I try not be a person who makes myself feel better at the expense of others, so I don’t like statements such as, “You’ve got it good compared to [insert less-fortunate person’s name here].” Today, though, I couldn’t help on the way home but reflect on how blessed all of us really are, and on the fact that the reason we are so blessed is in order to bless others with what we’ve been given.

Today was the return, so to speak, to theF.A.I.T.H. Riders motorcycle ministry as a member. I had been away from it for several months, concentrating on Celebrate Recovery® and skipping Sunday mornings at church for reasons ranging from laziness to the inability to wake up alert in the mornings because of my medication. Ultimately decided to simply take all my meds in the morning (the Levoxyl for my underactive thyroid, the Paroxetine for my anxiety, and the Niaspan (Niacin) for my cholesterol issues) has helped, and so this morning I got up early enough to shower, fully wake up, and go to the F.A.I.T.H. Riders Sunday School class at my home church on the north end of town. The ride up was made interesting by the 20–30 mile-per-hour crosswinds that persisted through most of today. While I was there, I bought two patches for the back of my new riding jacket—a large chapter patch and a smaller one with the ministry’s old web address (faith-riders.com still works, but you can now leave out the hyphen if you wish to).

Instead of going to the main worship service afterward, I rode back home to iron the new patches onto my jacket (since they can’t be put on by the usual people at the Bike Fest with a sewing machine because of the jacket’s removable protective panels), gather up my video gear (digital camcorder, MiniDV tapes, the camcorder’s power “brick”, and a power inverter so I can charge the battery using the scooter’s 12V jack), and head back up to church to meet up with the rest of the group for the ride to Bartow. After a short trip into Bartow and stopping to grab lunch (all good Baptists, especially Southern Baptists, have to eat), we headed to Bartow Center, which is a non-profit nursing/rehabilitation home in the city.

People end up at Bartow Center for a variety of reasons. There are younger people with mental impairments who are unable to function in regular society. There are people well-advanced in years whose families either can’t or won’t care for them and so are sent here as their nursing home for their last years before heaven or hell. There are people rehabilitating from major physical setbacks. They all have years of experiences, memories, relationships, lessons learned, whether they can reach those memories readily or can no longer keep a hold on them. Everyone there has a story to tell. Then there’s “Papi,” who was so excited to see us that he couldn’t stop talking to me (and then later another Rider) about how blessed he was to see us and wishing blessing after blessing after blessing up on our entire families. On top of the social anxiety I already have, the surrounding noise made it nearly impossible for me to understand all that dear Papi was trying to say, so all i could do was nod in smiling, attempted acknowledgement and then try to redirect his attention to listening to our chaplain, Danny, as Danny shared the Gospel message from up front.

Before Danny spoke, though, there was music. A tape-accompanied soloist singing Christmas tunes, followed by a fellow Rider and the barber-shop quartet “70 Somethings” that he leads (which was, for that day, a quintet including one of his buddies).

After the singing was the highlight of everyone’s day.

In the back of the room were a hundred-plus large Harley-Davidson gift bags, each filled with toiletries and gifts for either a man or a woman. Each resident was personally given one by a Rider with a “Merry Christmas” and greeting—a touch, a hug, a handshake. I followed some with my camera as they took gift bags to those who were confined to their beds and while they could hear the music, they couldn’t see things first-hand. There was the young man with dreamcatchers hung around his bed (the frame capture above), a woman sitting in a chair where all you could see were feet sticking out from directly under her torso (no legs or legs so badly twisted they couldn’t be easily seen), an elderly patient wired to a machine. The rooms ranged from neatly kept like a hotel room by its occupants to the typical stark-white hospital-like patient room, each with anywhere from one to three beds. Not only did the faces of the residents light up, but I could see excitement come across the faces of the nurses as they ran from room to room, checking to see if there was anyone there who had not yet received a gift bag. Whatever the spirit was, it was contagious.

After the presentation inside, those residents who could do so were given the chance to come outside and see our bikes. Some wanted their pictures taken next to a motorcycle; even two elderly ladies wanted their picture taken with my Burgman scooter (which made my day). One lady had her picture taken with a Rider on the back of his motorcycle; a nurse got hers taken in the seat of Danny’s GoldWing, complete with wearing his helmet. An elderly black woman (who had per picture taken next to my scooter a few minutes earlier), pulled her own wheelchair using her feet over to a Harley at the end of the row, and since our photographer was otherwise occupied I took out my iPhone and took the picture for her on it, and then put down my equipment to put the sock back on that had worked off of her heavily calloused foot, and then she “walked” her way back to the rest of the group. I ended up being the last bike to leave as the day began to get cold and I had to take some time to put the cold-weather liner in my riding jacket before starting up to go home.

The day overall reminded me of how very blessed I am, even if I don’t have a job or don’t have a caring family close by. There are still people whom I can bless with what I do have, whether they know me or not, and I must keep remembering that there are others that, while not close by, want me to succeed. And I know that the reason for receiving blessing is to pass it on to others, like I was able to today. In being a novice videographer (as part of my being “jack of all trades”), I can share that blessing with those that could not be there through my finished videos and talks.