Posted by
AudiR10TDI on Thursday, September 06, 2007 4:29:29 PM
September 6, 2007 -- Last night I was baptized and confirmed into the Catholic Church. This has been in the works for a long time, much of it not moving very quickly, due in large part to external circumstances, but it is now done and I am in the fold. It's a weight off my shoulders that has been there since the tail end of my university days, when I laboured under certain delusions involving the Mormon Church and before Ayn Rand taught me that even if everyone else in the world voted that I should get married, my vote was the only one that counted. This was no easy path and there was plenty of time for self-examination, in between my customary imperious banging on the door and yelling (receiving an echo for my pains), and when the time was right, as always, the door opened and I was escorted through.
If you are a believer or have them in your family, you will have been told that we all have our crosses to bear. Mine, I have come reluctantly to conclude, is the overwhelming desire to micromanage God. That is, I not only hand Him a list of what I want Him to do, but a schedule with bullet points directing how it ought to be done, and a time line. I am always working on a grand plan that in the end reminds me (when I think about it) of the Dennis the Menace cartoon showing Dennis and his friends in the family car, and Dennis calling to his Dad, "We're going to the beach! Wanna drive?"
Sometimes God has handed me the whole enchilada I requested on a plate and said "Okay, now what are you going to do?" For example, a perfectly wonderful plan to cover the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a whole new way that could have made me a contender; except that one of the people on my crew turned out to be mentally unbalanced, one turned out to be one step ahead of a very angry junk yard dog who was seeking him with mayhem on his mind due to having been majorly cheated the year before, and in trying to cope with both these items and not having planned sensibly for my own part in the play, I ended up dropping that enchilada in the dirt. It took me a year to clean up that fiasco, along with the aid of powerful friends. That is why sometimes we are told to be careful what we wish for, because we may get it.
Right now we are six weeks from the date we have to move our parents from their home in the south to a home in the North, and yesterday afternoon the apartment we thought we had rented for them fell through. Each of us had our assignments, that was not mine, but everyone whose assignment it was has carried her load; the collapse was no one's fault, that we know about, but although finding that apartment was not my assignment, it is very hard for me to let go of the urge to jump in and meddle. The sister who has always been my check and balance (as I am hers) reminded me that we have been in worse pinches and have come out of them not through our own ofices, but through God's intervention. For example, the time we got to our first stop on a two week trip to England and found that half our reservations had been cancelled, including our first stop! The sympathetic clerk not only gave us a room for free, but he rebooked all our reservations. All was well. The first time we went to the Petit Le Mans, the weekend after 9/11/01, we had no money to speak of, no plans worthy of the name, and no idea what we were doing; in the end I found a second job I love and she met the love of her life, but we did not know that was why we were sent there until two years later.
I know intellectually that God is the pilot. Nevertheless, it is the most difficult thing in the world for me to keep my hands off the steering wheel, stop second guessing the route, and trust that God knows what He is doing. What they used to call this task in Bible School was "Let Go and Let God." And when this task is not appointed to me, to get out of the way, sit down in my chair and mind my own business.
And finally, to recognize the answer to prayer when I have it. The original version of The Bishop's Wife, the one starring David Niven and Loretta Young (not that awful Whoopi Goldberg remake) brings that point home better than any other I can recall. At the end of the movie, the Bishop is told that his prayer has been answered, and he argues, "No, it was not! I asked for a cathedral and I am not going to get it!" The guardian angel who was sent in answer to his prayer corrects him, "No, Henry, what you asked for was Guidance. And that has been given to you." When I try to micromanage God, I can't always recognize that what I asked for is what I got, because I am so wrapped up in what I want that I stop paying attention.
So in this time of great anxiety and looming deadlines, the cross I am carrying as I begin my life in the Catholic fold is the need to take my hands off the steering wheel, move to the passenger seat, give up the task that is not mine, and Let Him Work. God has never let me down, although sometimes it takes me some work before I will admit it. This, as my sister reminded me, is one of those times. The prayers of my friends have been with me, and of fellow Catholics who welcome me home; may those prayers help me slow down and ride along, trusting that the guy at the wheel knows the way.