Bringing Faith to Life
Made to Move
How can I connect with a Creator I cannot see?
29 months
We connect everyday with things we don’t see, many of them in an old, familiar way. What does this for you?
For me it is my dad’s old sweatshirt. Turned inside out, it was my favorite outfit as a kid. Even in the coldest weather, I could put it on over whatever else I was wearing, push up the sleeves, and shoot hoops on my driveway. On wet days, the puddles didn’t stop me. If I missed a rebound and the ball went splat, I’d just wipe it on the tummy fuzz of my sweatshirt and put it back into play. That shirt worked just as well for hitting tennis balls against the garage door, fielding grounders off the brick wall, catching pop-ups in the backyard, or circling the driveway in roller skates.
Yep, I was always on the move. Not because my parents told me to, and no, I wasn’t practicing for a big tournament or to make the all-star team. I just loved how it felt to move, whether I was lofting a ball that swished through the net, striking a ball in the center of my racquet, catching a ball securely in my mitt, or propelling myself around the turn on wheels. Movement taught me how to listen to my body so I could feel the inside of me. Physically. Through trial and error, adjustment and repetition, I improved my aim and perfected my form.
It would have never occurred to my eight-year-old self that movement could be a contemplative practice. But my grown-up self knows that it certainly was and still is. It helps me to listen, to be thoughtful, reflective, focused, and stilled – just not always while I am still. What could be more natural?
We each have a body and the Psalms tell us each is fearfully, wonderfully, and uniquely made by our Creator’s design. Where better then for God to meet us than in our very own flesh as we experience life according to that design? Even if we aren’t primarily kinesthetic learners by nature, our physical selves are the one thing we know God gave us just for this lifetime. We take our bodies with us everywhere we go! And wherever we go, God promises to go with us.
This notion is the launching point for Made to Move: Knowing and Loving God Through Our Bodies. It is not a fitness book or a weight loss program; it is a devotional workbook inviting you to use your body as your textbook.
As Christians in progress, seeking to live lives that more closely resemble the life of Jesus, we are commanded to love God fully with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves. That’s an invitation to experience faith physically. When we allow our bodies to help us connect with God and neighbor, not just metaphorically or philosophically, but tangibly and concretely, we make our faith real. That God is as close as our skin, as mobile as our joints, as strong as our muscles, as magnificent as our minds, and as constant as our heartbeat.
Made to Move is also a fresh way to introduce faith to others (children, teens, family, friends) who are skeptical or who have had little or no religious background or Christian education. Because we share a physical nature, the body and how it works provide a great meeting ground to kick off discussion and conversation. For instance:
- We want a strong core so we can both stand firm and move well: what is at your core?
- We need a firm foundation so we don’t slip and fall: how firm is your foundation?
- Our heartbeat is constant and responsive to our needs: what is constant for you?
- Human arms are designed to hold, reach, and lift: why do you think we were made that way?
People today are looking for reasons to believe. We need to give them some concrete examples and opportunities to ask questions.
As a practitioner of a physical faith, I have come to call myself a kinesthetic Christian. Movement was my first language, and it remains my learning language; the best way I know to connect with the God I have come to know more fully as I have matured in faith. Even though my middle-aged body can’t do all that it used to when I was an agile youth on the field of play, God is still teaching me through it. It’s the place we meet and have a loving conversation in the language we both know, the language of the human body.
If the whole purpose of our lives is to know and love God more, surely God has given us a way to succeed. What could be more unique, more personal, or more perfect than the bodies we came with?
Can God speak to us through our bodies?
010 months
God speaks to us through our bodies.
Why is that so hard to believe? We say that 70% of communication is non-verbal. Why do we insist that God speak through our listening ears? What do we perceive non-verbally?
Well, this may sound nonsensical, because in normal conversation, what we mean by non-verbal is messaging though “body-language.” What do their facial expressions say? What does their hand-positioning tell us? their posture? their movement? This is the language of their bodies? God doesn’t have a body — at least not one we can see and touch. At least not me.
What if God is speaking God’s nonverbal expression through MY body? Uniquely and specifically to me? How would I listen? How would I interpret? How would I attend to what God is speaking? If am not aware of God, is there something getting in the way and scrambling our communication?
Much depends on my relationship with my own body. So what does you body say to you when you address it? is your body telling you?Do you find yourself in any of these? here?
- the avoider: I don’t want to talk about that. Let’s change the subject. let’s talk about something else. So, how are you doing…?
- The excuse maker: I don’t speak that language. (I’m not coordinated, not good at sports, never got picked for the team, really not very competitive.)
- the ashamed: I can’t talk about that. Am uncomfortable talking about my body. am ashamed, embarassed, have been hurt of abused.
- the guilty: There’s nothing wrong with what I am doing. Nothing to see here. Move along. unaware or blind to the connection between body and God, in denial
- the arguer, reasoner/rationalizer: The Bible says the flesh is bad, but the spirit is good. I choose to focus on the spirit. After all, this body of mine is just a temporary possession. gonna perish anyway.
Avoiding, excusing, shaming, denying, and arguing are all ways we step away from this conversation. In doing so, do we miss a blessed, poignant and personal way God created for us to be aware of Him? Forfeit an intimate connection? Miss perhaps 70% of what God is speaking?
Perhaps this is the most essential message of the coming of Christ: fully divine AND fully human, incarnated. Here in the flesh. God, knowing our reluctant selves, argumentative, avoidant, shamed and guilty selves, said, I can live in that body. When I do, I can take the helm, if you give it to me. I will speak course correction, signal change of heading, chart the course, and apply the rudder. Heck, I can even still the winds blowing us off course.
The keys are two: attend to My touch and apply my direction. Use your body’s awareness of me to accept my guidance. (like horse and rider)
Try: ask your body to respond to these commands/instructions:
- slow,
- calm,
- focus
- look
- listen
- breathe
- imagine
- attend
- release
- turn
- wait
- GO!
These commands are activated in our flesh, through our physical nature. God speaks to us, so God can speak through us.
Of course, one can only be guided when one is moving. Nothing (but God) can correct the course of something that refuses to budge, arms crossed. Movement in any direction, God can work with.
Folded hands which signal I’m not budging is something God refuses to override.
We are made to move. Our bodies — heart, soul, mind, strength and spirit — remind us of this everyday. It’s the way God intended to get and keep our attention. It’s why God gave us a body — to incline us to follow Him in this earthly lifetime.
*(This is the thesis of my book, Made to Move: (learning to) Knowing and Loving God through our Bodies, find it here.)
Stretch to strengthen: pain of a healing sort
01 year
by wlebolt
in Body, Call to Action, church, Deeper Sensation, faith, In Action, Made to Move, prayer, witness, writing
No one really wants to be stretched. At least not too far, and definitely not when the stretching goes beyond what feels comfortable.
There’s just a certain out-of-control-feeling when someone is pulling you and you don’t know how far they will go, or even if they will stop. If you have ever had physical therapy after an injury or surgery, you know exactly what I’m describing. It’s painful but it’s pain of a healing sort. It helps recover your range of motion, and once you have that, the strengthening can begin. Then you’re on the road to return to action.
While there lots of ways to strengthen — exercise machines, dumbbells, pulleys, weights — it’s likely that when you earn your discharge from the PT gym you’ll be sent home with a lovely parting gift called a resistance band. It’s meant to be your home exercise companion. And it comes with a wonderful secret: When you stretch it, it strengthens you.
I know that sounds a bit counterintuitive, but it’s true. When you pull, it resists, gently. As you pull harder, it stretches, slowly. The harder you pull, the more it stretches and the more that strengthens you. This feels very much like life these days and, to me, very much like the life of faith. Body and soul engaged in a give-and-take which feels very much like exercise.
Apparently, my approach is a bit atypical. While most faith-folk tend to start with the soul and then invite the body along, when I begin with body, my soul always comes along for the joy ride. *
Try for yourself. Here’s a simple prayer routine using the “exercise” band and the words to the praise song, Spirit of the Living God. My daughter Stephanie’s lovely voice accompanies me.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mse98SpD1v4]
The movement is prayer. The words are prayer. The music is prayer.
But even better, even after the prayer-exercise is done, the sensation of prayer remains… in the body! The muscles that moved the band — the effort, the stretch, the exertion of prayer — reverberate and reiterate: melt me, mold me, fill me, use me. Literally, the prayer is still there.
This is too good to be true, right? Try it again. Become aware of the energy, the symbiosis, the connection of stretch to strengthen. Let your body prayer become fluid, flowing one motion into the next. Body and soul, together. Who could conceive of something so powerful and yet so simple?
*My thanks to the folks at the Upper Room for honoring my unusual approach and inviting me to join them to lead worship at SOULfeast 2013.
In the anxious of always, this
0I awaken into the new day. Already my mind is considering all that has been. Is contending with all I might do or be needed to do. Do I pause...to ponder The ordered way land, sea and sky meet, as the sun peers through the trees the clouds form and fold the light sparkles on the lake soft ripples hint of a soft breeze. That my lungs fill with fresh air perfectly composed to supply blood, uniquely equipped to carry cells, satisfied and content. That my legs lift and support me, step one foot to the other with balance on sturdy ground that promises to carry me into the day. Do I consider this ... the ordinary? that the day will take shape as it does and always has. that intake of air will refresh again and again. that gravity will have its way as it has this day and every day. This ordinary. This gift. This miracle. Not guaranteed Not promised Not deserved And yet, why? why do I overlook it? why do I suppose it? why do I rush past it? Why do I forget to give thanks? In the anxious of always, we've been given the ordinary to make life out of.
Take a Deeper Breath
02 years
I’m huffing and puffing my way up the steep rocky path toward the gorgeous mountain lakes my companion has promised lie ahead. It is Rocky Mountain National Park, after all. It’s no surprise that the air is thin, but this doesn’t hamper him. He lives a mile high and trains for triathlons in the parks, reservoirs and along the roads nearby.
“I could use a 10 second break,” I plead. He obliges and we step aside to let the nimble and altitude-acclimated bound on by. A few who pass by on their downward trek offer us an encouraging, “You’re doing great!”
As I pause, my friend says sympathetically and so simply, “I find it helps to take deeper breaths.”
At the suggestion, of course, I inhale a deep breath and then draw it deeper. And you know what? It worked! As we continued, when my breath quickened and my heart started to race on the steep parts, instead of huffing and puffing and pressing on so I wouldn’t seem like a wimp, I just expanded my lungs a bit deeper on each breath.
Deeper. Slower. Stronger. I’ve heard they call this combat breathing. I call it respite in the Rockies.
And, me being me, I find myself mind-meandering through my long-ago (and mostly far away) respiratory physiology classroom training. How does that work again? At higher altitude the partial pressure of O2 in the air and my lungs is lower… the sign at Pikes Peak said 60%, I believe, much lower than the 98% I am used to at sea level … which means that there is plenty of room for more O2 saturation in my blood stream. More inhalation means more air available which provides more O2 available to be exchanged. Right? And with lots more blood coursing through that pulmonary circulation thanks to my hardworking heart which was pumping fast and faster, my deeper breaths were DOing something!
Ok OK. Miraculous and scintillating as that science-speak is, what I am captured by as I look back on this trek that, yes, I survived, is the simplicity of “Take a Deeper Breath.” It reminds me…
You have reserves you don’t realize.
You have untapped flexibility and capacity you can call upon.
And BONUS! One good thing leads to another! Deeper breathing activates a whole (parasympathetic) neural reflex that triggers calming.
All this flies in the face of the push harder, exert more, breathe faster-shallower, hyperventilation scenario it seems our world inclines us to visit these days. Sure, quick, shallow breaths may work in a pinch (like in a panic attack) because, by allowing us to blow off extra CO2, they trick our brain into thinking we don’t need to breathe. Underwater divers make use of this at their own peril.
But we, the anxious lot of us, adopt it in error and to our own disadvantage. We need to breathe. And rather than shallow, we need to go deeper. Rather than faster, we need to go slower. Deeper. Slower. By choice.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” ~ Matthew 11:28-30
How much of my day is spent reacting and responding with faster, faster? How much more capacity would I find if I replaced shallower with deeper? Faster with slower? What if I trusted that My Maker had already provided the means for me to climb the mountain? Any mountain? If only I listened to the voice of my capable companion?
As we ascended and came nearer to the mountain lake, those returning from their trek greeted us with smiles and happy shouts of, “You’re almost there!” How can you not smile at encouragement like that?!
Oh and the vistas did NOT disappoint.
Take a deeper breath. So simple.
I wonder what other resources one might discover in listening and complying with the voice of Wisdom and Experience while we climb this steep, rocky path called life…
The undeniable evidence of your senses
02 years
Nothing is certain these days, it seems. Or perhaps one might say, nothing is certain except uncertainty.
That feels especially true when I put my trust in things I can see, hear, touch, taste or smell. Yep, the evidence of my own senses seems to betray me these days. Even old familiar things are tempting to disbelieve. Especially when our collective perceptions are so divergent.
But it’s always been so. And actually I find that reassuring. Because in the midst of differing opinions and the drawing of different conclusions, each has its own validity… in a way. And that might, if you go along for the unexamined ride, convince you that there is nothing to trust and no one to believe in.
OR … it might send you searching for understanding by diving deeper. For me, the resource that never disappoints is the human body. I never cease to find something enlightening, explanatory and remarkable, yet so astoundingly simple that it sits me down and shuts me up.
I mean, just consider how you see, hear, touch, taste and smell!
For times when the darkness around you makes it hard to see, God designed a pupillary dilation mechanism to let just the right amount of light in.
For times when the sound of confusion surrounds you, God designed a cochlear hearing system which resonates uniquely to every pitch.
For times when gentle caress feels distant, God designed subdermal pressure receptors so sensitive they leave you giddy at the touch of a ladybug or the tickle of a feather but alert you to a creeping spider.
For times when life’s bitterness threatens to spoil your table fellowship, God designed other tastebuds activated by sweet, sour, salty and savory for balanced seasoning.
For times when the stench of evil and injustice suffocates, God designed olfactory epithelium to compel you to seek refreshment and renewal by the winds of the Spirit of hope.
It’s amazing to think, isn’t it, that the complexity that is each of us could possibly have begun with just two single cells and 26 sets of information. But it’s so. Quite a Designer that must have been… must be…. and is even now as we go through life adapting and responding to what comes.
Who in the world would ever have thought of all that?
Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.
John 10:37-38
Gun Violence: I’ve reached my breaking point
02 years
You can tell a lot about a culture by how it treats its children.
I don’t remember who first said that to me, but when I heard it I knew at once it was true. The children among us … Do we support them? Do we include them? Do we honor them? Do we fund their endeavors? Do we prioritize our work with them? Do we care for them and hold them close? Do we respect them, whether they are part of our family, of another family or of no family?
This question was foremost in my mind several years ago when I read an awful account of the inhumanity waged against a child in the name of religious warfare. Unconscionable, I thought, How can one who bears the image of God act in such a way toward another who also bears the image of God?
I could only conclude that the one didn’t recognize this image in himself and thus didn’t recognize it in the other. If he did, I supposed, he could never behave so.
And that, naively, was the initial impetus for my book whose working title was taken from this blog, the Kinesthetic Christian, and which was ultimately titled Made to Move: Knowing and Love God Through Our Bodies. If people knew what a miraculous masterpiece they were and all of humankind was, how could we hate? How could we kill? How could we do other than honor all those we met?
Yet, here we are. Killing the other who is different, who is defenseless, who is innocent. Each one, created as a masterpiece and gifted with a life over which to discover and display it, denied it. God help us.
And God has. Through Jesus, God issued instructions, to seek to “Love God with heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourself.” Our lives are our practical exam. Our place to chisel away all that is not loving in order to uncover the masterpiece within.
However…
O Lord, we don't trust we are loveable. We don't believe we are a masterpiece. What we see in ourselves, we often don't like And too often we take it out on others. We say things we don't mean. We act in ways that are "not us." Confirming what we believe about ourselves, not the truth of who we are, at least who we are truly meant to be. O Lord, today I recommit to your life's work in me. I acknowledge and accept your assignment as my instructions, trusting that the world you created and the circumstances in which you placed me are designed to chisel away the ugly and leave the lovely. My charge: To seek to act in ways which show my love for you and the whole of your creation: with whole heart, whole soul, whole mind, and whole strength for the good of my neighbor because of Your Good in me.
If the life I am leading is the practical portion of my life’s exam, I pray there is still time for me to earn a passing grade. And I pray the same for you. Each of us are commissioned into the work of our lives. Surely, in our day, there is enough work to go well around.
Today, I took my first step in addressing the gun violence being perpetrated in my country. I learned that my church denomination passed a resolution to end gun violence at its 2016 Conference. I will be participating in a group pledged to respond and to act on these measures. Not only is it way past time to do this but our very lives may depend on it. So many lives have already been given for it…
Perhaps, the same Spirit is prompting me that inclined the rich young ruler of scripture to fall on his knees before Jesus and inquire, “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life? ~ Mark 10:17
It is probably no accident that in the moment just before the encounter above we’ve just read, People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them. ~Mark 10:13-16
If you would like to join the group we are gathering to learn more about the gun violence issue and ways we can address it, please send me an email here or leave your contact info in the comments below.
Dust to Dust: the perpetual power of God to give life
03 years
Prayer: Father, you have made us temporal beings, yet you are forever God. We long to participate in your forever, but we have only one lifetime to do this. On this day, as we come before you repenting our shortfall, lift us up to see the brightness before us and your confidence in us as the mark of your eternal love.
Scripture: Genesis 3:19
By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.”
***
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” These words I say quietly to myself as I shovel three times and toss earth over the coffin of my father-in-law, George, who now lay in the deep grave prepared for him in a remote Jewish cemetery. He, a Jew, and I, a Gentile. Prayers were uttered over him in a language I don’t speak, yet these words of prayer spoke themselves through me to his remains in this moment. His earthly body would be returned to the ground: human to humus. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Even his coffin, made with dove-tailed wood joints, would disintegrate with time. All would be but a breath. No evidence would remain.
Yet. Dust does not have the final word. This man did not know what lay beyond the grave; he told me so in our last conversation. But surely there is something more than we know. George had lain the groundwork for this ever-ness over a lifetime of creating, meticulously hand-crafting bonsai of such beauty they were celebrated across the globe. So wondrous, practitioners would come across continents in order to marvel. So treasured, their care would be entrusted to others soon after their creator had passed. This Jewish man had spent a lifetime creating what he knew would long outlast him. That they would have life beyond his death, he made certain.
As we enter Lent, we invest ourselves in this certainty. Because Christ died, we, though human, repent in dust and ashes to embark on a life that will outlast this one, a life that is truly life.
***
- Take a moment to consider who has invested in you? A parent, teacher, pastor or friend? Is there someone in whom have you invested?
- Have you ever engaged in a project or creation (without reward or notice, perhaps in secret) which you hoped would bear fruit beyond your lifetime? Last longer than you?
- If you attend an Ash Wednesday service today, remember the significance to the Jews of the Shema carried with them, even strapped on their forehead. A mark of ashes, a pressure on your flesh, a sign of repentance.
***
Give thanks for the power that lives in you because of others.
What the Body Knows it Remembers
23 years
My legs are a-wobble. Every half a step forward, a good bit sideways I go. Trying my best to stand still, I list to one side and then the other. Closing my eyes, I teeter — no, not exactly teeter — I tip, lean, crest a wave and recover to ride the next and the next. I roll.
In case you’re wondering, I’m not impaired — neither drunk, nor woozy. I’m fully awake, fully aware, fully cognizant, all systems go. It’s just that my body’s balancing system thinks it’s still aboard the ship where I spent the last week. In spite of all my other senses saying, “See, you’re on pavement. Solid ground. Perfectly still. Nothing’s moving,” my body isn’t buying it. It’s tuned into its own channel, plugged into its own input source, trusting its own instincts.
Funny, I have queried others who were aboard the boat with me and none have experienced this sustained rocking. My husband was totally terrestrial the moment we came ashore. Other friends had perhaps a day or two of remnant “sea legs.” But I rock and roll a good long while. Only over multiple days of walking on terra firma, will my body return to its former stride; the old way, the boring but steadfast, the everyday way.
Just between you and me, I prefer the rhythm of the waves. There is just something in me that finds home there. I wonder if rhythm is my default sensation.
It served me well on our expedition from the ship over to Espanola Island where paths were pretty treacherous: big rocks and very unsure footing. At first, my sneakers kept slipping; the harder I tried to find just the right foothold, the more unsteady I became. But when I found my footing by hip-hopping, one-two-ing, left-righting from one rock to the next, I kept my balance. Cha-cha-cha. Was anyone else feeling the rhythm or grooving to the beat? Probably not. Yes, embarrassing. Don’t tell them.
But here I am, a full week ashore and still rocking my sea-legs. Am I just made differently?
Makes me wonder if my first language wasn’t words, but movement. Before we speak, we move. Why can’t that be our native tongue? Can’t you just picture the moment? The Creator thinks, hmm, this one’s gonna think in motion. And not random motion but guided motion and choreographed motion. She’s gonna respond in motion and understand in motion. When she sees someone move, she’ll move, too. When she’s stumped, she’ll untangle things on the move. It’ll stay with her. It’s the way I’ll speak to her.
Why wouldn’t the one who created the winds and the waves, the storms and the calm, the rhythm and the rocking, sow this into us as well?
I must say, the rocking is gentling so I’m not in a hurry for it to go. It has a language of its own. Seems to speak in a very old tongue from the ancient of days, from before days, perhaps even before time, when that language of love that holds and rocks and caresses and cares spoke creation itself.
Before there was light by which to see
and air through which to hear;
Before there was land on which to stand,
and an expanse of sky to draw our gaze upward;
Love was in motion.
Surely, it was.
And still is.
Under the overpass of life
03 years
I am paused for a sip of refreshment from the Swell water bottle I’ve pulled from its cage which is mounted on my bicycle. I have chosen this spot for a water stop because it is nicely shaded under the highway overpass. Here I can shelter from this Florida sun I’m not used to — it is January, after all. Overhead, gigantic cement girders support a six lane highway. I can hear the traffic whizzing by… at considerably more-than-highway speed.
No, I do not lament the pace of life that is passing me by, ever at breakneck speed. Rather, I am perfectly satisfied to pause and sip in this shade as the other cyclists pedal by. I acknowledge some with a nod. Others pass without even a glance. A few alert me that they’re coming. “On your left,” they say. And they are for a fleeting moment and then grow smaller and smaller in the distance.
Suddenly alone with my thoughts, I let my eyes travel upward to the giant grey girders over my head, silent and strong but massive. For a very split second, I imagine what might happen if they came crashing down. But I dismiss this thought quickly. I am confident that a capable architect, an accurate building engineer and a diligent construction crew erected this structure. Certainly, all necessary precautions have been taken and the required inspections have been made to guarantee its structural soundness and assure safety.
Standing here alone astraddle my bicycle saddle, a cycling helmet the only form of protection I have, I suddenly realize I’ve put a lot of trust in a whole host of humans I’ve never met.
In this moment, something inclines me to look upward and past the girders.
When I do, the dazzling, impossibly-azure sky peeks from beyond the bridge’s span and compels my gaze. “Why,” it seems to say, “if you trust these chunks of cement to protect you, why do you not trust me?” The voice-that’s-not-a-voice goes on. “I am the architect of all that is, the designer of all that will be, the builder of all that is becoming. Why, if you trust the work of human hands, do you not trust me?”
The Lord of Universe now has my full attention.
Why don’t I trust the Lord of the sky to protect me as I go along my way?
When I look around at all that has been made, why don’t I trust?
When I survey all that has been given, why don’t I trust?
When I recall the many instances from which I have been rescued, why don’t I trust?
In that moment I turn my eyes again to the ghostly white of the cement girders, ominous in their row-by-row alignment overhead. I notice the rumble of traffic which now echoes in thunderous tones on all sides. I permit the thought which had been holding itself back: if I heard the structure of this bridge crack and start to give way, would I be able to extricate myself in time? Could I dive to safety? What about the other cyclists? What of the unsuspecting motorists?
No, I decide, I could not save myself. No, we could not save ourselves.
Slowly, I take a final swig from my Swell, carefully screw on its top and slide it back into its plastic cage. Looking to left and to right, I ease my bicycle back onto the trail and propel myself into an easy rhythm.
Pedaling on
I probably won’t stop here on my return trip. I’ll pause in the shade of a nearby tree, greened by the sunny days and watered by the summer rains. And I’ll listen.