Take a risk

By Meghan Olsen Biebighauser 

It’s looking like this will be the summer that my daughter Frances will be ready to ride her bike without training wheels. She takes after her Mama — overly cautious, not much of a risk-taker — and so her cycling journey has been a slow but steady one, like my own 30 years ago. 

We both tend to panic when we feel unsupported or unsure. (My fellow Enneagram sixes will get it!) And, we rely pretty heavily on that protective figure steadying the bike as we go.  

These last months have brought me back to those feelings of instability, unease, and general … wobbliness. We’ve all been thrust into a new situation, a scary one, and we’ve had to adapt, adjust, learn things as we go.  Even the most expert among us has felt like a novice navigating this crisis. 

“We both tend to panic when we feel unsupported or unsure.”

Both in the workplace and at home, everything feels new. I can’t be the only one who was expecting five bananas in my online grocery order and ended up with five dozen, right? Right? 

Or there must be others also struggling with first-grade simple arithmetic? We didn’t use “math mountains” when I was in school!

Every day we wake up to a new day of uncertainty and try to discern which voices to use as a guide – Dr. Fauci? Gov. Walz? Who is steadying our path?  

 

WE’RE IN THIS WEEK between the Ascension of Jesus and the Festival of Pentecost, and I find myself wondering how the disciples must have felt. Obviously Jesus’ ascension was an amazing sight to behold, and they returned with renewed faith and commitment. But, … also, Jesus was no longer there with them, at least not in the way that they were used to.  He was no longer physically among them — steering, supporting, cheering them on, picking them up when they fell. I imagine they felt a bit wobbly. 

“The only way to steady yourself is to keep going.”

As Frances is learning to navigate our neighborhood on two wheels, we tell her that, to ride a bike, you sort of have to shush your own instincts. Her instincts tell her that when things get wobbly, she should lean to one side or the other to correct it, or maybe even just stop altogether. She might feel that the instability isn’t safe, so we should just head back and put the bike in the garage. But we remind her that, when you’re wobbling, the best, safest thing you can do is keep pedaling with all your might. The only way to steady yourself is to keep going.  

As we head into the season of Pentecost, that day when the Holy Spirit comes crashing into the world bestowing power and bringing her own brand of recklessness and holy chaos, I’ll be reminding myself to keep pedaling through the wobbles, and invite you to join me, with the Holy Spirit wind at our back, trusting in the future towards which we are pedaling, even if we can’t see it.  

And wear your helmet.  I mean, mask.