To Travel Hopefully

There’s so much about a road trip that mimics real life, and yet I, for one, am slow to apply the lessons of one to the other.

Arizona is an enormous state (sixth in line after Alaska, Texas, California, Montana and New Mexico), so getting from one place to another here takes a while. Driving from where I live in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa to my mother’s cabin outside Prescott, for instance, is a two-and-a-half-hour commitment, yet my family takes it in stride and thinks nothing of it. Buckle the seatbelts and go, and just chill until you’re there. Even my kids get this, and are generally (and atypically) patient about the process.

Why, then, is patience so hard in other realms of life? The same guy who can sit motionless for a numb-butted six-hour drive to San Diego can look at the clock on a dreary workday afternoon and nearly come unglued that it’s only 3:00. Or put that guy in a situation where he’s waiting for a bad thing to go away—or a good thing to arrive—and he wants to scream.

I think the main difference between “road trip patience” and “life patience” is the distinct lack of visible progress that’s so common to the latter. What with in-car GPS telling you where you are, scenery whizzing by and regular Interstate signs assuring you of the dwindling number of miles to your destination, you know precisely when that fidgety are-we-there-yet part of your brain will get some relief.

Real life calls for a different sort of endurance.

God appears to understand that “life patience” does not come naturally. Why else would there be a Bible verse that says, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer?” Everything about that sentence feels like a ticking clock—a slowly ticking clock on which the hour hand is on knock-out drops. Google “Bible verses on patience” and see what you find. That verse is by no means alone. Evidently—and bluntly—this is something we humans appear to suck at.

And yet, when I look back over every life situation that’s required endurance, I see that all of them—100 percent—came to an end. Just like a road trip. I set out, I drove . . . I got there.

Apparently, then, the only unendurable life situation is . . . whichever one we’re in right now. And only because we can’t clearly see the end from here. But again, looking back at other equally unendurable situations, I recognize that I was never without road signs. I was never without something (or someone) that let me know I was, in fact, getting somewhere.

It’s curious that some of the most fun memories of childhood road trips weren’t the destinations, but the traveling—playing “I Spy” or “Slug Bug” with my sisters, reading as my Dad took us cross-country hauling a travel trailer, or just seeing new and different things pass by. Getting where we were going? That was a given with Dad at the wheel, so I relaxed and enjoyed the trip.

Would I go so far as Robert Louis Stevenson, who said, “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive?” No. Arriving is good. But so is the journey. Waiting isn’t wasted time. Joy, patience, faith—they let the miles roll by easily.

Trust

            For a guy who’s addicted to all the sensations associated with driving—the rush of wind, the blur of passing landscape, the visceral thrill of all the physical forces associated with motion—I can be confoundingly complacent.

            It was six years between college and my first fulltime job.  Another six elapsed between meeting my wife and marrying her.  Seven more until kid number-one.  And despite periodically pondering a job change, it’s been 23 years since I took my current job—the aforementioned first fulltime job after college.

            You could chalk it up to paralysis by analysis (of which I’m certainly guilty), but the simple truth is this: When it comes to life’s big things, I’ve always thought that unless I know exactly what to do next, I should just sit still.  Until I figure it out.

            It’s ironic, then, that stuck to the cork board in front of me at work are these call-to-action Bible verses: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Why’d I choose that one?  I don’t know.  If the only cough syrups that really work taste the opposite of good, then, by extension, it makes sense to choose a passage that’s the opposite of what I actually do.

            I want to do what the verses suggest, mind you, but here’s the holdup: “Trust” is a motion-word.   I mean, you can’t really sit still and understand anything about trust, can you?  Just as you can’t know anything about a car’s handling unless you’re driving it, or can’t steer a boat unless it’s sailing, you can’t sit still and figure out trust “in theory.”  You pretty much have no idea whether trust works until you’re doing something that requires it.

            Unfortunately, moving forward is what I rarely risk doing.  But lately I’ve taken a tentative step or two, and I’m starting to understand that there are some things you just can’t grasp until you’re moving.

            Now, I’m not devaluing the importance of planning, or suggesting that any motion is always better than no motion.  If you’re at the edge of a cliff, not moving forward is wise.  But in those tidbits of Solomonic wisdom above, don’t miss where it says to consult God “in all your ways.”   “Ways” are passages where motion happens, right?  The way you do things, the way you’re going, the way you get from here to there.  You can have a map that shows the way, but you need to take it off the wall and bring it with you to see what the map really means.  Mile after mile, you begin nodding in understanding as the map comes alive, the squiggly lines turning into real places instead of ink on a page.

 I’m a fan of the British TV show Top Gear, and not too long ago they took an enlightening spin in a Formula 1 car.  Literally.  Despite the enormous mechanical grip the car derived from its low stance and fat tires, they were constantly spinning out in corners.  Why?  They weren’t going fast enough.  You see, much of what enables a Formula 1 car to take turns at vomit-inducing speeds is the aerodynamic downforce generated by the nose and tail wings.  But that invisible force can’t work until there’s enough air going over the wings to bring them into play.  When the Top Gear drivers finally trusted the car’s owner and counterintuitively mashed the gas even harder, the car settled down and took corners the way it was supposed to.

            Pretty funny, isn’t it?  A force you can’t see or understand, and that doesn’t work until you’re moving.  I wonder if Solomon was a race fan?