on August 2006

     It’s raining outside, sheets of rain coming down, drowning everything. I’m reading verses about peace and comfort and a future, but none of it is making any sense today.
     “My help comes from the Lord.”
     “He will not allow your foot to slip.”
     “The Lord will protect you from all evil.”
     “I will make up to you for the years the swarming locusts have eaten.”
     It’s all pretty frustrating right now.
     I saw a woman the other day and it looked like she was having to blow through a tube to propel her wheelchair down King Street. I hated that she had to live her life like that. I realize that she could be happy, and it’s very possible she has a lot of joy in her life, but even so, I was angry that she had to roll around when others got to walk. And I know that none of us deserve anything but the worst from God, but sometimes you just get tired of seeing people who have every advantage and blow it time after time after time and they still get chance after chance with seemingly no consequences for their actions; and then you look at others who have every hardship and still do right and it never works out.
     Somedays, it’s just hard to trust. Hopefully that’s ok to say. Somedays, the peace that surpasses all understanding just isn’t there, no matter how much you long for it or how much time you spend with God.
     Like the days you wake up at 3 AM and your brain immediately starts spinning with thoughts you had two hours earlier when you finally fell asleep. Or when you have to watch your child die. Or when someone’s not perfect, but they’re perfect for you, and even so, the best- or only- way you get to love them is to let them go. Or you lose your job.
     Then what?
     I once asked my friend Greg if it was possible to love but not trust. He asked me what I meant. I told him Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey me,” and I was obeying Him in every way I could think of, but I just wasn’t really able to trust that “The Lord guards my going out and my coming in”, or that He wanted me to have life in all it’s fullness.
     “I mean, it hasn’t been days, or weeks, that I’ve been beaten down. It’s been years." 
     Greg told me that it sounded to him like I was trusting God with my actions, even if I couldn’t trust with my brain during that time, and that that was a good thing, that acting in trust even when all the evidence says you shouldn't sounded a lot like faith. I guess that made me feel a little better. If he had said “His timing is not ours”, or “God won’t let you deal with more than you can handle”, or one of those lines I probably wouldn’t have wanted to talk to him for a while.
     I guess the questions I’m wondering are some of the most universal: When will it be my time? When will then be now? When will--
     I flipped over to Habakkuk and read the whole book. It’s pretty short, and full of hope. He was asking the same questions we all do. When I finished reading, I drank the last bit of tea and watched the rain fall straight down. I usually like the rain. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I get tired of thinking.

**********

     The rain has stopped, and I need to escape. I throw my mountain bike on my rack and drive off, leaving my house, leaving my memory behind. Thirty minutes later I’m riding down a trail. It’s hot out here. God it is hot, but I soak it in. I need it. I need every bit of humidity in the air, need to feel like I’m breathing underwater. I’m amphibious. I’m an amphibian and I’m in the woods and I’m underwater.
     Every one of you should see me ride my mountain bike. I can go so fast you wouldn’t believe your eyes. My calves are like pistons the way they pump up and down; they’re a blur, they’re like the drawing with the bird on one side and the cage on the other and if you spin it fast enough the bird looks like it is in the cage, but I’m not a bird I’m a beast and my bike is my freedom and my calves and the bike blur into one.
     You should see me go so fast. I can bomb down a hill like you wouldn’t believe, my arms gripping the handlebars and vibrating while the bike tries to throw me, but I am my bike, it’s a part of me, and I can pedal that effer into the ground- and when I reach the bottom of the hill I will climb right back up to the top of the other side. I can climb like a goat, like a goat being chased by a bullet, and it would take your breath away to see because you would swear I was going the same speed as I was when I was going downhill- no, faster, “He’s going even faster, my God, he’s going so fast!” you would say and you’d be right because I would be at the top before your eyes even made it to the top, and I would breathe in so deep, just to feel my lungs expand inside my chest. 

     I can ride through the woods and bend my bike around trees growing so close together it’s like my bike is made of rubber. I can go over anything, things other riders dismount and carry their bikes over, rocks the size of a Volkswagen. I can ride up it, almost vertical- you’d swear my bike was vertical- and down the other side without any hesitation, or I could pedal hard and blast through that effer like my bike was a bulldozer.
     I can ride so fast and I can ride so slow, so slow you’d swear I was a statue- still, lifeless, made of concrete- and I stand there with my pedals horizontal and my body balanced perfectly and stare unblinking at the setting sun and it is so amazing- my muscles are itching, ready to explode into movement and energy and the wheels of my bike are pleading with me, begging me to let them roll so fast, so fast they would leave the trail and swim through the humid air, leaving everything behind- all of the lies and pain and heartbreak- and finally, finally, when they have begged enough I give my permission and my piston calves pump again and we are flying, all hot and sweaty with dried mud caked onto legs and arms and face and frame and I love it, love every last moment of it because I am alive and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop me or slow me down or hurt me because I’m invincible, unbreakable, shatterproof, and I am alive, breathing and sweating and living and moving and you tried to stop me, tried your damndest, but you failed, you will always fail and I will always win because I already have won, don’t you see that? can’t you see that? why don’t you see that? I already have won. I forgive you. I forgive you. I am forgiven. I am free. I am the righteous, I am the wicked, I am the rain- renewable, resilient.