Since I was able to balance a two-wheel bicycle, I have enjoyed bike riding. It was the main, if not only, means of getting around up to and past high school. A car was seldom an option, especially in a one car family with multiple drivers waiting a turn. Interestingly, riding a bike has become a more routine mode of transportation in retirement.

Fortunately, I live in an era when bike lanes have been created to encourage bike riding and drivers of cars are urged to “share the road.” Alas, not all drivers are so generous or vigilant, but it is safe to put the pedal to the metal pedal, and, yes, I wear a helmet. But, full disclosure, biking can be risky as I discovered this summer when my bike and I hit the road, literally. Nothing serious except bruised ribs, a knee and my pride. The healing process had made me aware of just how many muscles and joints can hurt at the same time. I progressed from pain to sore to ache. I’m also a lot more attentive to my surroundings.

Biking, like walking, provides an intimate connection with God’s creation. The smells of newly mown lawns and flower beds, as well as the sounds of animals creates an experience of a vibrant and sacred environment. As Pope Francis wrote in Laudato Si’, his encyclical letter on the environment: “As Christians, we are also called to accept the world as a sacrament of communion, as a way of sharing with God and our neighbors on a global scale. It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God’s creation, in the last speck of our planet.” (My emphasis)

One of the added benefits of biking is that it interrupts our obsession with phones. Certainly we might carry a phone for emergencies but when we are biking our eyes aren’t able to be glued to a screen. It is amazing and instructive how the world is experienced when we look around. Even on routine bike routes there is always something we see for the first time that piques our curiosity and wonder.

Yet, we also know when biking we see the negative dimension of the state of the environment. As Pope Francis wrote: “Our Sister, Mother Earth, now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she ‘groans in travail’ (Rom.8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gn.2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.”

I will continue to ride my bike as long as the weather permits and encourage all bike riders (and walkers) to get out and enjoy the beauty of creation. It is God’s gift to us and may we treat it with reverence and love.

– Fr. Dennis Lynch