I recently had the opportunity to realize a dream of mine.  Since I was young enough to make the sound "vroom vroom" I wanted to ride a motorcycle.  This past week, my brother took an extended trip out of state to visit some of our family across country and left his motorcycle at my parent's house for me to ride.  I did.  My dad and I went out on 4 different days to ride.  Thank God for holiday weekends!  We logged on average around 90 miles per day.  Best weekend of my life!

I came to two new realizations on that bike.  First, I found that although I couldn't talk to my dad while we rode, I had found yet another way to connect to him by participating in something he enjoys doing.  Mind you, I have a great relationship with my dad, and have plenty of other opportunities to do the same thing, but this weekend I added one more thing to that list.  The second thing I found is that despite how horrible my day had been or how full my mind was with worries, upon pulling out of the driveway, my mind cleared.  Whatever was there was replaced by the joy of my situation and also the awareness of what was around me.

I also learned a couple of new lessons on the bike.  I learned that I never realized just how much scenery was around me.  When driving in the car, caged in the frame of safety, my view was blocked by dashboards, doors, the roof, and other obstructions.  While yes, I could see enough to get where I was going and notice danger approaching, it blocked a more holistic view of my surroundings.  The other main lesson I learned relates to the first:  I was far more aware of how things were affecting me on the bike than I am in my car.  Three things specifically:  other drivers, bugs, and smells.  In the car, the illusion of safety tends to numb the senses in regards to other drivers.  I don't even notice bugs, because the windshield takes care of blocking them.  The smells of the trees, flowers or even road kill either never make it to me, or are delayed in their arrival.  The lack of the "safety cage" requires on a bike that the rider search more earnestly for danger and prepare before it's needed to react. 

In the midst of all this realization and discovery something dawned on me.  I can't understand why someone needs to load up on a mind-altering drug (including alcohol) to enjoy riding.  Riding, in and of itself, is mind-altering.  It's clearing, cleansing and focusing.  It comes with a world of new discovery of sights, sounds, smells, touches (mostly from bugs splattering on your face), a veritable sensory saturation.  Who would need a drug to enjoy our most basic human input receptors?

In the end, a question came to my mind:  is God a Harley fan?  This isn't a question of debate between foreign and domestic bikes.  What I mean is simply this, is God a fan of what I could affectionately call "The Harley Effect"?  Just like my introduction to this bike, this new way of experiencing the road brought with it a smorgasbord of new sensations and realizations, is there a way of experiencing God that brings forth a new found love for him?  Can I learn to clear my mind of the junk of my day and be fully absorbed into what God is doing?  I didn't have to bar hop or smoke out to have this new interaction on the bike.  Is there a spiritual discipline that I can teach myself that removes my Christian "safety cage" of thinking, my ritualistic approach to who God is, to notice all the sights, sounds, feelings, and wonders that are part of the amazing God of the universe?

The answer is, "Yes".  Richard Foster, author of "A Celebration of Discipline" outlines one of the neglected spiritual disciplines:  meditation.   The reason I say "neglected" is due to the worldly perversion of what meditation has come to mean to us.  We hear meditation and think of Eastern religions where a person sits with their legs crossed, chanting some mantra and touching their fingertips together.  Foster states "Whenever the Christian idea of meditation is taken seriously, there are those who assume it is synonymous with the concept of meditation centered in Eastern religions.  In reality, the two ideas stand worlds apart.  Eastern meditation is an attempt to empty the mind; Christian meditation is an attempt to fill the mind.   The two ideas are quite different".

When I drove the bike my mind was completely there.  I knew what was going on.  I wasn't somehow detached from what was going on in some chemical or spiritual funk.  Instead I was completely filled by my surroundings, by the joy that I experienced in living a dream, but also by the environmental sensations I was exposed to.  I was fully aware yet simultaneously filled and cleansed mentally.  I think that's the essence of what we experience in true Godly meditation.  When we allow ourselves the moment to truly meditate on Him and His word, we notice things in our lives that we may not have been previously aware of because we allowed our safe-guards to block it.  Let me encourage you to seek after the "Harley Effect" in your readings, your prayers and your discussions.  Let the winds of God's Spirit and the movement of his hand bring new realization to your life of who God is and what He's doing.

Love,

Pastor Mike

	1. 15 Sep 2009 02:02 PM
	nice thoughts pastor mike. suprisingly you can make the three things seem very related =] Guest

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