Business has been picking up at the bike shop. Well, not business as you normally think of it, but people have been coming in to fix their bikes and a few have asked if I have bikes to sell. Its notable that the people coming by aren't just wide-eyed neighborhood kids trying to get their hands on whatever they can. These people have been adults who use or will use their bike as their primary mode of transportation.
Meet Brian, a tall, thin anglo man. He is soft-spoken and very humble. He rides a black Huffy mountain bike, the kind that you buy at Walmart for $90. Today, Brian has his long, wavy blond hair bunched upwards into a beanie. He is a Bible student at Bethel College in South Bend. Luckly, he only has one class per week on Monday nights, to which he rides his bike. He is so serious of a student, so passionate about what he does, he carries all of his books 15 miles or more each way in a hiking backpack. Recently his seat post had to be replaced because his body weight combined with the books had bent his first one down to his rear wheel (I find that hard to believe, but he wasn't joking). He came by on Tuesday as well to work on his bike a little and check to see if I could help him install a 49cc motor inside his bike's triangle. Today he is here to install it.
We open the boxes to check out the parts. Several are very heavy, others are complicated to the point of being intimidating. I spot the manual at the bottom of the box. Drawings cover a few pages of the manual, speckled with hundreds of scratchily handwritten, hardly visible numbers. On one page, there are a few paragraphs written in far-from-perfect English describing installation sequence along with a picture of the finished product. Looking at the sketches, into the box, and at the tired little Huffy, I have a feeling of uncertainty. Brian suggests that we pray about it and I chuckle. I always pray once I've messed a project up, rarely before I even start. I turn to look at him and see that he is serious. I drop my hands and close my eyes, admitting that he has a point, then Brian prays that God will give us what we both feel is lacking, the ability to complete the project.
We didn't finish the installation, but we came really close. It'll make for an inspiring motored bike. The experience of just meeting this man was already plenty of inspiration for me. He used to live with some people close to where I live now, but he moved out when some chemical dependencies showed up in his housemates. Now he lives in a storage unit where he says he plans to build himself a loft set-up, like a dorm. He says living in a storage unit is fine, except sometimes you just want some light, like in the mornings when you want to get dressed. His light is currently a few LEDs on a utility battery. It blows my mind that he can live in a storage unit and bike 30 miles once a week to take a class.
I stayed at the Catholic Worker house in South Bend. Their commitment to simple living goes beyond ours over at the Jubilee house. Thirty of them eat nearly all donated food together every night, they work real jobs and contribute all of their earnings to the house, and on the weekends they voluntarily run a busy soup kitchen. When I commented on how busy their lives must be, I was corrected, full, not busy. One of them was gone and I stayed in his room. The only decorations in his spacious room were a crucified Jesus on the wall and several big piles of books. Yet it almost felt like home. How are these people renewed, where do they find life, how are they filled?
I puzzle over that question. I think that either of those lives would exhaust me. I am filled by many things, singing, eating with people, working with people, praying, exercise, working with food in all of its stages, going to church, being with people, reading books, and other things. I guess I could still be filled by all of those things if I was in either situation, but I'm not sure about that. I am reminded of the Liberian A Capella, a singing men's group that has gone through civil war, the loss of friends and family, and surely are familiar with looking despair in the face then staring it down. These men sing songs of freedom, joy, and peace despite witnessing atrocities and intense heartbreak. Could I still sing if my family had been killed, my friends raped? The resonance in their voices stands as a testament to the power of faith. Also, it stands as a reason to be thankful for all of the people in our lives, for the good times and for the hard times. One struggle helps to give us a cheerful perspective during another, when we know the beauty and triumph that comes out of the pain.
