14. The Bicyclist

Pilgrim's Equipment, (Tomasito photo)

14

The Bicyclist

I am following the agreeably groomed public walking path beside the river when I see a bicycle rider resting on one of the convenient benches facing the water.

I am struck by the appearance of this man.

He is not wearing the almost mandatory German cyclist’s uniform: sport shoes, black spandex shorts, colorful nylon jacket and racing cap. Instead he is dressed in the costume of a Bavarian peasant—and his bike is not the glittering racing machine so common here, but a haphazard collection of what seem to be used bike parts skilfully combined to make a practical riding contraption. He is a young man with a full, brown beard and bright, lively eyes—obviously a free man—one of the very few I have seen lately.

The very fact that he is idle-- sitting on this park bench so early on this frosty morning and not peddling along going somewhere frantically speaks well of him to me.

He seems radiant, alive, alert, and keen and he seems to view me—oddly dressed foreigner that I must appear to him to be––with broad good humor.

It takes a lot of courage for a young man in this land of driven perfectionists to sit alone smiling on a park bench so early in the morning.

It’s practically a criminal offence! Why isn’t he off working or on his way to a university or busily doing some important job?

We grin at each other as if we are accomplices in a conspiracy.

As a pilgrim, I too am temporarily free of the normal constraints of routine existence—we smile in recognition of each other’s rare status: at this moment we are both free men. (Kyrie Jesu Christe eleson mas!)

Is it possible to feel this free and this wonderful even when one is living one’s usual humdrum, routine life? Is this feeling of freedom the “holy place” which is the pilgrim’s true goal? Then let me always stand in this holy place!

Tomasito, 2009


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