Insights From the Bike Path

I have been a huge fan of the Duck Creek Parkway Bike Trail since I first discovered it in 1979 shortly after my parents moved to Davenport. I had just graduated from high school and gone off to college, my sister had recently married, and my father took a job in Davenport, so our family was striving with layers of change and transition.

On the day of this discovery, I was at my parents’ new house while on spring break from my first year of college. I remember the day clearly. I did not know anyone but my parents and was bored in a strange house and a strange new city. It was an early spring day, the air hugging the remainder of the bitterness of winter, the warm rays of the sun bearing the promise of summer, a day caught between seasons. I was young and restless, hungry for what I thought was adventure and new discoveries, my spirit revved up on the fumes of higher education, stuck in a house that didn’t feel like home, cooling my jets.

So I hopped on my old childhood bike that managed to make the move to Davenport and headed south on Marquette Street toward the downtown of an alien city. Having grown up in Waverly, Iowa, a small rural town, this city seemed formidable. I had no idea where these two wheels might take me, but I was ready to find out.

Marquette Street in Davenport is a major thoroughfare for traffic traveling north and south. Where the streets of Waverly were wide and easily accessible for bicyclists, this street was barely wide enough for its four lanes of traffic. I soon became concerned as cars passed by me uncomfortably close, or slowing down to wait for an opportunity to weave a wide arc around this intruder on two wheels. It became abundantly clear that Marquette Street was not a friend of two-wheeled foreigners; rural transplants who do not know the purpose of a street or their own place in its non-pedestrian community.

Imagine my relief when about a mile down this inhospitable strip of pavement, I spied a green sign with the words “Bike Path” in white letters. A double-sided arrow told me I could turn right or left to enter the bike path. To the right I saw a ballpark and to the left a grove of trees. I stopped and carefully checked the traffic before crossing the street to the left, leaving the angry intersection to its four-wheeled friends. Good riddance.

I peddled to the left where the path was swallowed up by the dense woods. I entered the new world, leaving the traffic sounds in the distance. I was whizzing through speckled beams of light as the sun shone through tiny new leaves on the tops of the trees. I was riding parallel to a creek, barely thawed and waking from its wintered frost. It curved and flowed gently, glinting in the afternoon light. My eyes took in the sights; my nose took in the smell of damp ground, new growth; my ears took in the songs of the native birds, happy to be free of frigid winds; my soul heaved a deep sigh. I suddenly realized that I was not yearning for newness and adventure, but for home. The home of my soul was on the banks of the river, quiet, dark, peaceful.  I had spent the better part of the past year in the newness of a college campus: new room, new people, new knowledge, and plenty of new choices. Some of these choices I navigated well, but not all.  This new city was not home. What I needed most was a return to the familiar, tranquil, pastoral, transcendent. I was grateful and exhilarated to have stumbled upon it by accident….or was it?

The Existence of Deep

I needed to walk, not knowing why, or to where. Was I escaping the past, coping with the present, or seeking the future? Could it be all three? I couldn’t be sure, but I did know that something called to me and I had to go. I had to go alone.
As is typical in the life of a fourteen-year-old, I was struggling to find a place in the world where I belonged. My friends were those who existed with me on the fringes where we could escape the compromise of perfection, the shallowness and heavy maintenance of a well-oiled cookie-cutter image. I tried its appearance on a couple of times, but like a low-cut sweater and high-heeled shoes, it pinched and drew the wrong kind of attention. We kept our place on the outside looking in, hungrily observing that which we were not a part of, wondering what we did or did not do to be left standing on the sidelines, lowly water boys, waiting for a chance to matter.
Growing up in a small river town, options for association were somewhat limited. Life was predictable: school, sports, church, family. Escape from the watchful eyes of the bored, curious and narrow-minded was difficult. Gossip was a form or entertainment, developed to a fine art at Doris’s beauty shop on Third Street. What could not be observed or known for a fact was drawn out of the imagination and embellished between once-a-week washes and teased hair-dos. Some Saturday mornings I had to look for my mother at Doris’s to ask her a question or give her a message. I would find her at some stage of the hair-do: having the curlers put in, a torturous process; sitting under the dryer, deaf and sweating; or being combed, shaped, fluffed and sprayed. The place was alive with the buzz of gossip and hair dryers. As I walked in the door, all eyes would turn toward me, hungering for a morsel of news to chew up and spit out with a vengeance: “Did you know…?” “Did you hear…?” “Can you believe…?” “What a shame!” The smell of ammonia, the bright lights and the buzzing sounds made me nauseous and took my breath away. I needed to escape.
Short of breath, I walked. The Cedar River weaves through the middle of my hometown of Waverly, Iowa. I was often drawn to its banks as though the life I was seeking could be discovered there. I needed openness, grace, peace, freedom. I needed to know who I was, not who others expected me to be, a truth that was not twisted by fear and hate. I would find a secluded shady spot to sit and catch my breath. There were no watching eyes, no wagging heads or clicking tongues, no heavy sighs. There was no one there for whom I had to perform or measure up. The depth of the rushing current called to the depth of my soul.
One Saturday afternoon adolescent emptiness and collective expectations threatened to swallow me whole. I needed to be someplace safe. As usual, I set off walking. I sought out a favorite refuge, an isolated spot by the river I had discovered while exploring one day. I sat down on the bank, listening to the birds calling back and forth. To my soul, they were the music of God. I inhaled the smell of wildness, of mud, leaves, and river water, sweeter than any incense. I watched in fascination as the water bugs choreographed a dance, gracefully drawing intricate stained glass designs along the surface of the water. The wind murmured a sermon of deepest hope.
I searched around on the ground nearby to find two sticks of roughly equal size. I held them together at right angles. I began in the middle, weaving long strands of dry grass in and out of the sticks where they crossed in the middle. I had seen these “God’s Eyes” at local craft shows made out of smooth craft sticks and brightly colored yarn. Mine was rough and uneven, in beautiful and varying textures and shades of tan and brown. It was created out of what was left on the bank by natural causes, by the soil, the wind, the water and the changing seasons. As I sat there on that riverbank, looking out at the expanse of water and sky, feeling the warm sunshine and gentle breeze on my face, I knew that I was brought to this place for worship. As I opened my heart and my mind to God, He spoke to me in His loving and gentle voice. I was given those sticks and that dry grass and was instructed to weave them together in that way. In it, I was reminded that whatever God creates is perfect in His sight, intentionally orchestrated and woven together for such a time as this. I let go of shallow breathing and began to breathe deeply, safe to be noticed, free to be myself. From the furthest reaches of my soul, the truth dawned that His watchful eye was always on me and He would never stop calling me to walk to the river. Deep calls to deep, life to life. Here was no rejection or judging or criticism. In God’s eye was a place of acceptance and grace where I could breathe deeply and freely.
I sat on that bank for as long as I could. As the sun sank low and the air grew chilly, as my skin began to feel damp and clammy, as the shadows began to lengthen and the chirps of the crickets replaced the bird songs, I knew it was time to leave. I had to walk away from the tranquility of my refuge by the river and back to the uncertainty of my life on the fringes and the constriction of small-town realities. But I would take my God’s Eye with me, evidence of safety, grace for my imperfections and a deeper place to worship. Even though I still did not know where my steps were taking me, I could trust the strength, hope and life in the existence of deep.

My God-Shape

I am mom-shaped. For the past 24 years, the mom-role has given me a shape, an outline, a definition. I have been Ian’s and Caitlin’s mom, a truth that has directed me and held me together. My life and thoughts have been consumed by their needs; by their past, their present, and their future. My hands, my head and my heart were full, and my function was clearly understood. All was good. But then it happened: they grew up. Ian and Caitlin are now in different places with new definitions and boundaries of their own. Raising independent children comes with a price. Now I am struggling to make the installments with no payment book: doling out a little sadness here, some depression there, maybe some loneliness, self-pity, feelings of abandonment, a little bit of uselessness. Bankruptcy looms on the horizon. How did this happen? What is my shape now? I must’ve had a shape 25 years ago, but I can’t recall it.

My shape feels fractured. A piece of me is breaking off but is hanging on, like a baby tooth hanging on to that last shred of gum. Sure, I can yank it out and get it over with, but that gum is so tender that I’m not sure I can bear the pain. There is a strange comfort in letting it hang on, putting off the pain, even though I know something new and solid will take its place; something permanent, forming beneath the surface, ready to emerge in its time.

Now is the time. Just yank it out….get it over with. I know that old baby tooth does not belong any longer. Leaving it in my mouth is unhealthy and will only cause more fear, daily snags and reminders of the inevitable. Be brave. Grab hold….or I can tie a string to the door knob if I must, the other end to that stubborn tooth. NOW…slam that door….break free. Yes, there will be pain, a little bleeding, a gap in my smile, awkwardness, maybe even a lisp for a while. But, God has always had a plan hidden beneath, waiting for me to give up and face the pain of letting go, revealing the newness: a new smile and a new shape; but not really new. It has been hidden, being reshaped, reworked, reformed and waiting to break through the surface at the proper time. Faith is required to believe the gap will be filled with something solid and permanent because right now, I just feel awkward, formless, and vulnerable, afraid to smile because I’m not sure who I am. “New” can be a good thing, but it takes time to adjust, even to goodness. God is only goodness and His shape for me can only be good, but only if it is HIS shape, not one of my own making, forced and unsightly. I can exhaust myself with striving and bending my own shape, or I can let go of the past, rest in His will and allow Him to provide my definition, my boundaries, my outline, which were really His all along. His plan is always best, even if for a while my smile is full of gaps and my speech if full of lisps and my shape seems undefined.

I must choose to smile. It does not come naturally at this point because the fear and sadness are still too near and too real. God can give me the strength to hope for goodness and claim it as my own for His sake. I must choose to remember during those times that I am in the process of being reformed; my smile is beautifully broken in anticipation of my new and emerging God-shape.

Spring

Hope sleeps, appearing dead
beneath brown withered grass and leaves.
Skies are forever gray,
hard as steel, unyielding and unforgiving.
Grace seems far away, never to come, out of reach.
Hope is frustrated, holding its breath.
It wakes each day,
straining for a glimpse of green or yellow or purple,
a sign of life.

Still, Hope hangs on to longer days,
anticipating restoration and renewal
…maybe tomorrow or the next day.
Faith holds hope together.
In Faith, Hope can believe
that new life will appear as it has every year,
but when?
Hope longs for freedom from frozenness.

And then one day a ray of sun breaks through the steely sky
giving Hope the courage to breathe,
the freedom to move.
With renewed strength, Hope bends down
and brushes away brown, crackling leaves
to reveal tiny green leaves
with faces of most amazing yellow and purple.
Warmth replaces cold,
green replaces brown,
beauty replaces barrenness
and life replaces death.

Grace comes.

Faith is blessed.

Hope rejoices.

Come Home

For a long time I wandered in a dark wilderness. I had no place where I belonged, no place to rest, to find peace; I had no home. I was always anxious, always striving to earn my way, to be independent, to gain approval and acceptance. I had to work very hard to get people to love me. I was alone, afraid, and vulnerable to the storms and the whims of the world, open to the elements, always changing, unpredictable. Searching through the mist of something nameless and elusive, I had gone places I never should’ve gone. I had gone too far. Who could ever love someone so hopeless, broken and unclean? I gave up my right to a home. My aimless wandering had taken me in the wrong direction. I was lost in the shadows and mazes of my own making. How could I ever find my way back?
One day, amidst my striving and searching, hunched bitterly under the diamond-hard shell I had constructed for protection, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I turned impatiently to see who would dare interrupt my busyness. The person before me seemed vaguely familiar but I could not quite remember where I had seen Him before. I growled, “Is there something that you need?” He simply replied, “I need you to come home.” From within my multi-layered shell of self-protection, I snarled, “I have no home!” As I hoisted my shell more securely over my shoulders and returned to my toil, He reached out His had to reveal a golden key. I didn’t know what He was trying to tell me, so I crossed my arms tightly over my heart and stood doubtfully and silently. But somewhere deep inside, despite my hard exterior, my heart began to toy with hope. This is what He said to me: “I have been watching you throughout your life. I have watched you struggle to walk, fall down, and get up without anyone’s help. I have seen the fear and loneliness in your eyes. I have seen the longing in your heart for safety, acceptance and belonging. I know that you have tried everything within your power to find this place of comfort and hope. I’ve come to tell you that I have the key to your every longing and desire. I have lived on this Earth; I have struggled and scraped to get through each day. I know what it is to have no place to lay your head. I have been looked down upon, laughed at, betrayed and beaten. I even allowed myself to be killed by those who should’ve known better. Then, by the power of your Heavenly Father and because of His great love for you, He brought me back to life so that I could stand before you now and offer you this key.”
Suddenly, I knew it was Jesus standing before me, but not the Jesus whom I had been visualizing my whole life, not the ancient, untouchable relic. This Jesus was alive, real, standing right in front of me. As my shell slipped unconsciously a few inches off my shoulders, allowing some of the hardness to leak out, I tried to resist the urge to reach out my hand and touch Him. He smiled with compassion and understanding. My shell slipped a few more inches, making me dangerously vulnerable.
Then in a flush of hot shame, I remembered what I had done and where I had been. He said He had been watching me my whole life, so He knew what I had done. I withdrew my hand, let out my breath, and lowered my eyes, gathering the strength to retrieve my sinking shell and return to my hiding place. In a small, trembling voice, full of fear and dying hope, I said “Jesus, I have gone too far. I have done things that you couldn’t possibly forgive. You should give the key to someone who deserves it.”
Jesus replied, “This key is for you…look…” and He turned the key over in his scarred hand. On the other side I saw that it had my name engraved on it. He said, “This key was given to me by your Father in Heaven before the creation of the universe. I have been watching and waiting for a time such as this to offer it to you. I know that you are weary, disillusioned, betrayed by the world. I offer you this key to bring you to a place of rest. There is a place where you can be safe, where someone is longing to be with you. It is a place of warmth, peace, protection; a place where you can set struggles, toil and striving aside. I have the key. Won’t you please come home?”
His kindness, gentleness and compassion melted the remnants of my hard heart. I knew then that this home is what I had been searching for all of my life. I lifted my eyes and my armor came off. Hope ignited and began to burn as I reached out my hand and took the key. Then He held out His arms and drew me close. I surrendered to His embrace and cried out all of the years of shame, regret, hopelessness, sorrow and exhaustion. When my tears subsided I was cleansed, transformed and renewed. We walked arm and arm down the street until we stood before a cozy, sturdy looking cottage. Warm light flooded out through the windows and as we stood upon the welcome mat, I could hear sounds of joy and celebration coming from inside. I lingered for a few more minutes in the safety of His warm embrace.
Finally Jesus said, “Go on inside. Your Father is waiting. There’s a party being thrown in your honor. When you’re ready again to venture out into the world, I will always be by your side. Go in peace.” He tenderly kissed my forehead and gave me a gentle push. I turned the key in the lock and heard a sure and solid click. I opened the door and boldly announced with the joyful heart of a long-lost child, “I’M HOME!”

Think how it would be....

Think how it would be to awaken each day
with the excitement,
anticipation and wonder
of a child who awakens
on Christmas morning.
Barely able to stay in bed,
anxiously longing to see
what gifts her Father has waiting for her.
As He presents her with each blessing,
each lesson learned
through trial and hardship,
each crystal clear truth revealed
to heart, mind and soul,
she would seek Him out
and give Him thanks,
overwhelmed with the incomprehension
that He could know her so well,
to know just what she needs.
He touches the deepest part of her,
frees her to believe, to hope and to love.
Each night she may close her eyes
on doubt, regret, weariness or sorrow,
only to open her eyes again
the next morning
renewed.
Another new day
full of new gifts and wonders,
challenges, lessons and truths,
always to begin again,
always another chance
to bless her Father’s heart
with blessings given in return.

A Definition

It doesn't demand me to be something I'm not
It doesn't push me to be somewhere I'm not ready to go
It doesn't judge me for not living up to certain expectations
It doesn't make me want to run and hide or hang my head in hopeless shame
It silences the voice that screams inside my soul, relentlessly telling me,
"You'll never be good enough!"
It comes in times of stillness and quiet listening
It brings acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, patience, understanding, faith, hope and love
It saves me, heals me and frees me to be all that I am created to be
It is life and the longer I am alive,
the more it is to me a mystery and a miracle,
something that my humanness cannot grasp, but that I must reach out and accept, nonetheless
It openly defies everything that I know to be logical and philosophically correct
It is the answer to every question my heart yearns to understand,
but I stubbornly shake my head in discelief, because is seems too good to be true
I am instantaneoulsly drawn to it and repelled by it
My pride tells me, "There's no such thing as a free lunch.
There must be something I have to do to earn it."
Fear keeps my fragile hope of it safely hidden away and protected
so that it cannot be shattered
Yet in the stillness,
the Spirit inside my heart tells me,
"Yes, it IS true,
it IS free
and it is YOURS for the asking
I want more than anything for you to accept it, no strings attached"
So, I ask
it is given
I accept and I drink of it deeply
It is cool and sweet and pure
It meets my every need
I am at peace
It is Grace.