Homecoming, Part 2

Sometimes coming home is hard to do.  It is awkward and uncomfortable.  You realize you don't quite fit the cavity you left behind.  What then?

I can only think of one solution:

Leave again and bravely plow your own path.

Prayer

 About a month ago, I wrote this post on prayer.


The temperature on this morning's bike commute hovered in the mid-30's.  As I rounded a corner a mile and a half into the commute, I found myself muttering "Sweet Jesus."  Then I remembered my fervent prayer ritual.  When people ask, "How do you do it?" in reference to winter biking, I only have a few responses:

• Long underwear, goggles, a balaklava, and lots of socks.
• Four-letter words
• I pray. A lot.

Sure enough.  Four blocks north of my school, I approach Christian Park.  As my bike glided across the intersection and I began to ride parallel to the park, I began to pray aloud the Hail Mary in Spanish. (It is a long, unfortunate tale as to how I learned this prayer.)  I do this everyday in the winter.  Somehow, it holds me through the last moments of the cold.

So I guess I do pray sometimes.

Homecoming

Most of the time, I don't know how I feel about religion or deity.


This weekend I visited my grandparents in southwestern Iowa to 'celebrate' my grandma's 91st Birthday! "How different my life could have been!" I marveled as we toured the countryside, seeing the homesteads of my grandparents now-passed peers.  My cousins still live in the same county where both grandparents have lived their entire lives, excepting a brief stint to serve in World War II.  My immediate family passed a couple chapters of our collective life there, too.  But we settled here, not there.


Yet on Sunday morning as we sidled into the "back pew of the front section" of my grandparents' church, I knew I wasn't too far off the mark.  Despite my frequent agnostic tendencies (or maybe I'm just a skeptic?), I was glad to see some familiar hymns listed in the bulletin and surprisingly glad to sing them.  I cherish the opportunity to sit next to my Buddy (grandpa) and Grandma and sing the songs we've all known since childhood, reassuring us of Divine Presence.


When I biked to Nashville this summer, I stayed one night with an amazingly hospitable woman named Ruth in Nauvoo, IL.  The morning after my arrival, she took me to see the sights of Historic Nauvoo, commemorating the original Mormon settlement.  In the Visitor's Center, we sat on a bench facing a very large Jesus sculpture who, at the poke of a button, spoke to us.  "What did you hear?" asked the young missionary staffing the site.  "Love," I said, "Over and over, he urged us to love.  Love is the Way, the only Way."  I felt very vulnerable and simultaneously very guarded.  Suddenly, despite frequent doubt, I wanted to cling to my "home religion."  Yet Love is something I felt we could hold in common, despite religious - or irreligious - tendencies.


I still have more questions than answers and I honestly prefer to live in the grey.  I don't ask my questions loudly.  But I do find great comfort in singing the hymns of my youth and of my grandparents' youth.  I like Jesus.  When I read the Bible erratically I often think "Yeah! I should read this more!"  But I don't.  I live like a pugnacious preteen.  Instead of channelling my Buddy's quiet religiosity, I cling to his orneriness.  I don't know where I am, but I do know I like the feeling of "coming home."


**Caution: this post was written in a state of great fatigue, and is completely unedited.  I can't remember where I began or whence I travelled in the meantime.  But if I don't publish now, I never will.  So here goes...**

Found object

Found this:


salamander in the desert.
farewell, nomadic life,
life on 2 wheels.
farewell adventure
new place to sleep each night
makeshift town triangles
anger, strife, and perseverance
farewell close travel companions
and distant friends.
you are all but a memory now
~growing fainter with each
passing day.
Farewell.


(and counter to my previous post, i drew a line drawing -- a doodle really.  i'm riding a bike in a circle, never leaving. Why?)

Lines Do Not Exist

Last week, I paid a visit to the Minneapolis Institute of Art with my friend Timmy.  As we wandered aimlessly around (but careful to avoid the Asian Art section, where I usually start and then get terribly lost and end up spending the whole day), we stumbled upon the exhibition "Une Cite Moderne: Drawings by Robert Mallet-Stevens, architect."

Immediately my pace slowed as I meandered to one drawing and slowly worked my way around the room, stopping to ponder the sociological implications of Mallet-Stevens' designs. (I love architecture.)

 Tim, an artist, appeared over my shoulder and commented something about lines.

"Tell me more," I implored.

"Lines do not exist," he stated, as if it were the simplest of observations.


Another exhibition I was hoping to see (and we did) was one featuring MN artists.  Here's a review.  I was really looking forward to the movie one, to the opportunity to watch people cross the line from suspension of disbelief to return to reality.  But I was disappointed.  People just got up, chatted a little but incoherently, and meandered out of the theaters.  No extraordinary threshold-crossing.


Lines do not exist.

familiar roads

I have a friend who loves music.  And I enjoy watching music wash over him, how it changes his expression.  Even listening to what he deems "not good" music, I watch his brow slightly furrow as he contemplates each piece of a song's musical puzzle.  After careful inspection, he eases into the mysterious relationship between harmony, melody, dynamics, lyrics, and reality.  Now his shoulders slacken, the corners of his eyes droop and we both know he is awash in a Greater Than.  As he descends into this sub-reality, the Spirit in the music draws his Spirit out of him.  Like particles of limestone washing into the Mississippi River, I see elements of his self suspended in the air, mingling with that which is Greater Than.  Somewhere in that dance, his soul alights.  It soars.

When he catches me staring at him (which I could do for hours), he cocks his head to the right and raises his left eyebrow, wondering at his return to this extraordinarily grounded planet.

It is in the presence of music that he loses himself in order to find himself.  For his sake, I wish he could stay there.

This is what long distance cycling is to me.  I embark on a trip hesitantly, worrying that if I lose myself, I might never come back.

In what or where do you lose yourself?  Do you find yourself there?

Just Know

I once encountered the following closing line of a book:

"Things will be alright.

Sometimes you just know."

And despite a mediocre story, I pondered that last line in my heart, allowing its peace to pervade my soul.

Prayer is fickle.  Sometimes I think, God is fickle.

But silence is golden.

In the silence, I learn to trust.  I straddle my bike and I know to go straight, not to turn.  When I pause on a bridge over the Mississippi River, clarity of character shines like the sunlight glinting off the water.  I sit in church and I hear God say, "Go. Go."

Sometimes, I just know.  I need to trust myself.