Motorcycles, Cigars and Other Taboo Misc.

This last weekend, I invested fifteen hours into a motorcycle safety class at Southeast Community College. The class was tough, exciting, challenging and rewarding all at the same time. I've wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle for almost twenty years now. I entered the weekend with neither the knowledge nor the skill to do so. I came out of the weekend with both. Now that's pretty cool huh? Why did it take me so long to do it?

When I was in my teen years, I asked my parents about getting a motorcycle, and the answer on the part of my parents was simple, "no way, no how, not on your life bud, what are you crazy?!" When I got to college, the desire never left me. In fact, here are some true confessions. In 1992, I spent two months in Hungary with Campus Crusade for Christ, and our entire summer was spent sharing Christ with the Hungarians who were under a communist regime until 1989. The people were hungary to learn about spiritual matters (I know, bad Hsu humor), and over the course of the summer, our team of twelve people saw over seventy people place their faith in Christ! What a great summer it was, yet there is a confession here, right? All summer long, I thought about and devised a plan to come home and make a case before my parents as to why I was ready for a motorcycle. The reasoning went something like this, “I am about to become a senior in college and am mature and responsible enough to be a motorcycle owner.” Some of you might say, "heck Mike, you're a college senior, just go do it apart from your parents' approval!" Well, it's kind of hard to explain but that's not how 2nd generation kids with Asian parents roll. My parents' response? "no way, no how, not on your life bud, what are you crazy?!"

I graduated from college, got a job as a youth pastor (and school bus driver to supplement my youth pastor income), later got married to Tanya (yee ha!), went off to seminary, graduated, and then moved to Lincoln in 1998. I made a mental note in 1998 that while living in Lincoln, there were two things I wanted to learn: 1) how to golf and 2) how to ride a motorcycle. I learned how to golf in my first few years in Lincoln, though I'm still more of a hacker than a golfer. And then self-doubt kept me from taking motorcycle classes those first few years (another piece in all this is that when dad was young, his good buddy was killed in a motorcycle accident plus Tanya’s mom worked as an ER nurse for a while and had many horror stories of motorcycle crash victims). My plans to learn how to ride a motorcycle were put on hold further when in 2001 we started having kids and of course all kinds of cautions arose in my own head as well as from people around me who cared about me (not just parents). The cautions went something like this, "now you're a father Mike, you can't possibly in good conscience get on a motorcycle. Before you do something stupid like that, just think about those three little darling children of yours!" But another inner voice kept whispering (you know the two shoulders' thing? I'm just not sure which one was the angel and which the devil. These things are always far more clear in the movies!), but the voice said "all these years I've just wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle. At this point in my life the question of owning a motorcycle really is secondary. I just want to learn."

So this last weekend, I learned, . . . and it was awesome.

Will I buy a motorcycle? Yeah, probably at some point. I do have my M endorsement now you know? The riding test was one of the most difficult things I’ve done in a long time. If you don’t know much about motorcycles, understand that every limb is simultaneously operating but in different ways and at different rates. Imagine the right hand is on the throttle and front brake. The right foot is on the rear brake. The left hand is operating turn signals and clutch while the left foot is shifting gears (maybe there is something here connected to 1 Corinthians 12 about the Body of Christ and all its parts working together in perfect unity?). I know about IQ and even EQ (emotional intelligence) but this is something different altogether. Maybe MQ? Motorcycle Intelligence? By the way, the instructors at SECC were incredibly knowledgeable, very much aware of the great dangers of riding motorcycles and committed to providing the highest quality training so as to maximize the greatest potential for the future safety of their students. I was very impressed with the class and its instructors. When will I buy a motorcycle? I don’t know. I’m trying to be patient. I have waited twenty years for this you know? Maybe some time in 2009? but admittedly the itch to ride is pretty strong now.


Is there some kind of “moral lesson” I draw from all this? I think it’s pretty simple. I smoked about 2-4 cigars a month for the better part of five years and currently have taken a two-year hiatus from cigars. Let's just call it a cigar sabbatical. Along with motorcycle-riding, any form of smoking is “taboo” to the acceptance capacities of many people. There are certain “taboo” things that hit our grids a certain way when we hear about others’ participation in them and those things are a little different for everyone. For some it is politics (or a certain political affiliation). For others it is lifestyle choices. For some, doctrinal differences, yet others, parenting decisions. For my parents it just happened to be motorcycles (and to a lesser extent cigars). For me it’s gambling (which ironically my parents love and enjoy a lot), my children getting out of bed after they’ve gone down and a few other things. Yet, when we find those things we’ve deemed “taboo” to be in the lives of people with whom we interface daily, will we have the spiritual maturity to be slow to make judgments, first engaging in meaningful and gracious conversation and ultimately seek understanding before drawing our conclusions? There's something here, I'm a long ways from it myself, but there is something here. After she does something to violate one of my "taboo grids," my six-year old Mia in the midst of my scolding, unable to get a word in edgewise (man, I hate admitting this), on the verge of tears and desperate to find her voice sometimes will cry out, “daddy, you’re not listening to me!”

I want to listen. I really do. I want my daughter always to have a voice with me, especially as she grows, develops and seeks to find that voice in this big, uncertain and often hostile world. . . .

So I've envisioned this scenario and prepared myself in advance for how I will handle it. I imagine Mia comes to me when she’s fourteen and asks, “dad can I go on a date with a boy? He's really nice.” I envision I respond by praying for the spiritual maturity to listen, by being slow to make judgments, seeking understanding and genuinely engaging her heart. And then after doing those things, I envision saying to her in a loving voice, “no way, no how, not on your life bud, what are you crazy?!”