A People Lost on the Journey

Of all times to be reminded of a bike ride, this one arrives just as the first real snow of the season is predicted.

My last bike tour took place in my new backyard, sort of. It was a round trip tour of the Panhandle viewing things I hadn’t seen for a long time, some I was aware of and some that were close enough if something went really wrong I was confident I could get home.

It was also close enough to be tempted go left instead of right at certain intersections. It happens when you’re in a place that is familiar in context, but leads to another decision. Do I take the road planned or do I do what I want, regardless of what is right by context? The difference with the bike tour is missing the scenery planned, riding in a group where random relationships are made. The relationships are not always permanent, some ending after crossing the finish line.

I remember stalled at a crossroad thinking “I could go left and know my way home, or I could go right and while it is following the pack, it is also a road both planned and not seen.” I sat there, straddling the bike while waiting on a train or the traffic to clear, and thought how the simple things in life can provide a spiritual lesson.

Prior to this crossroad, I met a Lakota elder in Sidney. It was a few months earlier, but the words exchanged have stayed with me. In our conversation, she expressed her concern for the young people living on the Reservation “who had lost their way.” Now the immediate reaction could justifiably explain she is referring to the younger generation who are not following the Lakota traditions. But the phrase is deeper than that. Her concern, her apparent heartbrokenness, was for the people who were so lost from a fruitful and positive life they were content with drug and alcohol abuse.

I left that interview thinking how that concern isn’t limited to the Reservation. It is a concern that should be in front of all of us. But that leads to another question. Does society know where it is going, or for that matter where it came from? It is difficult to know where you’re going if you don’t know where your story began. How many of us know our story? How many of us know where we are going, or at least recognize the path we are walking?

In the last several months, society has had the announcement of a virus, which led to limits on social activity including those normally defined as rights in the Constitution. We have seen people demand justice for deaths, sometimes disregarding the facts around the incident, or the history of the deceased. We have seen neighborhoods vandalized and businesses vandalized in the name of protest, businesses owned by various races.

Meanwhile, we have elected officials and candidates urging the dismantling of services that have kept the United States what it is. We are far from perfect, but we have a structure of law. We have a framework to fall back on that other countries don’t. But to even discuss the thought of dismantling police departments and Pentagon offices tells me we are not on a familiar road. We are more likely riding the road with a crowd, mapped by someone else, although we must question where this road leads before we find ourselves somewhere we don’t like.

It is just as possible we, an entire society, can lose our way as it is a young generation needing guidance.