PENTECOST SUNDAY (Written on May 19, 2009)

For the Lectionary (what's a lectionary?) of May 31, 2009: Acts 2:1-21

 

And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

 

CYCLING THROUGH PENTECOST by Larry Patten

Cyclists—bicyclists not motorcyclists—may understand Pentecost better than some.

Why? Pentecost arrived like the rush of a wind. Yes, flames and the color red are the dominant symbols for this celebration of the church’s birth, but I am drawn to the wind. The wind of the spirit; the wind as metaphor for the Holy’s presence. A ship at sea was one of the ancient Christian symbols, an obvious cross as the mast, and its sails billowing in the wind.

A few days ago I was taking my morning spin, starting from home and pedaling through Fresno, with the day’s weather report mostly reassuring me: mild, sunny, NW winds 15-20mph. It’s springtime in California’s Central Valley. Mild is good. Sunny is expected. But oh that wind!

In the first part of my ride, I’m heading east. Shouldn’t the wind be at my back? Instead, it seems the 15-20mph pushes against me in every direction I steer the bike. With my bike helmet secure (the better to give protection from flames alighting on heads?) the sound swirling around me is like the rush of a wind. Hold it! It is the wind I feel and hear! Symbol is reality.

Moving through a regional park, its paths safer than the city streets, a fellow cyclist—younger and faster—cruises past me.

“Great day for riding,” he said as he zoomed by.

“Kinda windy,” I whimpered.

“Always seems like a headwind, doesn’t it?” He continued accelerating and soon he’s out of sight.

But, faster and younger, he’s also summed it up for all cyclists and for me on that breezy morning. Anyway I turn, shift, change, redirect, I can’t control that wind.

Wind is more than what is swirling around my head.

I think of the brief conversation I had with the speedy cyclist. We talk or breathe, wind moving within us, lungs contracting and expanding. There were those “devout Jews from every nation” who heard the wind-driven, flame-blessed disciples conversing in their language. Speech is wind. “She gave a long-winded sermon,” we might complain. Where was the spirit in her words? “You are the wind beneath my wings,” Bette Midler sang years ago, covering a popular song written by Larry Henley and Jeff Silbar. The wind of a relationship, of the right words said or the best silences shared, can carry us for a lifetime. Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell wrote, and the title prepares us well for the famous novel.

Twice, earlier this week, I had a flat tire. The only good thing about the double-dose of frustration was that it happened near home. I always carry a spare tube. The first fix was no problem. The second time I walked the bike back home to replace the collapsed tire. I listen to the sound of air pumped into the tire. Whoosh-swoosh-whoosh. My skinny tube, about the thickness of my thumb, will take over one hundred pounds of pressure to become road worthy. Am I not riding on the wind?

Finally, fixed and secure, I pedaled away. And yet, even after carefully examining for a random thorn secreted on the inside of the tire or a place were the fragile tube might get pinched, I worried: will the third time be the harm . . . again?

In the winter I bundle against the air temperature, a “windproof” jacket covering my chest and every inch of my legs shrouded in high-tech tights. The weather reports will proclaim winds from the southwest at 3-5mph and a predicted temperature of forty degrees, but I’m a cyclist and I know the truth. In the winter, I create my own wind chill factor. Forty degrees feels below freezing as I cruise the streets. Summer’s better. With the harsh Central Valley sun heading for triple-digit heat, I rejoice in cycling speed, creating a personal wind chill effect that reduces the temperature.

On some days I rage against that wind. My bike’s headed up a hill, I can’t find any gear to provide a smooth rhythm, and that NW 15-20mph presses against me. Woe is me. In a car or motorcycle, with its seductive and far-too-easy infernal combustion engine, I press the accelerator and rarely care about the wind or cold or rain. But I’m a cyclist. The wind matters. It carries me along and it can slow me down.

It always reminds me I’m not in control. On some days, I’ll be honest, I remember Pentecost’s sound like the rush of a violent wind and I’m thankful for the morning ride. A headwind or a tailwind, a flat or filled tube, I never ride alone.

in Peace,

Larry