2021

 

Arizona, 2011

You have experienced the adventure of the road, the pleasant uncertainty of being in unfamiliar territory as long as you want to be there, as long as the risk is low, as long as a tow truck is in reach by phone. If you are not actually in trouble, you can relax back into the cushy seat and enjoy the new surroundings with heightened awareness. That  was Arizona for us in 2011. 

We had a different experience one dark and stormy night in Iowa in the early 1990s.

Iowa, 1994

We didn't know exactly where we were. No cell phone or GPS. Dorothy was driving and I was asleep, recovering from a virus. She woke me with the news that she couldn't see where we were going. We found out later that there was a fault in the electrical system that dimmed the headlights. That left us in the dark on an unfamiliar road, 1500 km from home, no help in sight. I don't remember exactly how that story played out, but we seem to have survived because here I am writing about it. Dorothy can tell you the rest. She remembers things. The point of my story is not that we survived but how it felt, which you will have to imagine.

Do I need to say more about exhilarating and scary? That's right where we are at the beginning of 2021. What's exhilarating? There has never been such potential for progress, so many educated people, such incredible technology, so much information available in an instant, so many individuals willing to serve, such connection of cultures with a will to associate and cooperate, so much opportunity to have a say. What's scary? There has never been such potential for destruction, so many badly educated people, such dangerous technology, so much disinformation available in an instant, so many individuals enriching themselves at the expense of others, such polarization between cultures and between ideologies, such a concentration of power in the hands of so few. 

That was much too short a list, but the same applies to anything you might put in the list. Everything you can name is both exhilarating and scary. Nevertheless, if we have some control over things, they are less scary and more exhilarating. We have some control over circumstances. We can have the car checked out before taking a long trip. We certainly have control over ourselves. We can choose where to look, how to perceive what we see, and how to respond. 

The universe works.
We have a say in what happens next.
God is in us with this.
May 2021 be an exhilarating trip.