The Glory of God in a Semi-Truck

My wife texted the word “treacherous” to her mother as I gripped the wheel hard. 

Christmas had been a delight, but year-end inventory demanded a hasty exit.  Christmas in Michigan on Tuesday, inventory in New York on Thursday, one travel day between.  But Wednesday, a wide swath of snow was predicted to settle over our intended route.

We had hoped to stay ahead of the blizzard, forgoing a farewell breakfast outing to get an early start.  As we left Grand Rapids, severe weather was chasing us.  As we crossed into Ohio, it was licking our heals.  By Cleveland we had been overtaken, deep in the soup of wintry squall. 

Snow was pouring down heavy, not the large wafers, like billowing frosted flakes, but the small crystalline nuggets, like granules of sugar flung through the sky.  Wind swept, the tiny pellets fell in erratic waves, like a swarm of gnats, bleached white, swirling this way and that, then pummeling our windshield with a steady “tink.”

The roadway gradually surrendered, reduced first to ruts, then to barely visible tracks.  Snow was piling on faster than plow and salt could contend with.  We lumbered along, speedometer hovering near 40 mph.  The number of cars spun off the road began to add up  - a dozen, then two.

The right lane was inhabited by the overly cautious, hazards blinking, signaling a crawling progress.  The left lane was commandeered by the reckless, confident in their four-wheel drive SUVs and plunging ahead at speeds near normal.  We were somewhere between these two extremes, forced to navigate between the lanes. Each lane change entailed easing our way out of the established ruts and into fresh snow that offered little traction.  Each time I nudged the van across the centerline, I could sense its loosened grip on the road.  Gently, I urged it back into the furrows of the lane, where rubber and asphalt could pull together in some limited traction. 

This was harsh enough in waning daylight.  It became more so as darkened night descended.  Limited visibility, restricted even more.  Lanes on the thruway were mere approximations, loosely gauged off mounted reflectors on the shoulder and median.  We had been texting my mother-in-law throughout the trip to keep her updated on our progress and to assure her of our safety.  The darkness inspired the “treacherous” text.  Still, we drove. 

Somewhere near Rochester, a double-cabbed semi-truck passed us, barreling through this interstate with determination.  He was driving with confidence – not so fast as to be reckless, not so slow as to be a hazard. We settled in behind, drafting off his bulk.  His twenty some-odd tires were carving a path deep into the snow under the weight of his load.  Our four irresolute tires found traction in the wake and gripped the road tighter. 

The rear of the trailer was illumined by red lights along the top and in the bottom corners that served as lane markers.  Eyes fixed on these beacons, we were guided through the blanket of white, the road clearly marked with illumined red.

We followed that trailer the rest of the way home.  His lights became our beacon, his trailblazing became our tracks.  Treacherous conditions were made navigable by a steady and reliable guide. 

In the tense stillness of driving, as I concentrated on the road, I saw the parable unfold. I was granted ears to hear and eyes to see.  Each of us is traveling a road that is more slippery than we realize.  The tires that grip one moment can loose traction the next.   Slight drifts to the right or left can suck us into an irrecoverable slide off the road. We need a semi truck to follow.  The answer is found in the glory of God.

In the Old Testament, God provided a cloud to lead the Israelites through the wilderness by day and a pillar of fire to lead them by night. This was a visible manifestation of the glory of God (Exodus 40:34).  A cloud in the desert and a fire in the darkness are about as noticeable as any visible manifestation could be.  Impossible to ignore, they were to follow where ever this beacon wherever it went. 

By the end of the book of Exodus, the cloud had filled the tabernacle.  “So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and the fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel during their travels” (Exodus 40:38, NIV).  The tabernacle in general, and the mercy seat above the Ark of the Covenant in particular (Leviticus 16:2), became the dwelling place of the glory of God for the ancient Israelites. 

Hundreds of years later, in 1 Samuel 4, the Israelites used the ark as a talisman, hoping to improve their odds against the Philistines by bringing it with them into battle.  The plan backfired and their losses multiplied seven fold over their initial Arkless outing.  Moreover, the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philisitnes.  When Eli the priest hears this news he falls over and dies “for he was an old man and heavy” (1 Samuel 4:18). This note of his portliness is not incidental.  Interestingly, the word for heavy (kabod) is the same as the word for glory.  Eli’s daughter in law goes into labor and delivers a son whom she names Ichabod (which means “no glory”) saying “the glory has departed from Israel.” (1 Samuel 4:21).  Indeed it has, in more ways (or, should I say “weighs”?) than one.  In one sense, the heaviness had departed with the death of plump Eli.  In another sense, the glory had departed with the capture of the ark, the throne of God’s glory.

The word play is intentional…and insightful.  God’s glory can be thought of in terms of his heaviness.  Not heavy like the chubby Buddha in the Chinese restaurant.  Rather heavy in the sense of dense.  All the attributes of God – his love and power and mercy and wisdom and justice and knowledge and grace – are dense in their concentration.  God’s love is the densest love ever known.  Place my love on one side of the scale and God’s love on the other and the side of God’s love drops with a thud.  His love is weightier than any other love.  This is true of all the other attributes when placed on the scale.  This is the glory of God – his attributes in all their density compared to the feather light attributes of any others.  

So here is glory…light and heavy (an oxymoron).  Light in the sense of clarity, heavy in the sense of density.  He offers clear direction charted with densely precise instruments of navigation to insure that he can guide me through this snow storm.  He is the semi-truck barreling down the highway, brightly lit and heavily laden carving a path and bidding me to follow.

Losing And Still Winning

On the heals of my second place finish in the Adirondack marathon relay, I decided to run one more race this season – the Empire State half marathon. The unreasonable entry fees keep me from racing more often than I do, but having spent three months building up my conditioning, it made sense to capitalize on that with one more race.   Based on last year’s results I knew my goal time would put me right in the mix for an award in my age group.  My hopes were high.

The race was this past weekend.  I ran well, right on my goal pace throughout, and finished in 1:32:08, good enough for 41st overall in a field of about 1350.  I was anxious to see how that would stack up against the other 40-45 year olds.  Results were printed out and taped to the side of a trailer where a crowd gathered.  I wriggled my way to the front and found my listing.  The results were in.  I placed fourth in my age group.  Awards for the top three.  And I was fourth. 

All the satisfaction of my individual performance withered in the light of the posted race results that left me just shy of the podium.  My time was good.  But I was just another also-ran.  I got a finishers medal – same as Will Artley who finished 1349th overall and took two and a half times as long to cover the 13.1 miles.

The next day I interviewed for a new position at work, a district manager.  I wrote about the experience in my last post, comparing it to a coin toss.  From my vantage point it was a wholly uncertain outcome.  From God’s perspective, it was a settled physics formula.  He knew the outcome the moment he tossed the coin.  He controlled all the variables that determined whether the coin would land heads or tails. 

Since then the coin, flipping end-over-end, has come to rest.  All that spinning finished.  All that uncertainty settled.  I had called it heads as it was whirled through the air throbbing with vigor.  Now I gaze at a coin still as night, tales side up.  I did not get the job.  There was one candidate who beat me out based on experience.  I was runner-up, small consolation in a contest with only one prize.

Runner-up may be harder to stomach than back of the pack.  Close enough to taste victory, only to walk away with a mouth full of sand.  It’s a gritty chew that goes down hard.  Hope runs high and disappointment runs deep. The near miss has all the drama of victory and all the angst of defeat. It is being in the running and then losing on the final kick. But failure measured in inches is as much failure as that measured in yards.  There is little comfort is being the best of the losers.

I didn’t stay for the awards ceremony after the race.  Why bother?  I wouldn’t get anything for fourth place.  Later that day I went on the website to check out the results a bit more closely.  The results opened to a page entitled “HalfMarathon – Awards and Age Group Listing.”  I scrolled down to my age group and found my name listed in third place.  Third place?  But I was fourth.

It turns out that they also had an overall masters award for those forty and older.  The first place finisher in my age group was the overall masters winner.  Having won the masters, he was not included in the age group awards.  Everyone moved up a spot. I moved into third.  Knocked out of the awards only to discover a loophole allowing me to slide into third.  I lost; and yet I won.  This seems a formula that God employs frequently.

When he called to tell me the decision, the director of Human Resources said that he had bad news and good news.  The bad news was that I didn’t get the job.  The good news was that they recognized the need to create a career path to allow me to move forward.  They have decided to develop a new position for me – a regional supervisor.  As they build a third Syracuse location and expand the original Syracuse location to include full food service, they would like me to move out of a single store and begin to supervise six profit centers for Syracuse – three stores and three food service departments.  

I lost, and yet I won.  Missing out on the District Manager position hurts, but this regional supervisor may be better suited to me – less travel and more concentrated focus on three locations.  This is my strength.  I trained all the managers in the Syracuse market.  I am training two more now.  These are established relationships of trust and respect, easily leveraged for me to act as supervisor.  I run an increasingly profitable store, top line and bottom line and feel confident that this is reproducible.  I know our food service program well, from front line production to back house administrative work.  Even now I am helping a new food service supervisor in our store get his legs under him.  This seems a good fit, from every angle. 

It will be some time before the pieces fall into place, probably coinciding with the building of the new location in the next year or so.  But I am hopeful.  In losing the coin toss, I may still win the game.  The seeds of hope have been planted in the rich compost of disappointment.  On close inspection, I see the stem just breaking through the soil.

A Coin Toss: Determined Randomness

Flipping a coin.  The most random of acts, used to settle disputes or choose between options.  The outcome is purely arbitrary.  The odds of landing heads or tails are even. Most noticeably, it is a mainstay in sports, football in particular – from the backyard Nerf game to the multimillion dollar NFL industry, we call it in the air to determine who will kick off and who will receive.

Outside the outcome of the game itself, the coin toss is the most wagered on aspect of the Superbowl.  Curiously, it had been won by the NFC for fourteen years straight leading up to the most recent Superbowl.  Even so, the odds in Vegas were even for heads or tails.  No matter how often the result has been the same, the chances remain 50 – 50 each time the coin is flipped.  The streak was broken and the AFC won the toss this past year.

Papa John’s pizza, the official pizza of the NFL, opted not to advertise during the Superbowl.  Instead, they poured their marketing budget into the coin toss.  If the toss came up heads, all of their rewards members would receive a free large pizza and two liter of Pepsi.  It did, and Papa John’s gave away millions of pies.  They also added scores of people to their rewards program, an invaluable source of targeted contact information.  Heads or tails, they won.

All of this – the decision of who will kick off, the Vegas line, and the Papa John’s pizza promotion - is tied to the randomness of the result.  The intrigue comes from this being a model of perfect chance.  Half the time it will end up heads, half the time tails.  There is no discernible pattern and no way to predict what the outcome will be.  You call a side and have a 50-50 chance of being right.

But really, the coin toss is not as random as we may think.  It is, instead, a matter of physics.  A flipping coin must obey established laws. Three primary variables are influencing the outcome – the rate of rotation, the amount of time the coin is in the air, and the amount of change in the axis of rotation.  Though complex in the computation, there is a formula at work with a mathematical solution. Control the variables and you can predict the outcome of the coin toss.

Persi Diaconis, a statistician at Harvard, did just that.  He built a coin flipper, a device that allowed a coin to be flipped repeatedly with the same conditions.  No matter how often it was tossed, the result was the same.  Diaconis could guarantee a heads or tails outcome.  From the moment of the toss, he knew how the coin would land.

The randomness is not in the flipping coin.  It is introduced by erratic humans. The coin flip is predictable, the coin flipper is not.  We flip the coin with varied force at different heights and different angles and catch it in the air at different moments.  The physics formula for flipping coins still holds, but it is impossible for us measure all those variables of speed and force and height in the moment that the coin is airborne.  From our perspective, the result is random.

But what if we could measure all those variables in that moment when the coin is spinning?  What if the formula was as simple as 2+2 and we could do it in our heads?  The coin flip would become far less useful as a random determinant.  We would know the outcome before the coin landed.  It would be determined from the moment the coin was launched.  In this there is a lesson of providence.

They posted a new position at work - a convenience store district manager.  Currently, I manage the company’s highest volume store.  There is no room for growth for me as a single store manager.  I’m at the top of that ladder.  A district manager is the next significant step in my career development. I meet all the qualifications they are looking for.  I sent my resume in.  Now I wait.

For all my qualifications, I would be foolish to think that I am the only potential candidate.  There are other high volume stores with equally competent managers.  I know I am on the short list (someone in the know let that slip).  I also know that, even if short, it is a list.  There are other qualified people who want this job.  I suspect there may be three or four of us vying for the position. 

It feels wholly uncertain to me.  I know I have a chance.  Maybe as good as 50-50.  Maybe less so.  I watch the coin flipping through the air waiting to see if it comes up heads.  Random?  Not quite.  The result of the coin toss is determined from the moment it leaves the hand.  The formula is too complex for me to figure out.  But the one who tossed the coin knew the outcome from the moment it was launched.

I believe in world that is under the control of a sovereign God.  He knows the formula and can do the computation.   He flipped the coin for an intended result.  While I wait anxiously for the outcome, God has already settled it.  Whether I will get the job or not will come as no surprise to him.  He flipped it that way.  This is determined randomness.  What from my vantage point is an arbitrary flip of a coin is from God’s viewpoint a settled physics equation.

I hope to get the job. But even more so I want to trust the coin flipper.  He knows what best.  This is not a coin toss in isolation.  There are countless concurrent coin tosses that are determining the direction of my life.  I see the one coin spinning, he see the myriad…and promises that the outcome of  them all will work out for my good.  Even if this one ends up tails.  Heads I win.  Tails I win.  But when I call it in the air, I’m still picking heads.

A Severe Mercy

This week my roll as manager collided with my roll as friend. It’s not the first time, but it may be the most pronounced. Details are unnecessary.  The silhouette is this- I uncovered a pattern of which I had to alert loss prevention.  Their investigation led to the termination of an employee whom I consider a friend. What she did was wrong, but I would not consider it grievous - probably more a reflection of foolishness than impiety.  Still, there are consequences for decisions made.

This is a young woman with a full plate. Large helpings of family conflict, relational turmoil, and health concerns leave little room for this heaping spoonful of unemployment and its accompanying side dish of financial struggle. I’d like to be far removed from this buffet.  Instead, my prints are on the serving spoon.

My head and my heart are at odds.  Even knowing I did the right thing, I still find guilt lurking around the edges of my disappointment – guilt for hurting a friend.  To conceal what I knew would have made me an accomplice, jeopardizing my job as well as hers.  So I tipped the first domino and watched the rest tumble.  I knew where it would end.

As whistleblower, I feel somewhat responsible.  Now I want some assurance that what I did was not only right, but good. To think that I have hurt a friend is unsettling.  I know it was just, but what of mercy? If mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:13), have I plunged into the wrong side of the pool? 

Or maybe these aren’t really at odds at all.  This may be a severe mercy.

                  Severe – adj. strict, painful or distressing, hard to endure.

                 Mercy – n. show of pity or leniency, divine blessing

An odd pair, these two.  Severe is jagged, rough, extreme, gritty, Mercy is smooth, gentle, subtle, tender. Severe sounds rock hard; mercy sounds pillow soft.  There is a tension pulling them apart.  But this is tension like magnetism – a tension that can be harnessed. 

Electric motors are built on the principle of the repulsion between like magnetic charges.  Two positive terminals in proximity repel each other.  This repulsion creates motion that is harnessed in a spinning axel.  Inertia is overcome. 

Severe mercy carries this same tension that, when harnessed, overcomes inertia in ways that nothing else can.  Painful or distressing circumstances can move me from complacency.  There are times when gentle mercy is not forceful enough to rouse me from my slumber, only severe mercy will do. 

I borrow this phrase - “a severe mercy” - from a book by the same title by Sheldon Vanauken. In it, he recounts his struggle to come to terms with the death of his beloved wife - a death that certainly qualifies as “severe.”  In the end he comes to realize that her death, painful as it was, was to his benefit.  He grew through grief in ways he never could have otherwise.  Foresight could not have predicted it and would not have chosen it.  But having lived it, Vanauken can see that the benefit outweighed the cost.   And so he discovered the meaning of,  “a mercy as severe as death, a severity as merciful as love.”

The writer of Hebrews says, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful, Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” (Hebrews 12:11).  He is speaking of spiritual discipline.  It is a severe mercy - painful at the planting, but bountiful in the harvesting.

I trust the same can be said of my role as whistleblower.  This is the wound of a friend - a friend who cares enough to risk the friendship in the hopes of growth.  In the long run I hope she matures through this.  May this seed sown produce a bountiful harvest - one that would not be possible without first breaking up the fallow ground (Hosea 10:12).  Time will flesh that out. 

In the aftermath, she asked me not to be mad at her.  Mad?  I’m not mad.  I’ve made mistakes bigger than this in my life. But I’ve had twice as much time for those seeds to grow.  It’s easy to see the harvest and lose sight of the planting.  But any fruit was preceded by deep furrows.  Failure has moved me forward.  In my journey, mercy has been truly severe at times – more than I ever would have fathomed.  Severe and truly merciful.  


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A Shocking Hope

Consider a psychological experiment done at Maastritch University in the Netherlands. The subjects were split into two groups and hooked up to a device that would deliver an electric shock.  Both groups would receive twenty shocks.  The first group was told that all of them would be severe, while the second group was told that seventeen would be mild and three severe. 

Imagine you could choose which group to be in.  Which would you pick? 

Cue the Jeopardy music.  My logical mind thinks this through very carefully. “Okay, let’s see.  I can choose to be jolted with twenty severe shocks, or three.  Hmmm.  Tough choice.”  Okay, times up.  My decision is made.  I’ll join the second group and take the three shocks.  Final answer.

Seems logical, doesn’t it?  If I’m going to be shocked 20 times either way, why wouldn’t I choose the group with less overall intensity?

It turns out that our reaction to an experiment like this is dictated by more than just the sum of the voltage.  There’s another variable at play that is more powerful than the jolt of electricity.  It’s the variable of uncertainty.  It’s a variable that I didn’t really give thought to while the Jeopardy music was playing.

The results of the experiment showed that those with less chance of receiving a severe shock were more anxious than those guaranteed to be shocked severely.  Their hearts beat faster and they sweat more profusely.  Getting three shocks spread out randomly over twenty was more stressful than getting blasted twenty times in a row.  Ironically, we feel worse when something bad might occur than when something bad will occur. 

Harvard psychologists Dan Gilbert, in reflecting on this finding, summarized by saying, “…when we get bad news we weep for a while, and then get busy making the best of it. We change our behavior, we change our attitudes. We raise our consciousness and lower our standards. We find our bootstraps and tug. But we can’t come to terms with circumstances whose terms we don’t yet know. An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait.”

In my plodding pilgrimage, I recently drifted back into a rut that I believed I had left behind long ago.  It was frustrating to find myself rehashing a pattern that I thought had been broken.  I wanted to believe I was beyond this – wiser, more mature, more disciplined.  But here I was again, revisiting this barren terrain.  When I saw it for what it was, I was discouraged.  The shadow of hopelessness was growing long. 

Then God spoke to me.  Not in audible voice, but in whisper - multiple sources echoing the same theme; converging “coincidences.” He reminded me that hope is what sets me apart as a Christian. Hope is an anchor for the soul (Hebrews 6:19). A certain future infiltrates the present and changes my outlook.  The swells of discouragement cannot pull me from my mooring.

In a previous post I talked about the entangled snare of twists and turns that is the course of my life (A Plodding Pilgrimage).  This rut revisit certainly felt like a pretty significant zig (or maybe a zag).  But hope is the assurance that this course does have a certain destination, and the destination is good.  In 1 Timothy it is described as “the life that is truly life” (I Timothy 6:19).  So this is the hope – that God can use all these twists and turns to get me closer and closer to real life.

And if that’s where I’m heading, all these set backs are surmountable.  With hope I am never stranded in the present.  Even if the electrodes suggest otherwise. 

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Navigator In Focus

I like this picture.  It was taken in our backyard last fall.  It’s a beautiful landscape, a pond surrounded by trees in the late hues of autumn.  It’s a scene I fell in love with the first time we saw this house.  But it’s not a picture of that landscape.  No one would mistake it for such.  In the picture, that landscape is all a blur.  Instead, it is a picture of relationship, of contoured intimacy, my wife affectionately nuzzled into the nape of my neck.  It is a celebration of well-worn love.  We fit together, a metaphor running beneath the image.  Landscape blurred, relationship in focus. 

Early in the gospel of Mark there are three episodes of Jesus calling men to follow him.  The first two are back to back.  He calls Simon (Peter) and Andrew (Mark 1:16-17).  Immediately following he calls James and John (Mark 1:19-20).  The third is separated by a chapter, when he calls Levi (Mark 2:13-14).  In all three episodes, these men are invited to join Jesus on a journey.  He calls them to follow and they accept the invitation. For the next few years they will spend their lives traveling with Jesus, sharing meals, listening to him teach, watching him perform miracles, asking him to explain parables, walking from village to village.  The decision to follow will change the course of their lives.  Each step takes them further from the familiar fishing boats and tax collectors booth. 

But what surprises me most is how little they know at the outset of this journey.  Jesus offers no details of the course they will take.  And he is frustratingly vague about the destination they will arrive at.  To Simon and Andrew, fishermen by trade, he offers the obtuse destination (or goal) of making them fishers of men, whatever that may mean.  James, John, and Matthew don’t even get that.  They get the invite with no mention of where they are going or how they will get there.  But they follow, stepping into a landscape that is blurry. 

There is a focal point.  The blurry landscape is the result a sharp focus elsewhere. That focus is on whom they will follow.  He offers a navigator.  “Follow me.” He will guide them on this journey. First and foremost, they are invited into relationship. They follow a person, not a path. The path is laid out as they follow him.   This is the beginning of discipleship, the conviction that I can trust Christ to be a reliable navigator in spite of the blurry landscape ahead. 

Recently I had a conversation with a friend about the new direction my life is taking. I told him I wasn’t sure what this will look like in 5-10 years, but I do have a pretty good idea of the next two or three steps I need to take.  Seems this is how Jesus navigates.  He tells me what I need to know for the next step or two.  He beckons me into the blur.  He asks me to trust him, to lean into him, to find rest in his well-worn love.  He won’t force me to follow.  But if I do, I’ll find that blurry landscape to be magnificent indeed.   

A Plodding Pilgrimage

In the Old Testament we find a number of depictions of journeys that serve as pictures of the Christian life.  So the story of Abraham, with his journey from Ur to Canaan.  And the story of the Exodus, with the Israelites journey out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and (eventually) into the land of promise.  And the story of the Babylonian captivity and the return to the land 70 years later.  These travel narratives serve as fitting parallels to the Christian life.  So in the New Testament, Peter calls Christians “pilgrims” (1 Peter 2:11).  Life is a pilgrimage, a journey with a specific purpose and destination.  This blog is a like a travelogue.  A journal of reflections in the course of the journey. 

But my pilgrimage has been a bit circuitous at times.  Years ago, Eugene Peterson wrote a book entitled A Long Obedience In the Same Direction.  And while I enjoyed the book, my own experience has not lived up to that billing.  Long – yes; obedience – sometimes; in the same direction – not by a long shot.  Even the more forgiving adage “two steps forward and one step back” is too tidy to depict my journey.  It still suggests a track that allows only for forward and reverse. 

For all my forward progress and backward regress there are many sidesteps. My pilgrimage is (unfortunately) not resolute. Seems I chase my tail sometimes. I distractedly sway to and fro, thinking I have a better route, a short cut, a new idea.  I lack initiative, hesitant to make decisions that I know should be made. I choose entertainment over enrichment, aimlessly surfing the net, browsing a magazine, flipping the channel. I procrastinate.  I make excuses.  I rebel.  I settle for the good rather than pursuing the best.  I wallow in self-pity and get bogged down by regret.

My pilgrimage is a convoluted mess; an entangled snare of twists and turns that I look back on and say, “How in the world did I end up here?”  I never would have projected that this is where I would be at the age of 39.   Never.  And the route I took to get here is still difficult to unravel.  Parts of it are just a jumbled snarl.

So a journey that could have taken a few weeks by the most direct route takes me forty years (well, 39 and change) as if I’m…well, as if I’m an Israelite wandering in the wilderness.  This is a plodding pilgrimage, a slow, heavy-footed progress.  But there is progress, as incremental as it may seem.  It is still a pilgrimage.  I am moving closer toward the goal to win the prize for which Christ has called me heavenward.  So today, in this plodding pilgrimage, I’ll walk resolute…barring distraction.