Bicycling Over a New Bridge

This past weekend, I made a peanut butter sandwich, aired up my bicycle tires, took my first bicycle ride of the season on my trusty Trek bicycle. I live a block from Shelby Park, which has a wonderful, FLAT, greenway trail that provides about an 8 mile ride. The city recently built a pedestrian bridge that connects Shelby Park with the Two Rivers Greenway on the other side of the Cumberland River. I rode over the bridge for the first time. At the highest point on the bridge, I got off my bicycle, stood in a sprinkle of rain, and looked at the silver river curving through deep green foilage on one side and a sheer rock cliff on the other. So close to the city.

After a few moments of absorbing the view from the high bridge, I threw my leg over my bicycle and continued my ride. The trail went through a concrete tunnel beneath the Briley Parkway and emerged at the parking lot of a skate board and water park.

I could see that the trail continued down a steep hill through some beautiful trees, but I could also see that what goes down must come up! Huffing and puffing my way back up that hill did not appeal to me. I decided that the flat trail in Shelby Park would be better for my first ride of the year. I turned around and went back to the bridge to look at the river and to eat my peanut butter sandwich.

Bridges, especially new bridges, stretch into a kind of theological space for me. I rode over because I wanted to see what was on the other side of the river. I met people on the bridge coming from the opposite direction who asked me questions about Shelby Park. Coming and going, we were all explorers, leaving a familiar space to go to an unknown land. The irony is that we drive by both spaces on the Briley Parkway, but you know how it is when we drive. Scenery blurs. We don't see things the way we see them when we ride bikes or walk. The bridge provides access to new space that was previously inaccessible for pedestrians and bicyclers. On both sides of the river, people on the trail were wide-eyed and curious about what was on the other side.

I believe that God makes bridges all over the universe through language, people, creatures, art, spaces, events. Figuratively speaking,the bible is full of stories about God's bridges. I think of Abraham and Sarah, the Exodus, the road home from Babylon, the road to Damascus, the road to Golgotha. All experienced bridges to something alive and real, something near us, all around us, there all the time.

I ate my peanut butter sandwich on top of the new bridge, and Something More gleamed on the silver river, in the wet leaves on the riverbank, in the slick wet rock of the clift, in the wide-eyed wonder of people moving both ways over the bridge.