Getting Back on the Bike
Do you remember the first time you rode a bike?
When the training wheels came off, and you were on your own, riding a two-wheeler?
I am presently re-living this experience vicariously through my young daughter. There is a thrill of excitement, laughter, and joy that comes along with the experience as you feel the wind through your hair. All that matters is riding. As a young child, you really have no where to go. You do not ride a bike as a mode of transportation in any real sense, at least early on in life. Riding the bicycle is an exciting adventure in its own rite, a pleasure all to its own. You ride for the sheer joy that the activity brings you.
I remember when prayer was an activity like the experience I just described. Of course, it was a bit mechanical at first, but once I got the hang of it, I could focus less on the mechanics of riding and more on experiencing the world I was invited into. I remember when the training wheels came off. Prayer was fresh, exciting, and joyful. It was not a chore, nor did it feel like work. It was easy, simple, almost like talking to a close friend. There was an innocence about it. Jesus felt close, real, and present in prayer. That is what prayer is supposed to be like, right? It is just like riding a bike!
There is a family story that gets retold every year or so when we are altogether. My parents and sister usually grin on their way to full blown laughter. I do not remember the story myself, but I have heard it about a hundred times now. I must have been five or six years old, around my daughter’s age, riding around the neighbourhood on my new bicycle. It was all fun and games until the day I got into a car accident.
Don’t worry. It was me that hit the car, not the other way around. Then comes the punchline (as an adult I have learned to laugh along with my family at least a little bit). The car was not moving when I hit it. The car was parked on the side of the road. With no one in it. I ran my bike into a parked car and broke a taillight.
There is a sense of irony that I internalize when I hear folks talk about an activity that comes by easily, almost like a second nature. They say, “Oh, its just like riding a bike!” To which I immediately think, easy enough as long as there no parked cars close by.
Prayer can be like this too, apparently. One minute, you are riding blissfully along, feeling the presence of God as close to you as the wind on your face… And then it can feel like hitting a wall, or a car, and breaking a taillight. All of a sudden prayer may no feel longer free, easy, and joyful. Instead it can feel empty, lonely, and silent. I felt like something stopped, something broke. Did I break it? Was this my fault? That hurt, do I really want to get back on the bike? There is dissonance now, an unwillingness to get back on the bike because instead of free flow joy, it feels like I am no longer going anywhere. Despite what others told me at the time, prayer did not feel like something I could just jump back on, it did not feel as easy as riding a bike anymore, something broke. Instead of roaming around my culdesac freely, I felt as though I was frantically spinning my wheels but going nowhere and feeling tired. It felt like my bike was up on blocks, it was stationary. I could work at it, but I was not getting anywhere. Do you know what that feels like?
I grew up in an evangelical tradition for which I am incredibly grateful for. My faith has grown, it has become nuanced over the years, it has changed and evolved. Despite growth and maturation, I am grateful for a firm foundation based on prayer, scripture, and God’s call to take my faith seriously in the places I live, work, and play. It has shaped who I am today in many ways, and I am indebted to this tradition; I care a great deal for it. My tradition, however, did not prepare me for hitting the taillight. It did not prepare me well for a dead stop. As I tried to peddle harder, it did not prepare me for a situation where I found myself motionless despite a great deal of frantic peddling. And so, I experienced dissonance, guilt, and became quite self-critical. An alarming cocktail that would preclude someone from even wanting to get back on the bicycle of prayer.
It was not as if my faith in Jesus, or my activity in service to the church waivered. Not at all. I kept showing up, I continued serving, and I tried my best to keep up the spiritual practices I knew. But I grew both weary of my situation and yearning for more. In my simultaneous fast peddling yet resulting motionless state of prayer, my sense is that God grew in me a great hunger for a deeper intimacy with him. Not knowing how to pursue this hunger for a deeper depth of intimacy, God was gracious to me in introducing me to some expert spiritual cyclists through several mentors. Not only did these guides help me get back on the bike, but they showed me how to ride through different kinds of terrain. I had never ridden like this before.
One example comes from a sixteenth century Catholic saint named Francis de Sales. He was the one who helped me get back on the bike in the first place. As I read his book, Introduction to the Devout Life, I discovered a form of prayer that I had never participated in or heard of before. In Saint Francis de Sales, I was introduced to several meditations where I did not need to supply all the words necessary in order to make prayer work. Instead, I could supply my imagination, my contemplation, my questions, and my simple presence. A shift in focus from my self-conscious existence to God’s faithful was sobering, inspiring, and life giving. I was not thinking about the taillight anymore.
After Saint Francis helped me to get back on the bike, Saint Ignatius of Loyola taught me how to navigate different kinds of terrain. This latter spiritual writer helped me get out of my simple cul-de-sac. I learned how to ascend and descend hills with Saint Ignatius who taught me silence, deeper reflection, and how I might prayerfully think about participating with God’s work in the world. The Examen taught me to shift gears, showing me how to marry activism with contemplation. Bernard of Clairvaux introduced me to Lectio Divina, a practice that would later be engrained further in my life by the Puritan pastor Richard Baxter, teaching me that scripture could become a riding partner for a life of prayer. Not only was I back on the bike, but I was changing gears, navigating hills, and feeling the wind on my face again.
Even more than that, they have been rich resources I have extended to other evangelicals who have been on journeys similar to my own. Leading groups of young adults through Saint Francis de Sales’ meditations has been invigorating. I have watched other young evangelicals get back on their bikes through his teaching. Practicing Lectio Divina alongside co-laborers and colleagues in pastoral work has been a rich practice that has been mutually beneficial as well as stimulating. Cultivating rhythms that incorporate the Examen has not only been lifegiving for my own soul but have helped me reflect on my relationships with and ministry to others. These gifts have helped me, and others, learn to ride in a pack, together.
Dissonance, guilt, and self-criticism have given way to more formative, sustainable habits that inspire focus, trust, and rest. When prayer seems somewhat motionless, difficult, and lonely, I am now more able to sit in silence, trusting in God’s faithful presence. I have been more willing to cultivate silence, waiting for him to speak rather than feeling the constant need to fill the vacuum with my own words. As Hans Urs von Balthasar has shown me, prayer can be a dialogue rather than just a monologue. When I reflect upon my day, I am more able to see myself move closer towards what Saint Josemaria Escriva describes as constant conversation with Jesus throughout the day, becoming a more contemplative soul in the midst of my work.
When prayer halts and ceases, when it feels motionless, we need not despair. Perhaps even there, God has an invitation to us to experience him in a new way, in a new practice, alongside those who have come before. Perhaps we are being wooed into a deeper, more expansive relationship with the Lord through various forms of prayer. We just might become awakened to such realities if we were willing to get back on the bike and feel the wind on our faces again.
