“Adventurer Fred Birchmore dies at 100,” read the newspaper headlines on Monday morning. Birchmore,
a local legend also has an international following, as he is one of the few
people who have ever bicycled around the world. The bicycle he used on the trek
now resides in the Smithsonian museum. He’s also known for the feat of walking
down the steps of the Washington Monument on his hands.
A Smithsonian Magazine article about him notes that Birchmore had an encounter with
Adolf Hitler on his mid-thirties world trek, and that Birchmore received skating
lessons from Sonja Henje also on that journey. Really, he did so much for so long;
you just have to read his books, Around the World on a Bicycle, Tales of a Happy
Wanderer, Miracles in My Life, and the many magazine articles about him to
begin to get a picture of the breadth of his adventures.
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Fred
Birchmore and I were only acquaintances. My husband, Jerry, knew him better and
for a much longer time. But every member of our family has heard his stories as
we ran into him at the YMCA where he’s been working out for ninety years.
I
would say though, that Fred Birchmore and I had a moment about a dozen years
ago. The Birchmore family had been long time attendees of the Poplar Springs
Camp Meeting where Jerry was asked to preach several summers. We enjoyed the
Birchmore’s hospitality as well as Fred’s wonderful stories during our visits
with them at the camp meeting.
One
afternoon I came out of our tent and took a seat on the porch (tents are
primitive earthen floored wooden structures which house attendees during the
week). I tried to be as still as possible as temperatures that day approached
one hundred degrees. I’d been out on the porch for some time when I caught
movement out of my peripheral vision. It was Fred coming out of a handstand
next to a tree. I hadn’t even seen him until then. He looked at me and said, “I
used to be able to do that for hours.” He was almost ninety years old at the
time.
I
was speechless.
Some
of the definitions Mr. Webster assigns to the word adventure are “a hazardous
undertaking, an unusual or suspenseful experience, to venture or dare, to take
risks.”
John Eldredge often refers to life as “the great adventure.” But I don’t think he
means it in a self-actualizing kind of way. I think he means to travel with God
IS the great adventure. Often God calls us out of our comfort zones to take
what appear to be risks to us. But not to Him.
Fred
Birchmore was an active member of his church until his death. At twenty-eight years
old, he concludes his 1939 account of his world tour return in “Around the
World on a Bicycle” this way:
“In
my wanderings I had missed the familiar sight which had always confronted me
when I looked out of my window. Now as I looked upward at the majestic
Methodist church steeple glistening in the golden sunlight of the early
morning, I knew I was home.
Memories
of the last sermon I had heard in the old church still lingered in my mind and
heart. After portraying Paul’s journey through life the preacher had closed
with a quotation from that great apostle’s last words as he reached the end of
the trail; ‘I have fought a good fight;’ I have finished my course; I have kept
the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which
the Lord a righteous judge shall give me at that day’ (2 Timothy 4:7-8).
…With
one last look at that supreme symbol of security and stability for which my
restless soul had been searching, I turned over and slept the peaceful, dreamless
sleep of the weary.”
“…Sailing
over seas uncharted to a port that none has ever seen.” C.S. Lewis in his
Prologue to The Quest
Like
Birchmore, we will find the cross the only source of security and stability for our
uncharted journey.
Fred
Birchmore has finished the course. He’s probably cycling heaven about now taking
in the sights.
But nothing
would have brought him more joy than for us to live our lives in such a way with God that
we might also be called adventurers when we reach the end of the trail.