The Bench at the Heart of the Ride

My True Story Behind the Story

View short, moving illustrated narration of the story below.

In the summer of 1977, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, pulsed with the reckless joy of youth. With my best friend from across the street—and fellow co-conspirator in mischief—John Miller, sidewalks became starships, doorbells rang as invitations to “ditch-it,” and our backyard bore the worn imprint of my brothers’ feet and the neighborhood gang. A single dollar at Jordy’s could buy a day’s bounty of penny candy. It was boyhood’s kingdom, and we ruled it.

One late afternoon after being gone all day, his family’s car rolled into the driveway. He leapt out, eyes blazing. “Great America!” he shouted, tumbling over his words like fireworks. He painted the park in gasps and gestures—soaring coasters, Old Town melodies, sky-bright parades. He wasn’t just describing a place; he was summoning wonder, the possibility that life held more than we knew.

That spark lodged in me—not to escape life, but to dive into its heart.

The Miracle Trip

Ours was no quiet household—it was seven kids buzzing about with all the subtlety of a rock concert in a tornado, fueled by peanut butter, punctuated by my mother’s summoning cowbell, answered by a neighborhood hollering “mooo!” in reply. My father, a delightfully peculiar personality of deep integrity, led Mercy Medical Center with steady reverence. My mother, tender yet unflinching, mended our souls as deftly as our scraped knees.

Just as my hopes of sharing in John’s annual “Great America” tales began to fade, our frugal father—rarely indulgent—announced we were going. It felt like a miracle.

I can still feel that day: the shimmer of rides on the horizon, the clack-clack-clack of a coaster climbing skyward, the plunge into screams and laughter, the lights twinkling like stars. Yet beneath the thrill, another rhythm stirred—a call to see beyond the rides, to find a deeper presence in the midst of motion.

The Year of Awakenings

That same year, three television events stormed our living room and reshaped my young heart, awakening me to what matters most. Roots exposed the wound of stolen dignity; Kunta Kinte’s defiance lit a cry for justice. The Holocaust confronted me with mass graves and the haunting question: What would I have done?—reminding me of our moral duty to defend the vulnerable.

Then Jesus of Nazareth gave answer to the heart of it all: God enters our suffering to transform it, inviting us into a personal relationship not merely to be spectators, but participants. (It would be remiss not to mention the extraordinary influence of Star Wars, which burst onto screens that same summer. It seized my imagination, dramatizing the clash of good and evil and elevating the unseen “spiritual” realm with mythic force.)

Back to the great question: if real evil rose before me and injustice swept the world, which character would I have been in the story—the bystander, the betrayer, or the one who stood?

One morning it all came together. On our kitchen table lay a photograph—an aborted child. My parents, fierce in their pro-life conviction rooted in Catholic faith, had brought it home from a meeting. The image pierced me. It wasn’t cloaked in ideology or wielded as a political football. It wasn’t even presented as a “cause.” It was a person. A life horrifically taken. In that moment I saw it for what it was: the Roots and Holocaust of my own time, a modern atrocity crying out for response.

How would I answer?

Later, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s words punctuated it: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

I began to see that every injustice hides a deeper ache. Hurting people hurt people. The real question is whether we will move past the vitriol, the sides, the rehearsed narratives, and reach the heart of it all—to see the brokenness and hurt within. I didn’t have the answers, only an earnest desire to be about them.

Beyond the walls. Beyond the shadows. I had this powerful intution that while hurting people hurt people, healing people heal people. This insight became the rails of my life’s roller coaster, carrying me toward a faith that might do my part in awakening a generation of peoplep healing (each of us) to be about healing. And a sense that this happens particularly in the messy context of families.

Loss and Search

God forges us through suffering. And not apart from Himself. Suffering is His invitation for us to participate in His very life. That’s Holy Mass. The font of this soul-forming grace. The very essence of Christ’s self-sacrifice. Our capacity for more than holy communion, but holy community. In short form: blessing comes by way of brokenness. And such does not happen on chalkboards or in classrooms. It doesn’t happen when we’re merely watching the gladiators battle from the comfort of our sofas with popcorn in hand. It happens when we find ourselves in the arena.

Up to that point, God is “merely” speaking; it’s not till that point God is calling. Or put most clearly, when He dignifies us to share in the very life of His Son. Let that sink in.

For me, just before college, the call came: John had died in his sleep. No warning. No goodbye. I dialed his number, heard his mother’s broken voice, and collapsed. My childhood bowed in the silence.

In grief, I searched to see through the blur. In the realm of faith, I recognized a subtle danger: even devout Catholics can find themselves on a “spiritual roller coaster”—chasing talks, books, and conferences in a whirlwind of activity, yet seldom entering the stillness where true transformation unfolds. In a mysterious way, stillness is where suffering is forged—the word itself from the Latin sufferre, meaning “to bear under, to endure.”

Without cultivating this encounter with God in silence, we risk turning sacred symbols into wallpaper—decorations that dull rather than awaken—leaving us and our children inoculated against the Gospel’s deeper power. Faith then becomes a kind of spiritual amusement park: up, down, round and round, only to step off unchanged.

It begged the question: What’s the real heart of it all? This tension invited me to rediscover the “bench”—a symbol of contemplative presence, where we pause to encounter God in quiet, as in the Eucharist or the sacred drama of the Mass. Here, motion yields to meaning.

The Bench

That insight birthed Ride of a Lifetime. At first, I imagined a sharp critique of faith’s distractions. But a gentler vision emerged: an old man on a bench, not preaching, but inviting us to truly see.

I’d glimpsed him in Erie, Pennsylvania: Fr. Robert Goodill, an elderly priest, sitting on a wooden bench before Mass, lost in prayer. Not performing—just present. His gaze prompted my wonder, looking through his truly holy eyes: What matters most? That bench became the story’s soul—a lens for beholding the world as God-bathed, as Frank Sheed described, revealing the eternal in the ordinary.

The Ride Through the Seasons

Ride of a Lifetime journeys through life’s seasons. A red-haired boy—me, you, every one of us—steps into life’s amusement park, wide-eyed, sparked by a friend’s dreams of sky-touching rides. As a child, he climbs and plunges, spins and laughs, lost in a dizzy, wonderful blur. As a youth, he chases thrills with friends—higher, faster, wilder. As a parent, he brings his children, their wonder rekindling his amid teacups and carousels, their laughter his sweetest music. As a grandparent, he watches his grandchildren glow, their joy his deepest magic.

The park is life’s pinnacle: a feast of ups, downs, and all-arounds, where every sight, sound, and scent awakens wonder. Yet always, in the background, the old man on the bench. He doesn’t chase; he sits, watching with eyes that see beyond. The boy notices him—first with curiosity, then reverence, then understanding. The bench is no mere seat; it’s an anchor, where the world reveals its divine pulse.

In the final season, the boy, now old and tender-hearted, returns. The rides still soar, but friends are memories, and his wife’s absence aches. The bench is empty—not absence, but invitation. He sits. The park wraps around him: the laughter, the love, the years. A Hand guides him. The park fades into something greater—a love that holds all the tears, all the joy. The ride of a lifetime is only beginning.

The Call

This story is dedicated to my parents, now in their eighties, senses dimming but souls bright as gold in twilight. And to John Miller, whose wonder still sparks mine. And to Fr. Goodill, who taught me the power of presence.

Too many chase the next thing—job, house, view—thinking the ride is out there. But God, who took on flesh, offers the bench: in Eucharistic stillness, in the sacred drama of the Mass. Here, restless souls find rest. Here, the world becomes God-bathed, every moment pulsing with wonder.

At 57, my fastest mile is my children’s warm-up jog. That’s grace. I see clearer now. I weep easier. I love freer. This isn’t about speed; it’s about vision—pausing to glimpse eternity in the ordinary.

There is a bench at the heart of the ride. Not an end, but a beginning—where motion yields to stillness, where we stop chasing and start honoring life with presence and love. It’s where we become sages. And saints.

To the bereaved: the only thing greater than your longing to be with them is their longing for you to be with them.

The ride is calling. The bench is ready. The story—yours, mine, ours—is just beginning.

Find Ride of a Lifetime on Amazon. The theme song streams everywhere. Visit LifeTimeRide.com to take the ride, to become the bench, to tell the story.

-----------------
Greg Schlueter is an author, speaker, and movement leader passionate about restoring faith, family, and culture. In addition to directing communication and marketing for the Institute of American Constitutional Thought and Leadership, he leads Image Trinity, a dynamic marriage and family movement. He and his wife, Stephanie, co-host IGNITE Radio Live and produce the popular daily Gospel reflection atLiveITToday.us. His recent books include The Magnificent Piglets of Pigletsville, Twelve Roses, Ride Of A Lifetime (LifeTimeRide.com), and Slaying Giants (SlayingGiants.us). His personal blog is GregorianRant.us.