"My Motorcycle Diary" by Rev. Thomas Schade

Tue Dec 11 14:02:19 EST 2007

M I N I S T E R’ S   M E M O

My Motorcycle Diary

I am in the desert area, in Monument Valley, where so many of the John Ford
western movies were shot. I am participating in an off-road race with dozens
of other competitors who are driving everything from stock cars, to jeeps,
to four-wheel drive trucks, to big rigs, to dune buggies, and even
motorcycles. That’s what I am driving, in fact: a rather smallish, bright
red dirt bike, fast and light with big knobby tires. The bike has a very
distinctive high, whiny sound when I rev the motor. My hope is that by being
fast and light, I will have an advantage of better maneuverability as I
negotiate the rock-filled gullies and washes of the bleak terrain.

I am wearing, just so you know, a matching red leather and lycra motorcycle
suit that is uncomfortably close to skin tight. The suit actually seems to
work; I bulge in all the appropriate places, rather than haphazardly, as I
seem to do in my other clothes. I am still glad that my helmet, also red,
and my visor, cover my face, so I am unrecognizable, because I feel just a
bit silly and out of place doing this.

I am not very good at this. I lurch off in the wrong direction and cannot
control my speed, and chronically over steer, so I lurch from side, first
going off the track on the right and then on the left. When I stop and try
to get my bearings and catch my breath, along comes another driver in
another whizzing vehicle and knocks me and my bike, elbows over teacups and
leaves me sprawled in the road. And then, like a zombie that will not die, I
wearily get up on my little red bike and try to get a little further down
the road.

Thank God it is just a video game. Otherwise, I could get hurt.

Now, you may want to ask what I am doing playing a high-end and extremely
loud video game, what with being a distinguished middle-aged clergy person.

Don’t.

Let’s just call it “research”.

Part of my trouble is that I am trying to learn how to control this video
game controller in my two hands. I am used to mouse with two buttons on it.
This little thing has at least fifteen buttons to push and two little joy
stick items that rotate in 360 degrees. Plus some of the items work in
combination with other buttons. It’s very confusing, and while I am sure
that almost everyone registered in our Sunday School Classes could work this
thing with ease, I cannot drive my little red motorcycle around a fairly
simple oval track in the desert. I guess that what I am trying to do; what I
see on the screen is just the scene in front of me, over the handlebars of
my dirt bike.

At one point, I find myself blocked. I think that there is a little obstacle
in my path, and so I do what I usually do in life when faced with an
obstacle: back up and go at with a little more power.

Rev! Rev! Rev! Boom!

That didn’t work. Let’s try it again.

Rev! Rev! Rev! Rev! Boom!

One more time!

Rev! Rev! Rev! Rev! Rev! Boom! Crash! Ouch!

Then, I accidentally touch a little button on the right side of the
controller. Suddenly, I am not looking out over the handlebars. Instead, I
can see myself from the side view, from about 15 feet away. There I am, a
little red suited figure on a little red motorcycle, running into the base
of a towering cliff, a genuinely impervious mountain that has endured
through the eons of time. Over and over again, this little red figure drives
his little red motorbike into the side of the mountain, crashes, and then
backs up and tries again.

Now, this does not surprise me. I often have the sense that I am a
ridiculous character trying to do the impossible.

What I want to know, though, is this: where is that little button that lets
me see myself as others see me?

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