Birds, Birds, Birds

After a couple of days down on my luck, I rode today back in form.  I felt good, my legs were pumping hard without a whole lot of grimacing, and I managed to do more than half the 65 miles from Wichita to Caldwell, Kansas.  In fact, I even outdid myself a little, doing my 36 miles in just under 2 hours.  In the end, though, my performance today is only evidence of the teamwork that Thomas and I have developed over the past couple of weeks.  We are also getting a lot smarter on the road, too.  I don't mean safety wise, because we've always been safe clearly (of course, obviously).  I mean that we are smarter about when to push ourselves, measuring the length and grade of a hill, etc.  With a little over two weeks left of riding, we have a lot to be proud of.  But, as I've been saying throughout this blog including yesterday, we would certainly be wrong to let pride of our accomplishments get in the way of actually finishing out the trip or thinking that all of our difficulties are long past.

Massive change of topic with no transition (my English professors would kill me!)... One of my favorite lines in all of literature/film are from the mouth of Hamlet, "Words, words, words!"  What's beautiful about the line is, a) it provides a wonderful acting moment, like Kenneth Branagh's performance in his self-directed film; b) it professes Hamlet's fascination with words because, indeed, words and language are incredibly interesting; c) in one quick moment Hamlet exposes the lies hidden beneath words.  I thought of the line today as we rode by a number of birds that I've never seen before.  I had a similar enjoyable experience in South Africa.  God's creations are so diverse and unique and beautiful that I am often absolutely stunned by the winged-exquisiteness.  Birds, birds, birds.  Incredible and beautiful.

I suppose that's the problem, though, with humans.  The human body is truly amazing.  Part of our blessing is that we are both incredible and beautiful, very beautiful.  Beauty is unfortunately too often taken advantage of and loved for all the wrong reasons.  And so, unfortunately, things like this happen:

A 36-year-old Rogers Park man was charged with involuntary servitude Sunday after he allegedly trapped a mentally disabled woman in his car and forced her into prostitution for four days.

Charles Nelson, who lives on the 1700 block of West Albion Street, reportedly picked up a 20-year-old Crystal Lake woman on June 6 and proceeded to hold her hostage in his car for four days without food or water while making her perform acts of prostitution with suburban men. The woman, who is mentally handicapped and has the mind of a 12-year-old, had been in the city visiting a friend.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the woman was finally freed from Nelson's control when she was able to access her cell phone and call her father, who in turn contacted the police.

According to court records, an individual who witnessed the woman being picked up had originally offered her a bus pass to escape but Nelson took it from her and said she would never be able to leave.

He was arrested in an alley in the city's Austin neighborhood on June 10, according to the Chicago Tribune.

That is reported from the Chicago Tribune, and it is clearly the lowest of the low.  Too many people in too many places, even in this country, value beauty for the wrong reasons.  Think about it: most Americans rarely use the word, "beautiful," anymore.  We've replaced it with, "sexy," "hot," "smoking," and other synonyms for fire.  If we think of beauty in this way then our fire will not only consume others in slavery but will also consume our own selves in a pit of misery.

Instead of letting our words lie, let's examine our hearts.  One beautiful and fascinating thing about words is that they speak to us what is inside of our soul.  So pay attention to what you're saying, what you're doing, how you're living, where the things you buy come from, and all of that.  You have the power to either see the true beauty of human life or to claim to see beauty while actually destroying it.