Family Reunion

5.29.10 Hale Missouri

We were running through the deep Missouri countryside. Dark chocolate earth from the Grand River. Earth so rich that you want to immerse your hands into it knowing that you are getting some kind of life force put into your soul that will keep you connected to the Earth for all of your time here.

We were trying to make it to the Variety Store in downtown Hale, Missouri by five o'clock. We needed to pick up the key to the town Community building so that we could open up it up in the morning for the bi-annual Norris Family reunion. We had left Memphis promptly at 8 AM and felt that we could make it there, but we needed to push ourselves. We were doing good. The GPS said that we would get there by 4:30, so we were flying. We were listening to an audiobook, a action packed Clive Clesser novel with four different scenarios all coming together in a boat chase with guns and a CIA spy boat coming in to save the day.

The GPS voice activation had gone off and we had not had a chance to turn it back on. I was watching the countryside, listening to the book, semi watching the road and had forgotten all about the GPS. All of a sudden I look up and I see that we are coming to big turn in our almost paved road. I say, “Ted here comes a turn.” He also is engaged in the book. He slams on the brakes and makes the turn and the rough paved road crashes into a barely gravel road. In fact, it seems like the road has really ended with no warning as we came around that curve.

We are now dumbstruck. Our thoughts, our attention, our guidance system were all placed elsewhere. We were on a schedule, a game plan, a “have to be there” type of plan and all of sudden, the road, the game plan and our reality were all pulled out from under us. Where were we? What happened to the road? What happened to our plan?

Reset the GPS. Ask it what way to go? Keep on the barely a road through the endless fields of Missouri river bottoms. It looks like we are going back the way that we came. We can''t be doing this. We can't be running all over these fields when we have got to be at that store before five. Panic, confusion and a little bit of anger flood over me. It was my responsibility to keep up with the GPS. Did it really steer us here or did I just forget to look at it and miss the turn. Keep going, follow what it is saying, we really have no choice. We know that if we go back we will end up on a road to no where...

Now we are coming up on the rail road tracks that we had passed a few miles before, but now they are like a mountain of gravel in front of us. I start yelling in my anxiety voice, “Ted do you think we are going to be able to make it?” Ted, in his usually calm voice says, “Yes.” The car climbs the gravel and we proceed up a 45 degree angle mound to cross the tracks and bump down into the grooves of the tracks. Nothing around us for miles and we proceed down more gravel roads. The GPS now says that we will get to the store at 4:45PM. I begin to wail, “Ted, we have done the best we can. We gave it our best shot. We don't even know if the store stays open to five. Let's just keep going.”

All of sudden we do find ourselves back on County Road M, where we wanted to be all along. We are cruising fast and now I hold the GPS in my hand and call out all that I see. “3.4 miles till we turn left onto 187. It is now saying we will get there at 4:52.” Neither one of us know now if we can believe the GPS. But we have no choice we have to keep going. We have come this far and we know that the final destination is not that far away.

We pull into the Variety Store on Main Street at exactly 4:52PM and get the key for the Community Building, no problem.

I see this as a metaphor for my life and possibly for yours. You think that you have a game plan.You think that you have it all covered. You believe that you have your guidance system activated and with you. You have set your goal and need to be there at a certain time to “make it happen.” Then all of a sudden you turn around a corner and everything is different than what you thought it would be. There is no longer a road. The scenery has completely changed. The terrain of your plan is gone. What are you going do? Where does your voice go in pitch? Do you feel betrayed? Do you take time to ask yourself for guidance? Do you believe that you can't do this, by God there is no time, you have an appointment. Where do you turn at this point? What is the most important lesson to be learned at this moment when the bend in the road turns out to lead to a road to nowhere?