Traveling down highway 385 in western South Dakota, just outside the tiny town of Pringle there is a site that you might call an anomaly. By a town with no clearly active businesses, save the local tavern, there is something that you won’t find many other places and something that is very original. It is a cross between bicycle Art and a bicycle graveyard. It appears that over the past many years, someone or some group has amassed an array of bicycles and connected, attached, and or twisted them together to form a huge structure with walls, pathways, and arcs. The bikes range in age from recent years to several decades old. Some have their original paint, while others are covered in a nice rust colored patina. Ok, it’s rust, but the cool kind that shows age, but not a crumbling destruction. At some places, care was taken to layout these two wheeled vehicles so they had cool designs or made shapes that were familiar. In other places it appears people saw the opportunity to unload their families collection of outgrown pedal powered childhood diversions, and they did. In the name of art, they dumped their unused pile of rubber and metal on the side of the road with hopes it would become a part of this little known rural icon. My family and I have journeyed to this small cycling monument twice now. The first time it was a surprise as we traveled home through the mountains, the second time we deliberately searched it out to share with our children and niece. It truly is a fascinating stop on an otherwise normal mountain highway.
I’m not sure which intrigues me more. The fact that someone would take the time to bring this hodgepodge together, caring enough to arrange them in the fashion that they saw fit, or that people would go out of their way to contribute their own unique part to this beauty. Just as the spokes in a wheel radiate out to its edges, so each persons addition to this collection extend the meaning and significance of this monument that I suspect many find by happy accident as they travel from point A to their point B. It might seem a stretch, but it all makes me think of how many a Church or even the whole Body of Christ is a collection of different souls from a variety of backgrounds. Although we may sometimes feel unusable and destined to be discarded, there is one who knits us together as he sees fit. As we allow ourselves to be woven into His tapestry, though in many ways we are a hodgepodge of individuals, we are part of one giant piece of art: The Body of Christ. When we love one another, our love reaches out and radiates in all directions. When we become that kind of a Body, many a traveler can find us when they least expect to have such an encounter. With a love that reaches in all directions- like spokes on a wheel, we become that “happy accident” that leads them to the love of Christ. Allow yourself to be knit together and fashioned into the art that God wants to show off in this earth. Then, whether someone travels by foot, car or yes, even bicycle, they might want to stop long enough to receive the message of the Artist in a fresh and life changing way. Every piece of art speaks a message. I’m not sure what the artist is saying by his spoke-n word, but I know God has a message to share through the lives of the people who call Jesus Lord. That Word is that He loves us and can take each life that comes His way, that by themselves might seem insignificant, and join them to His masterpiece as He calls out to the Earth.
I’m not sure which intrigues me more. The fact that someone would take the time to bring this hodgepodge together, caring enough to arrange them in the fashion that they saw fit, or that people would go out of their way to contribute their own unique part to this beauty. Just as the spokes in a wheel radiate out to its edges, so each persons addition to this collection extend the meaning and significance of this monument that I suspect many find by happy accident as they travel from point A to their point B. It might seem a stretch, but it all makes me think of how many a Church or even the whole Body of Christ is a collection of different souls from a variety of backgrounds. Although we may sometimes feel unusable and destined to be discarded, there is one who knits us together as he sees fit. As we allow ourselves to be woven into His tapestry, though in many ways we are a hodgepodge of individuals, we are part of one giant piece of art: The Body of Christ. When we love one another, our love reaches out and radiates in all directions. When we become that kind of a Body, many a traveler can find us when they least expect to have such an encounter. With a love that reaches in all directions- like spokes on a wheel, we become that “happy accident” that leads them to the love of Christ. Allow yourself to be knit together and fashioned into the art that God wants to show off in this earth. Then, whether someone travels by foot, car or yes, even bicycle, they might want to stop long enough to receive the message of the Artist in a fresh and life changing way. Every piece of art speaks a message. I’m not sure what the artist is saying by his spoke-n word, but I know God has a message to share through the lives of the people who call Jesus Lord. That Word is that He loves us and can take each life that comes His way, that by themselves might seem insignificant, and join them to His masterpiece as He calls out to the Earth.
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