For those of you who do not have a GPS, the phrase “recalculating” is one that we GPS users know all too well. It is either shown on the screen, usually with the dreaded spinning hourglass icon, or it is spoken by the woman who lives inside of your GPS – the one who sounds like Geico’s gecko – only more feminine. For those of you who care, I recently saw the GPS woman interviewed on a morning show, and she was not at all what I expected to see. I will not describe her here, because I do not want to ruin your perception of the GPS genie, but I will tell you that her accent in Australian, not British “after spending a year in Britain, I know how testy they can be about having the accents mixed up.” In any case, when you see and/or hear her say she is recalculating your route on the GPS, it is time to pay attention to whatever comes next. It is not a cause for panic – the woman in the machine is hard at work finding a way to get you to your destination – we all know that – it is just time to pay attention.
I’m not sure why I trust the GPS woman so much. I have no idea, really, how that little thing in my car works. I think it has something to do with signals that are being transmitted from a satellite in space, but I can’t quite wrap my mind around the fact that a space satellite is guiding and tracking me as I make my way around my everyday menial list of places to go. I mean, it seems like space satellites would have more important work to do – tracking terrorists, seeking life in a far away galaxy, tracking the carbon impact on our own planet. I am overwhelmed that these same satellites can help me find the nearest McDonalds in virtually every city in the world – isn’t technology great?
And I have faith in the lady in the GPS. I do not pull over, or hyperventilate, or freak out, when she tells me she is recalculating. I just wait for the little hour glass to stop spinning and for her to tell me what my next move will be. I have faith that the satellite running this thing has not suddenly crashed into other space objects causing this recalculation. I have faith that the signal sent from space is indeed getting through to my little friend in the machine. I have faith that she is not sponsored by some marketing genius, and that we will always eventually wind up in a Walmart parking lot, regardless of where we are trying to go. I have great faith in my Australian techno sherpa that lives in the GPS.
I have always loved the biblical passage that speaks of having faith as big as a mustard seed. A mustard seed, by the way, is really, really small! But the passage says that with faith of that size we can have the ability to move mountains. That is hard to believe. I know I have tried to have faith in things before, but the thing I wanted to happen never did. The mountain stayed put. I got angry. I wrote a few weeks ago about my struggle to find a spirituality and a faith that works for me. My journey is best summed up by the late, great Jerry Garcia: “what a long, strange trip it’s been.” I believe in a Higher Power – I have experienced miracles, I have seen, and felt, and been a part of things that really have no explanation outside of Divine Intervention. The example I experience the most is when someone who has struggled with addiction for years losses the obsession for the addiction. The scientists and doctors cannot completely explain this miracle, but brain scans can now prove that an intense chemical craving that was present before has now subsided – and it happens again and again for many who turn to a spiritual solution, a faith in what seems impossible.
The problem with having faith for me has been that things often seem to happen on their own time, and sometimes they seem to happen too late. Another problem is that all the faith in the world does not seem to get my lawn mowed, or the leaves raked, or the rotten kid on the bus to stop bullying my kid until I get involved in these situations. What is up with that? Recovery from addiction often, if not most times, involves relapse into the addiction, or substitution of another addiction. Many people have to try getting sober again, and again, and again. Is this because they lack faith? And how about the countless other painful, unfair losses and injuries of life that appear to be dealt out to all – regardless of how “good” one has been, or how many mustard seeds of faith a person is carrying around at any particular time. How can we explain those? And how does one continue to have faith when life and the Higher Power of your choosing appears to have singled you or those you love out for unfair hardships?
As a teenager, I thought I had formed a belief system to explain this. I read the book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” by Harold Kushner after two teenage friends of mine died in a car accident. I took two things from the book: the first was not to pray that it wasn’t your house on fire after you hear the fire whistles going and see the fire engines racing by – at that point it is too late, and the second was that the idea of an all powerful God and a God who is all loving can not exist together. The author, who had gone through the devastating loss of a child, chose to believe in the all loving God. He found it unbearable to believe in a Higher Power that would allow, or worse yet, inflict pain on random humans. This idea seemed to make sense to me, and I settled in for a long time in my life to a belief in a God with limitations. A creator who produced the cars for people, but was not to be held responsible for how fast or dangerously people drove the cars. I could compare this belief to that of a parent, who created a child, but eventually would push them out of the nest, and they would fly off on their own – completely responsible for their own successes or failures in life. I went through a period of recalculating my beliefs, and I ended up on a road that felt comfortable to me. An all loving, somewhat powerful, but not all powerful God. Good. Now I understood.
My next recalculation period would come quite a few years later. It came when someone told me to stop looking outside of the people around me for God, and to start looking for the face and heart of God in everyone around me. This seemed insane at first, and the biggest hurdle for me was considering that God was and had been living inside of me for my whole life. He had quietly taken up residence, and was guiding me, nudging me, inviting me to live my life from a place of faith rather than a place of fear. If I had an hourglass icon, it would have turned, and turned and turned during this recalculation period. In the end, I started to see and believe that most of God’s work is done through the words and hands of others – of mortals – of loving souls right here in front of me everyday. I also came to believe that I could throw my own mustard seed of faith into this work, and that the rewards would be miraculous. By the way, they have been. And I haven’t even done that much. Mostly, I have learned to listen a little better, and to remember some things that people who are smarter, and saner than I am have said. But when I do these things, I now feel the “God-bumps.” I used to think they were “Goose-Bumps,” but they are not. They come from an energy and a place that can only be experienced and never really explained.
When is the last time you “recalculated”? Maybe you are being invited to do so now. Maybe you are facing a trial, or a test, or a situation that seems to repeat itself in your life “Why do I always pick people like this to become involved with?” Maybe the last year has been wonderfully successful for you, but you are feeling unfulfilled. Maybe you are at a point in your life where regrets, or temptations, or any variety of funk and junk is troubling your mind, eating at your soul. Maybe it’s time to recalculate.
One last thought. I don’t always rely on the GPS woman to get me to where I am going. Sometimes I know the way, and I notice that she is busy turning the hourglass and flashing messages at me while I travel a route that is familiar to me. She doesn’t always agree with my navigation, but she is always ready with an alternative route. But I know where I’m going – most of the time. As you think about your own recalculations, I want to challenge you to let someone or something else take the wheel for a bit – even if your road seems familiar. One thing I have learned by going down the paths that my various mentors, guides, and GPS genies have suggested is that I will often see and experience new things only when I leave the familiar and comfortable well traveled habits and routines of my life. And sometimes, even most times, it is on those new roads where the true fulfillment and God bumps begin…
Recalculating…