Are We There Yet?

My mother (a single mom) learned to drive around the time I learned to talk.  She bought a used '55 Chevy a little bit before that.  A neighbor went with her to look over the car and drive her home.  He later taught her how to drive.  We started taking weekend trips and drive 'till you drop vacations almost immediately thereafter.

As we lived in the Los Angeles area (Huntington Park...not Beach), it was at least an hour in any direction to get out of town or for that matter to get to Huntington Beach.  If you are younger than 40 and don't have easy access to a Way Back Machine (Google "Mr. Peabody and Sherman"), you won't remember that cars didn't have more things then they actually had.  There were no FM radios (there was barely any FM), no clock, no power steering, the dash boards were made of steel and there were no seat belts.  On the up side, there was a rather primitive AM radio.  When you're 4 and you can't watch Star Wars on the iWhatever as you travel, just getting out of town in this context can be tedious.

There are 3 general directions to escape L.A.  All of them, depending on time of year, are hot.  Early on, our primary destinations were the Southern reaches of the Sierra.  This included Sequoia on the West side of the range and the Owens Valley/Mammoth Lakes area on the East.  (Mammoth didn't have a gondola in those days.  What is now the main street was a bad dirt road.)

I clearly remember the first time I said "Are we there yet?"  It was in the Owens Valley around Lone Pine.  It was hot as stink, the radio wouldn't get anything and we'd sung all the songs I knew a couple times.  Worst of all, it was too hot to nap.  I repeated it a few times, varying the theme a bit.  "Are we there yet?"  "Are we closer?"  "Will it be long?"

My mother was patient at first.  Gradually though, I wore her down.  She was hot and relatively miserable too.  Finally she snapped at me, telling me to not ask anymore under threat of spanking or being slapped in the face.  It immediately became clear to me that I'd come to the end of that particular line of inquiry.

As the years went by, through a combination of practice and maturing I learned how to tolerate and even enjoy the ride.  As we drove up the Owens Valley with the Sierras to the West and the White Mountains to the East, my mind would travel on the dirt tracks that vanished up into the valleys of those mountains.  In time, I learned to love the journey as much as I loved and enjoyed the destination.  Later on, we actually followed some of the less traveled roads into those mountains to lakes and forests that were only minutes away from US 395.

As I was adapting to travel, I had no idea that the experiences and lessons would apply to the whole scope of my life.  For example, my impatience usually gives way to resignation.  Eventually, my mind wanders off somewhere and I would forget all together the current moment of discomfort.  

There's a difference though.  The lessons of childhood usually have boundaries.  Our parents provide them.  Usually, our joys and our pains happen within the lines of what our parents provide for us.  Sometimes this is out of our control altogether and sometimes its even out of theirs.  Even so, as children we seem to always have a base level of comfort or hope derived from our parents even when they're broken and afraid themselves.

From any one moment, our adult lives stretch out before us as a plane of possibility that encompasses the totality of human experience, from fatigue to enthusiasm, from joy to terror, from fear to love.  Sometimes our steps are intentional.  Sometimes we stumble as if pushed from behind.  Sometimes we stagger under the weight of all we've imagined will soothe and protect us on our trip.  Sometimes in sadness or fatigue or both, we just lay down.  Even then though, the small steps intrinsic in each moment carry us forward to someplace that contains at least some part of our choosing.  We may or may not reach the destination of our choosing but we can never escape the journey.

The journey is a joyful thing...if the choice of joy is made.  If God is invited into as many moments as we can remember, as our eyes cast around for the thing of beauty that plays discord to the mundane background.

The journey is love...if need is admitted and forgiveness given freely if God is invited into to both our woundings and triumphs.

The journey is peace...if love and joy attend.

My mother introduced me to these ideas and modeled them.  She failed sometimes but always seemed to be able to be mostly upbeat, leaning into the joy and love offered in each moment.  Because of her, it was easier for me to see these things in God.  However, I've also learned this: the God of love and grace so far transcends any human expression of love and joy that any human model is never more than an introduction to the depth of all that God is.

So I sit in the passenger seat.  Some days it's an easy ride.  Some days the sun is hot, the air conditioning broken and the destination too far.  Even so, I count the shadows of phone poles racing by.  My eyes wander to the distant mountains and the dirt tracks that reach into them.  There must be lakes and coolness and water up there.  And then I realize, if there was no journey there would be no destination.  There would be no rushing shadows, sunrises or sunsets or imaginings of distant possibility.  It will be fun when we get there but the ride is beautiful.