Message at Durham Friends Meeting, May 19, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We celebrated my Dad\u2019s 100th<\/sup> birthday two weeks\nago. He wasn\u2019t with us; he died in\n1990. But I made him a cake and we\ncelebrated his good life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He taught me a lot of things. More things than I learned: I should have\npaid better attention. One thing he\ntaught me was how to drive. I wanted to\nget my license so I did pay attention to that, and so I learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was a pretty tough, demanding driving instructor. Good enough wasn\u2019t good enough for him, so he\nmade sure I knew how to handle difficult situations of all kinds. For example, this was in Rochester, New York,\nand he wanted to be sure I could handle icy roads. So there was a Sunday we went down to a\nsupermarket parking lot. There weren\u2019t\nany cars because supermarkets weren\u2019t open on Sunday when I was a teen. And for an hour and a half he had me get up\nto speed in our family sedan, slam on the brakes, and then deal with the\nresulting skid. Over and over again,\nskid after skid. He wanted me to be\ncomfortable behind the wheel with the car out of control. He wanted me to have that experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We also had a little Renault that he drove to work. It had\na five speed manual transmission. \nEvening after evening, after dinner, he\u2019d take me to a dirt road on a\nnearby county park and make me practice with that manual gearshift. Often the\nroad was muddy so starting up was harder. \nAnd after I sort of got the hang of it, he had me start the car in\nsecond gear. When I got the hang of that,\nhe\u2019d find a little hill and have me start the car moving in second gear on that\nlittle hill. It all felt a little severe\nat the time, but I\u2019m glad he made sure I learned to drive well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Learning to drive has been on my mind because now Ellen and\nI are teaching Robbie to drive. He\u2019s had\nhis learner\u2019s permit for several months, and his first times behind the wheel,\nat least legally, came in his driver\u2019s education course. But since he\u2019s had his permit he drives every\nchance that comes his way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I just said \u201cEllen and I are teaching Robbie to drive.\u201d Now I know that isn\u2019t quite right. It\u2019s rather: \u201cwe\u2019re helping him learn to\ndrive.\u201d There\u2019s a big difference. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What gets done, what gets learned, he has to do. We\u2019ve introduced him to a succession of challenges\nand he\u2019s figured out how to handle them. \nInstead of a Renault Dauphin, he\u2019s learned to drive a stick shift in our\n1987 Jetta, which has sadly just failed a basic safety check so he can\u2019t take\nhis driving test in that. I\u2019ve had him\nstart the car up in second. I\u2019ve looked\nfor muddy dirt tracks up at the Topsham Fairgrounds. He\u2019s dealt with starting up a stick shift on\nhills. He\u2019s handled a few skids \u2013 though no icy\nsupermarket parking lots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not downplaying the role of teachers when I say what we\nlearn we have to learn ourselves. \nTeachers can play a big role, but the learning is something you have to\ndo yourself. The learning can\u2019t be\ninjected with a needle or poured down your throat. Whatever it is: learning to drive, learning\ngeometry, learning to bake a cake \u2013 learning what\u2019s important in life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Teachers can encourage, they can coach, they can challenge,\nthey can pose tasks or problems, but they can\u2019t do the learning for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I\u2019ve been sitting next to Robbie in the passenger seat,\nhe\u2019s in control and I\u2019m not. It\u2019s his\nhands on the steering wheel; his feet on the pedals. I make suggestions and comments. I call\nattention to hazards and situations. I\ntalk to him about other drivers; how you can\u2019t be responsible for what they\u2019ll\ndo and you\u2019d better be prepared for the worst. \nI talk to him about speed limits, about conditions when even going the\nspeed limit isn\u2019t safe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I quickly realized \u2013 I already knew this, but the\nrealization really hit me \u2013 that I can\u2019t tell him things fast enough, even when\nI\u2019m sitting right next to him. His\nlearning to drive has to be a matter of his having fully taken in what he needs\nto know to drive well. I can\u2019t be some\nvoice in his head he\u2019ll hear every time he turns on the ignition. (\u201cWhat would my Dad say about that?\u201d) <\/p>\n\n\n\n I can still hear my dad talking to me about driving if I\nreally put my mind to it, but that\u2019s not how I drive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, there are lots of occasions when I wish I\ncould hear from my Dad. There are lots\nof matters I\u2019d love to talk over with him. \nThere are so many questions I never asked him, and so many others I\nwhere didn\u2019t listen carefully the one time or two I did ask him. Wherever I\u2019ve gone, he\u2019s been there before\nme: being a teen, falling in love, having children, working, retiring from work<\/p>\n\n\n\n All this about learning to drive and wishing I still had my\nDad sitting next to me helping me learn to drive has gotten me thinking about\nhow we learn from God \u2013 how we might learn things from God: about living the\ngood life, about fixing the things that aren\u2019t right in this world, about\nwhat\u2019s worth celebrating and what\u2019s worth mourning. Those sorts of things. Here I am in the driver\u2019s seat. Is God there next to me? I think God is. I think that\u2019s something we Quakers know and\nmaybe can teach others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Learning life is tougher than learning to drive. None of us ever quite learns everything we\nneed to know. It\u2019s like we do need our\ndad, or better, our mom sitting next to us, giving us the occasional\nsuggestion, pointing out a difficult situation ahead. And here\u2019s the deal, the wonderful deal. There she is sitting beside us. She doesn\u2019t say much most of the time, and we\ndon\u2019t expect her to say much most of the time. \nBut she\u2019s there sitting next to us. \nShe\u2019s ready to offer advice, or simply tell us it\u2019s all OK. When we ask. \nWhen we\u2019re prepared to listen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course that\u2019s not exactly what George Fox meant we he said \u201cJesus has come to teach his people himself<\/em>.” He didn\u2019t mean Jesus would be literally sitting next to us when we\u2019re driving. He meant something stranger and yet more wonderful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He meant Jesus, or the Inward Teacher, or the Seed, or the\nLight was always with us, always inside us — as well as all around us. When we need guidance, we have to be sure to\nask. We have to be ready to still\nourselves and listen. That takes some\nlearning: how to seek, how to ask, how to still myself, how to listen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world<\/em>,” Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 28. What an amazing, reassuring promise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Today I don\u2019t have my Dad with me in the way that I\u2019d like. So it\u2019s a great comfort to me to know that I have the Inward Teacher wherever I go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n crossposted on River View Friend <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Message at Durham Friends Meeting, May 19, 2019 We celebrated my Dad\u2019s 100th birthday two weeks ago. He wasn\u2019t with us; he died in 1990. But I made him a cake and we celebrated his good life. He taught me … Continue reading