Life Lessons From An Amusement Park, Part I

You can learn a lot of life lessons at an amusement park.  At least, that's what I learned last week.  In an effort to share what I learned, I figured that I would devote this week to what I learned about life in an amusement park.  Hope you enjoy.

Seven years ago, my wife and I took a trip to Disney World by ourselves.  I called it our "Last Hurrah" trip as it was the last trip that we went on before we began our family.  Disney does vacations right, in my opinion.  They made everything so stress-free for me that it was really difficult to get back into the hustle and bustle of "real life" once the trip was over.  Among the many observations that we had on that trip was the lack of courtesy for those traveling with children, particularly ones with children in strollers.

This past week, my family went to Busch Gardens.  It was to be an interesting experience for me as I would now be observing things from the other side of the equation, now with three children of my own.  While my observation seven years ago was from the perspective of someone who did not yet have children, I was still horrified at the lack of courtesy and I was not even attempting to maneuver my way through an amusement park with a stroller that had a mind of its own.  My observation as one pushing said stroller was not much different than what I had experienced seven years ago: people need to pay attention and be more considerate.

I remember at Disney, leaving the park one evening, observing this poor, tired mom who was desperately trying to negotiate her way through the crowd with a toddler in a stroller.  It seemed as if no one around her was paying her any mind at all and I felt bad for her.  I looked over at my wife and expressed my disbelief at the inconsiderate people around her.  An older gentleman though that he overheard me complaining and started scolding me.  I quickly informed him that I was actually expressing my displeasure with those around this poor woman.  Even in my effort to express concern, I was misunderstood.

This past week, my wife and I were the ones with the strollers, attempting to negotiate our way through the crowds with limited "flat tires" and whacked ankles.  Not much has changed in seven years as most people were oblivious to anyone in the park other than themselves.  Groups of 3 or more would suddenly stop in the middle of traffic, look at their maps, start talking to each other, look at rides, or do any one of a number of things that could easily have been done to the side of the thoroughfare of traffic.  I felt almost like someone trying to negotiate a mine field, dodging and ducking past these oblivious patrons of the park, knowing full well that one false move could trigger an explosion that could easily leave my children with some new and interesting vocabulary words.

My wife and I did our best to pull out of traffic every time that we had to consult the map, check our kids, or do whatever it is that people do that stops them from moving along through an amusement park.  I scolded my boys more than once for not paying attention to where they were going, running into people who scowled at them as they wandered off.  I did my best to be considerate and alert as I made my way through the park.

The funny thing, both now and seven years ago, is that both trips were in August when the overall population of the amusement park is down.  I don't imagine that people were any more considerate when the park was more overrun during the height of the summer.  My experience is that the hotter it is, the crankier and more impatient people get.  Thankfully, we avoided any major issues in regards to our stroller negotiating and navigating, but it's like driving anywhere else, it's not always me that I'm worried about.  I was pretty proud of my 3 and 5 year olds for being somewhat more attentive than others around them, although they certainly had their moments.

What did I learn?  Be considerate.  I have no idea about someone's story, where they've been, where they're going, what's been happening in their life.  I had to remind myself of this many times during the course of a day.  Amusement parks don't foster patience in people, heck, they sell Fast Passes so that all of those impatient people can bypass lines for just a few dollars more.  Not really the essence of patience building activities.  Whether you are traveling with kids or not, be mindful of the people around you.  If you have to consult your map, pull over, just like you would in a car.  Let the flow of traffic continue around you, don't hold things up just because you're trying to figure out your next move.

August is a great time to go to amusement parks, at least in my experience.  The crowds are down and you can make it on a lot of rides that you might normally have to wait a long time for.  If you can deal with heat and humidity, August might be the time for you to go.  Many schools have already started back, so the locals can be fewer.  I think I observed a good chunk of people from the Tri-State area in my few days at Busch Gardens.  If you have to ask me how I know where they were from, maybe you've never been to the Tri-State area.

Check back tomorrow with Life Lessons From An Amusement Park, Part II where we move past traffic etiquette and talk a little bit about social etiquette.

While I'm Waiting

Life is full of waiting. We wait at the supermarket. We wait in traffic. We wait through the seasons. We wait for special days to finally come. It seems that we always have to wait for something. Of course, the old adage is "good things come to those who wait." Waiting is not easy. Waiting is not fun. Waiting requires patience, of which I have very little.

Some statistics show that the average person waits between 45 and 62 minutes per day. Considering that many of us work for at least 8 hours every day and sleep for 6 to 8 hours a day, nearly an hour of waiting is fairly significant. It might be counted as a waste of time if we look at it from the wrong perspective.

But I think that we sometimes mistakenly approach times of waiting. We have been duped into thinking that waiting means inactivity, means wasting time. But there is an activeness with which we need to approach times of waiting. While we may incorporate times of rest into periods of waiting, there is way that we can actively wait.

Recently, I got stuck in a significant traffic jam on 95 on my way to a seminary class. A trip that should have taken me less than 2 hours ended up taking 3 1/2 hours. My attitude was horrible because I just wanted to get to where I was going. My stress level rose and I tried to take control of a situation over which I had no control. All this did was increase my anxiety and stress level, eventually leading to a migraine. When I finally arrived at my destination, I was in such rough shape that it's a miracle that I was able to function as well as I did. Of course, after class, I still have to make the nearly 2 hour drive home.

Thinking through how I handled the situation and how I should have handled the situation convicted me. First off, I found out that the reason for the traffic jam was that a man was threatening to throw himself off of a bridge on I-95. In comparison to whatever he was going through in his life, I guess my life looks fairly simple. Thankfully, he did not follow through with his desire and was brought to a facility where he should receive help.

I also thought through the idea of being prepared. I generally carry books with me wherever I go. At any given time, I am generally reading at least one book. If I had had any wits about me, I would have simply pulled out a book and taken advantage of the time that I had to read in the car while waiting for traffic to clear. There was no one with me in the car, so I could have taken that time in silence and prayer to clear my head. Thinking back, there were probably a number of options that I had for things to do while I was waiting. But I chose poorly.

Yesterday and this morning, I was reminded by some friends of Psalm 27:14, "Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD." When we come to times in our lives where we must wait, it is not always a passive waiting that we are called to. When we find ourselves in places where we need to wait, it doesn't mean sitting on our hands and doing nothing, we can actively wait, and I think we are called to actively wait.

We will face times of waiting in our lives, it is inevitable. These times are not to be avoided, but they can be embraced. What would happen if we took a different approach to waiting? What would happen if we were prepared to read, to write, to pray while we're waiting? What a difference it would make in our attitudes and probably the attitudes of the people around us.

Last Friday, I blew my opportunity to actively wait in the midst of what I was facing, but today is a new day. Through grace, I am given new opportunities and new mercies every morning that I awake, will I seize those opportunities? Waiting is unavoidable, wasting time isn't. May we embrace our times of waiting in order that we can approach them actively rather than passively.

Rainbows

Yesterday was the beginning of the end. I began my long 30 week journey into Greek with my first trip up to southern Maryland for class. It was somewhat appropriate that I began Greek the day after my daughter was born. She is the only one of my children with a name found in the New Testament. Also, I started Hebrew just a week after my second son was born. I guess you could say that I am a glutton for punishment.

This was also the first trip to class that I have taken since my mom died in July. The last 3 years that I have been driving north to class, I have spent the first hour of my two hour ride home on the phone talking to my parents. There was a little anxiety in me as I anticipated what my ride home would be like, but I needed to get up there first. Easier said than done!

Northern Virginia is never a good place for traffic, especially on a Friday afternoon. Virginians also drive as if the rain is snow and should they see flashing lights on the side of the road, they need to slow down to a crawl or near stop in order to assess the situation. Maybe it's unfair to say that it's Virginians only, but that's my current context, so they'll get the brunt of the blame.

For the three years that I have been making these trips, I have always allowed myself enough time to get to class with time to spare. Yesterday was no exception. I thought for sure that I would be in the clear as it usually takes me just under two hours to get to class from my house. I was wrong.

What had been a mostly light rain all morning and early afternoon had turned to a torrential downpour during parts of my trip. Surprisingly, those were not the places where I encountered the most traffic. But the rain had sufficiently slowed people down enough that it has a domino effect. By the time it manifested its impact on me, I was only 20 minutes from home. And so, my journey began.

I was already tired, having had little sleep from the birth experience the day before. I was doing my best to be around for my boys, which meant up at 5 AM. I had stopped by the hospital a few times to check on my wife and daughter and finally had the chance to hold my little girl. When I finally got myself together to get to school, I was pretty tired. There was the emotional exhaustion of having experienced the birth of my daughter (I know, I know, my wife was the one who did the most work, which I already acknowledged, she was incredible) and this first trip without having a two-way conversation with my mom.

The traffic hit me like a ton of bricks. I was hoping, and somewhat expecting, a fairly smooth trip to school. I had no idea that it would take me nearly twice as long as it should take. Sitting in traffic was complicated by my need to go to the bathroom after drinking half a liter of water and my lack of air conditioning in the car, resulting in fairly foggy windows. As the traffic conditions worsened, so did my attitude. I quickly updated Facebook with my best attempt at a pithy statement and the texts and phone calls began...that's usually what happens to me when know that something's going on.

To avoid allowing everyone to hear my frustration, I avoided the phone calls. After all, did I really want anyone hearing me verbalize my frustration. In began to wonder what the next 29 weeks would hold if this was only the beginning. Had it really been worth this? Would it be worth the trips in the end? The end was in sight, but what was I going to have to do to get to that end? What would be sacrificed?

How overly dramatic was I going to be? It was just one bad traffic day, was I really going to blow it out of proportion? Of course I was, isn't that what happens when there is a convergence of sleep deprivation and emotional exhaustion? But really, I was getting pretty frustrated over something that was completely out of my hands. I couldn't will the traffic away, frustration with other drivers was going to get me nowhere.

Thankfully, Maryland was pretty wide open. There was little to no traffic and I was able to sail smoothly to my class. As I sat there in my driver's seat, back sore from not having changed position for some time, I began to feel the guilt of my frustration. People were experiencing difficulties far greater than my inconvenience and I really had the audacity to think that my inconvenience was important enough to have gotten all worked up about?

I got closer to school and realized that the sky was pretty clear to the west, in fact, I could see the sun. It was still misting where I was, but the contrast was becoming more and more apparent as I neared the church where my class was held. It dawned on me that this combination of sun and rain should result in a rainbow. As I got out of my car in the parking lot, I looked up to see a full double rainbow. I began laughing to myself for a few different reasons.

I first thought about the significance of a rainbow. In Genesis 9, after God has spared Noah and his family from the flood, the sign of the covenant that God makes with humanity is the rainbow. God promised that he would never again flood the earth in its entirety. The rainbow signifies God's promise of provision and protection. It represents new beginnings, a constant reminder that God is with us.

Back in July, I had a conversation with a friend who had lost her mother to ALS a few years back. As I saw the rainbow, I recalled our conversation. She had mentioned that the rainbow was pretty significant to her and was a constant reminder to her of her mother. Considering this my first trip since Mom had died, I smiled as I thought about her. God was still there. He was still in control. After the rain, there was the rainbow.

Finally, I laughed as I heard myself say, "Woah, a full double rainbow!" It reminded me of a YouTube video that I had seen, actually shown by my friend at one of our chapel sessions out at Bethel Seminary. A man, who was most likely stoned, was at Yosemite National Park and took a video of a full double rainbow. He is basking in its magnificence and beauty and even begins to cry as he says, over and over again, "Oh my God!" His use of the phrase "Oh my God" may be seen as offensive to some, but I see it as giving credit where credit is due, regardless of whether he was conscious of it or not. If you feel like watching it, it might make you laugh and you might understand why I chuckled, but it's not essential. The link to the video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI

I was pretty ashamed of myself for having gotten so upset about traffic. But God's grace met me where I was. I'm not self-centered enough to believe that the rainbow was there all for me, but I considered myself a guilty bystander, encaptured by the beauty of God's promise. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. Even when I'm a heel, God is still there. The rainbow was a great reminder of God's grace, and it came just in time for me to dive into Greek. What a long, strange trip it's been...and it's not over yet.