How a bicycle can be a sacrament

September 11, 2013 | Viewpoints
Aiden Enns |

I have what may appear to be an irrational aversion to cars. When you are desperate to find hope for the future, it’s easy to turn to something near at hand and obsess about it. I’m not saying I totally hate cars. I happen to co-own an old clunker camper van and find it terribly handy and, well, even fun.

It’s just that cars are so not the future. They feel like hulking tanks dropped on a tenuous landscape, anachronistic lugs bequeathed to us from an ignorant century.

One Sunday morning last month, I rode my bike north out of Winnipeg to the edge of Birds Hill Park. It was 30 degrees and humid; I had cycled 25 kilometres, drank two-and-a-half litres of water and was still thirsty. I stopped at the “59er” gas station for a drink.

I sat against the wall in the shade of the building and watched a stream of cars and recreational vehicles re-fuel at the pumps. Drivers stepped out of their climate-controlled capsules, flicked switches, wiped windows, twisted caps. Engines started, cars idled, then rolled away to make way for another in the endless line.

At the risk of sounding like an old curmudgeon and knee-jerkingly judgmental, I have to disclose the dystopic feelings I had at that time: We are on a smooth road to our collective death. That’s chipper, eh? I don’t often ride my bike for a weekend getaway; we usually take our van and go to the beach. I implicate myself in this assessment.

But wait, I’ve found a path to salvation. The way to lessen despair is to heed your moral compass, find a positive yet difficult alternative, and take initial steps. In the grand scheme of things, this small act is insignificant, but as a symbol of hope, it has the power to change the world.

For example, when I commute with my bike alongside a motorcade of traffic I don’t save the environment, not even a blade of grass. But—and this is the irrational part—in spite of appearances, I am irrefutably becoming a better future. I don’t exactly know what a better future is or will be, but by my aspirations and my actions I am already a part of some kind of glory which is unfolding.

This is the power of sacrament, when an ordinary thing or action affords access to the sacred. Riding my bike has become a sacramental experience for me. Others cling to different things and activities for similar inspiration. Arthur Paul Boers describes the liberating potential of physical engagement in his book, The Way is Made by Walking: A Pilgrimage Along the Camino de Santiago (IVP, 2007).

I noticed that Pope Francis also has an aversion to cars, or at least pretentious fuel guzzlers. In an address to more than 6,000 seminarians on pilgrimage in Rome, the pope advised them to “avoid fast cars and ride a bike instead,” according to the Catholic Herald.

Lutheran priest Nadia Bolz-Weber in Denver, Colo., holds an annual service for bicycles. “As a way of acknowledging the inherent goodness of God’s gifts of life and health and the humble but elegant bicycle, we decided to conduct a Blessing of the Bicycles for the entire Denver cy-
cling community,” she writes in her online journal, “Sarcastic Lutheran: The cranky spirituality of a postmodern gal.”

In Bogotá, Colombia, the city closes 120 kilometres of roads to cars every week. On Sundays, 1.8 million people cycle, walk or skate in a festival atmosphere called Ciclovia. Wikipedia has scores of entries on its page for “car-free places.” Around the world each September cyclists celebrate car-free day.

My love of the bike is inordinate. It’s way more than eco-friendly transportation. It has become a narrow gate through which a better future unfolds.

Aiden Enns is co-editor of Geez magazine. He is a member of Hope Mennonite Church, Winnipeg, and can be reached at aiden@geezmagazine.org.

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