civil, intelligent human beings often digress to the level of obdurate toddlers staring down a bowl of broccoli.
Even as we jeer at our elected officials who can’t seem to get their acts together, none who have spent any time in a church business meeting should be surprised at the level of strife and vitriol displayed in the American political arena. Seriously, it’s getting as scary as Jack Nicholson’s eyebrows out there.
If you live in any kind of an urban context you’ll likely have witnessed the following scene.
You’re at a stoplight in your car and up rolls a cyclist.
Photo: Lance Armstrong, Randy Miramontez / Shutterstock.com
The Lance Armstrong news is still fresh on people’s minds, but based on the news and Internet chatter I’ve seen, this is being met with a more somber response than, say, Barry Bonds or Mack Mcgwire. In the case of the latter two athletes (along with many others), it seems that the public has revelled in some degree of Schadenfreude as they witness someone being pulled from their high pedestal, back down to dwell among us common folk.
Yes, we have a strange bloodlust for tearing down those we’ve chosen previously to build up as icons or role models, and Armstrong’s grave-dancers surely will come out of the shadows in time, but is there something different about him? Do we have more of a reason to mourn his precipitous decline, as opposed to others who have preceded him?