Nearly twenty years ago now I got my first "big-boy bike" for my birthday. I was five then, so mom and dad decided to give me the vehicle which would plunge me headlong into American boyhood. I was elated.
The thing is, though, I had no idea how to ride it. I figured out how I was to sit on the seat and how my feet went on the pedals; but beside that, I was clueless. Dad assured me that we would have plenty of time to learn how to ride it, but that he had yet to put on the training wheels so I could have some extra help. I guess I wasn't really listening; I just couldn't wait to get started.
As I straddled the bike and pushed it along the hallway in our old house I could feel the sun on my face and the wind howling as I sped furiously downhill. Ecstatic, I turned into the kitchen and tried to ride on the linoleum. As I pushed down on one of the pedals I felt the bike move beneath me... I yelled, "Thank you for my big-boy BIIIIIIIIKE!!!!"
Then I crashed into the dishwasher.
I told this story to the second grade class I teach as an analogy for life, that each of us longs to feel that exalted feeling of freedom–suddenly moving and completely joyful. In our little analogy, bicycles are the gift of faith, passed down to us to help us through life. Like with the gift of faith, we have to learn how to ride a bike by first being taught the right way to do it.
How often do we enter into life without guidance? While we feel momentary elation, it doesn't last. Oftentimes we crash–I'm speaking of sin here–because we weren't willing to wait or be taught how to ride. It's frustrating, as we know, but necessary to learn if we are to do things right.
Fr. John Hardon, SJ, says that faith helps us to "know the God to whom we are going." How much simpler life can be if we have that vehicle, that gift, which helps us get to the destination we long for?
Later that summer I was out on the back patio on my bike when I got my leg caught between the chain and the bar (don't ask). I cried--my neighbor smeared Crisco all over my leg--and eventually my dad had to come home from work to rescue me. Which proves to illustrate another point: just because we have faith doesn't mean we won't get stuck, fall off, or need help during life. That's why we have each other, the Church, to see one another through, to be Christ-like when others are in need.
Jacques Philippe puts it a better way:
When I think about it, most of my childhood was spent atop a two-wheeler. As frustrating as it was when dad let go that first time without training wheels, it was also completely liberating. I knew it was what I was meant to do. All the frustration and uncertainty, all the hours in prayer--ha! Do you see where I'm going here? If not for perseverance and guidance in living a life of faith there would be no true freedom, no memories of happy riding. We have to train and be willing to risk everything--for Him!
"The commandments, to pray, the sacraments, and all the graces that come from God . . . have just one purpose: to increase faith, hope, and love." –Interior Freedom, 95
When I think about it, most of my childhood was spent atop a two-wheeler. As frustrating as it was when dad let go that first time without training wheels, it was also completely liberating. I knew it was what I was meant to do. All the frustration and uncertainty, all the hours in prayer--ha! Do you see where I'm going here? If not for perseverance and guidance in living a life of faith there would be no true freedom, no memories of happy riding. We have to train and be willing to risk everything--for Him!
God is with us through it all--the breezy downhills and perilous uphills where we have to get off and push. My second graders understand this both literally and figuratively. They'll tell you how scary it is. But to see their eyes widen and hands shoot up when we talk about Jesus and the Gospel, or how they tell me they're praying for me, you know they desire to live lives of faith--because they know it to be true...
Keep pedaling.