Letting Go by Jan Menzie

The older I get, the more I want to play with toys. I will be 61 late June, and no, I have not lost my mind…at least that I am aware of. And these toys have led me on a spiritual journey, one that I share indirectly with my students. I teach middle school which speaks to my sanity or lack thereof. I let my students know how much fun I have, how I love to play and how this is all part of life. I love to “go outside and play.”

Adult toys are a recent development in my life. I met my first exciting toy –a mountain bike- in my 40’s. When I was 46, my husband sent me to camp.  I had never been to camp. This was a women’s fitness camp held in Winter Park Colorado, a location that we love. He suggested that I might need to play. How right he was. There, my inner child came out that had been hidden for years. At camp, I learned to run mountain trails, and become part of a team of women.

There, I also met God on a personal level. Not where you might expect to have a spiritual awakening. All week, we had been learning to do something that I had not done since I was a kid. We learned to ride a bike. This was not your mother’s heavier than the lawn tractor bike. This was a lightweight mountain bike with multiple gears, and a front suspension and fancy brakes. And each team was expected to stay with the leaders on single-track mountain bike trails starting at 9200 ft. altitude and climbing to 12,000+ and then back down again. Twists and turns, up and down, and lungs heaving. Scary, and steep, rocky, and loose, mountain biking testing every sense. This I know does not sound like fun, and at first it was nothing but struggle. It was so much like my everyday life, pushing against a mountain. One of my teammates said something that changed my life and how I felt about the sport. She said, “ I have done this many times, and I have never seen a stronger biker than you. The problem is you ride that bike as though you are trying to control the mountain. You cannot control the mountain.  You look down and worry about every bump and root and think that you can control them. You are miserable on the ride. You are tense and tired in the end. You cannot control the mountain. What you need to do is look about ten to twenty feet ahead and trust the bike and your eyes. Let the bike take you.” She was right. I learned to surrender. I surrendered to the trail, the mountain, the bike, and to God. I let go. And as I let go, I loved it more and more, and got better at everything including biking. My entire life began to settle into the rhythms of ups and downs of everyday life, looking ahead and trusting God to help me pedal the bumps and holes and come out with a smile on my face wanting more. If I become distracted, I will crash. It is truly a religious experience.

I pray as I ride, or have imaginary conversations with God and with my students as I pedal, pedal, pedal around the trails. As time passes, I find more and more trails and have more and more fun. So are the paths of my faith.  It is one of the most fun things I do. And the older I get, the more of a kid I become. I remember that Jesus once said that our faith should be like that of a little child. Play a little.  Surrender and trust. Smile a lot. Laugh out loud.  Hoot and holler when you conquer the next hill. Anyone wanna come out and play? Let me know.