Last week my friend Brian gave me a ride on the tricycle he had built, not the little red bicycle kind, the motorcycle kind. This was no ordinary tricycle though. Instead of having the two big wheels in back, he constructed them in front, making the thing look extraordinary indeed. He had spent weeks, maybe months building it, a somethingcycle that was transportation, art, and spiritual expression all rolled up into one.

When he finished buffing the chrome to a high shine, we rode down through the Vermont hills, smelling the pine and sap in quick drifts as one woods turned into another. I held tight, pressing my cheek against his flannel vest, feeling the wandering fingers of a chill wind slip through my hair and down into my blouse like a garden snake, seeking the warmest spots.

Soon the pine thinned out, and we passed a field of chin-high corn stalks and hay bales that had been transformed into a mostly-built office building, a bright yellow from winter insulation hastly tacked on. A platform hung from the roof, swinging gently as construction guys put up a huge bow, ten feet across in a vivid blue, making the building into one giant present. Someone there had seen beyond the concrete and steel to the people who would work there one day soon. It wasn’t just a job, it was a gift from the heart.

In a world overflowing with information and errands and messages, Brian had built something unique, something more than just another way to get to work. The construction guys had built something more than just another building. In reaching beyond the mundane, they expressed their faith and hope for a better world.

I would like to live with this kind of awareness every day. To be present. To feel the wind of spirit flow through me as it does sometimes, but not often enough. I am distracted by people drifting alongside me taking whatever job, whatever relationship, whatever apartment comes. “Why don’t you take that position, that man, that house?” they ask. “I have a vision” I say, but they just look at me blankly. Maybe they are taking the Taoist path of least resistance, but I’m pretty sure it’s just a lack of passion.

Sometimes the gray settles about me like a bulbous rain cloud and I can see no further than they. But more and more often I can feel the tricycle’s engine vibrating through me, and the scent of pine needles which stay with me until I’ve ridden all the way home.

Copyright 2001

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