The authors do a really good job of describing different paradigms of spirituality, describing spirituality by the use of different images. The image they like the best is that spirituality is a pilgrimage. In our spiritual lives, we are pilgrims in the ancient sense of the word. We are trying to get to a holy place where we will experience total healing of all of our defects. We are not there yet, and so we still struggle along the way. And since none of our companions on the journey are there yet either, they still struggle along the way, too. Being patient with my struggles and the struggles of others is essential for the success of the pilgrimage.
There is one description of this idea of pilgrimage, however, that I would change. They describe our spiritual journey as being “open-ended.” By this, they mean that there are so many turns in the road and various events along the way, that as people on the spiritual pilgrimage, we can’t ever be locked in to one way of experiencing things or one way of doing things. I believe this is true, but I would not use the word “open-ended” to describe this concept.
Open-ended suggests that there is no identifiable end or goal to which we come on our spiritual pilgrimage. There is, though. The end or the goal is spiritual unity and integrity. A person may be Buddhist, and seeking the emptying of self to find ultimate unity with all things through the cycles of birth and death. A person may believe in one of the 3 monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. In this case, the person is seeking union with the divine. The end of our spiritual pilgrimage is unity, so the idea of the spiritual pilgrimage as being “open-ended” doesn’t quite fit.
I think the idea that our spiritual pilgrimage occurs on an “open-road” better describes our journey than the idea that the journey is “open-ended.” Biker’s understand this concept, which is why bikers make good gurus for the spiritual journey.
When a biker plans a road trip, he looks at a map to make sure that he is going the right direction. From Missouri, he figures he needs to go northwest to get to Hollister, CA. He wants to make sure he’s going west. He figures on how fast he wants to get there, and that helps him decide whether to stick to the state highways or hit the super slabs (interstates). So he picks a road going in the direction he’s headed. The biker knows, though, deep in his soul, that he can’t control the road. He can’t control what may or may not happen to his bike along the way. He can’t even control whether or not he’s even gonna make it.
The biker accepts this reality. He doesn’t try to control what he has no power over. The deer jumping out of the woods. The idiots in their cages (that’s a biker term for cars, trucks, anything that you ride in and not on) who “just didn’t see him.” The mechanics of his bike as they vibrate and rumble down the road.
Oh, there are things he can do to help him as he goes along. He’s mindful of not just the road in front of him, but of all the beauty and dangers that lay along the side of the road. He’s constantly scanning all around him. This allows him to see any dangers along the way, but it also opens his vision to the amazing beauty that most people drive right by. He’s aware of the other drivers on the road, especially the ones who are cooped up in their cages, busy texting, flipping through the radio stations, or nodding off because they’re so comfortable. He lets these other drivers be distracted and tired and hurried. He isn’t interested in changing them, but he may need to react because of them. He learns the mechanisms of his bike and carries the basic tools he needs, so that if something does happen to his ride he can do at least a quick fix on the side of the road until he can get someplace where a more serious repair can happen.
There’s a poem I wrote sometime ago that catches this concept:
Grace
I now accept the road and all it sends:
Its rocks and sand; its potholes and its bends.
I now receive the sun and rain and winds.
Reluctantly, I, too, embrace its ends.
I put my faith in this machine I ride.
On these two wheels, there is no place to hide.
It lives in me, and I in it abide.
In bolts and gears, rod and shaft I confide.
I know me, like a too familiar song.
I know just how far I can ride, how long.
I know the places where I can go wrong.
I know myself, where I am weak and strong.
When road, the ride, and rider become one
Are Peace and Grace and then the trip’s begun.
The biker accepts the reality that while he can plan the trip, he has no control over its twists and turns.
The biker lives in a constant state of spiritual pilgrimage:
Accepting life on life’s terms, and don’t try to make it into something its not.
Honesty…bikers usually aren’t afraid to tell you what they think, and reject automatically anything that is insincere, which they can smell out like a pig sniffing truffles.
Integrity: you’ll find in the biker community, a person’s only as good as his word.
Release, because it’s useless to try to control those things over which I have no power.
Humility…bikers are usually “what you get is what you see” kind of people.
Gratitude for the journey. If you listen to any biker story about a biker trip, you will hear that deep, ineffable kind of gratitude for everything that happened along the way, including the hardships encountered.
Tolerance…Biker’s live by the words, “Don’t tread on me.” Bikers will be the first to go to battle for your right to do whatever you feel like you need to do. They get a little testy when people try to limit or draw a box around them. Bikers recognize that people are both free and fallible, which makes them pretty tolerant of others.
Forgiveness, a biker may never speak to you again if you break his trust, but he won’t hold on to that resentment. He just won’t deal with you at all. That’s not unforgiving, it’s accountability.
The principles of spirituality outlined in “The Spirituality of Imperfection” come naturally to bikers, because they touch the very heart of the biker culture. Reading this book, I felt that harmony that truth resonates in our deepest hearts when we hear it. It put words to things that I was thinking, and gave clarity to some of my aspirations.
This is a good book for anybody on the spiritual pilgrimage of life.
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