Getting to Here from There

Violet and William Kaczmark of Florissant, Missouri headed out for a family party one Saturday and got lost. Violet, 83, wanted to stop and ask directions. William, 81, refused. For nearly twenty-four hours they drove, stopping only for gas.

My first husband once got lost in a minor city in Louisiana. “Ask directions,” I urged. He, like William Kaczmark, refused. At one point he was reduced to wishing a flood would wipe out the city. He would have rather had an entire population struck dead than to ask a convenience store clerk which turn would take us in the right direction.

I chalked his stubbornness up to personality peculiarities until I went with my second husband and his brother to locate a family cemetery. We circled around the countryside for a good while, neither of them willing to find a local who could direct us. When they stopped for gas, I went into the little country store under the pretext of getting a Coke. I asked the man behind the counter which way we should go, and he told me. I wasn’t sure that the guys weren’t going to think I cheated by asking, and so would keep rambling until some cemetery, any cemetery, appeared. But I finally understood: Men don’t ask directions.

What do directions have to do with the spiritual path? For me it’s simple, and not just a guy problem. Often, as long as I can gas up and chug along, I keep puttering on a route which will get me nowhere, doing more of what got me so lost to begin with, hoping to recognize my destination if I arrive.

You would think by now I would instantly recognize this method is not only futile, but silly, because for me there really is a better way. Miracles. To me miracles are asking God, the Universe, a Higher Power, a Greater Intelligence for a different way of looking at where I am, for help to see what I can not now see. Each time I am able to do this I am given an answer, one much better than any I have been able to devise with my own, lonely, limited perception.

Take the kitten I found recently. I couldn’t keep it. I had already tried to find homes for kittens earlier, and knew the difficulties involved in private placement. The pound…well, it does what it can, but I know there is a lot it can’t do. I did remember to turn this kitten and its well-being over to God, and I also peddled it from door to door, guided from one animal-loving neighbor to the next. I refused to go to houses where I knew the kitten might not fare well, or to try to guilt a susceptible party into taking it, and thus transfer my burden. I got pretty disgusted along the way, thinking that what was futile and silly was my behavior. A grown-up simply must have better things to do with her time. But I had made it my intention to trust God that day. The kitten was taken in at the last house on my list, people I originally suspected would not be physically able to care for it. Not only did they want this little kitten, they wanted one more.

Maybe to you, this story sounds as if I got lost on the road and forgot to ask directions. No. I had turned the problem over to the Supreme Navigator. A friend told me, "I am more of the "prayer moves mountains, but you should keep pushing while you are praying" school.” I told her I thought a frumpy 55 year-old woman pushing a kitten off on the neighbors was pushing on the mountain. But more than that, I had been reminded of how miracles work.

According to my spiritual study, miracles do not depend on the magical powers of wishful thinking, or of any particular rituals. I was reminded miracles never take from one person while giving to another. Having requested, I can be sure I will be given the means by which the miracle is accomplished. My spiritual study tells me when I am not relying on myself to find the miracle, I am fully entitled to receive it when I request it, and that I should not be satisfied with less than the perfect answer.

The new kitty parents stopped a couple of days ago to tell me about the kitten’s progress. Not only was she thriving, but they adopted another one, one I already knew about. Why? Because I had dropped by a vet’s office (not my regular one) to pick up some dog food when a woman came in with a cat who had ridden to her office on the motor of her truck. I gave her my neighbors’ name. They did want the cat, and they said they were also adopting a friend’s soon-to-be homeless cat. No more, they said. They now had a full house.

And I was reminded, not only is God’s answer perfect, it is abundant, more than I could have asked for.

When I asked for a miracle, I wasn’t given a map. I was given a way. If I had done it on my own, I might have put the kitten back where I found it, taken it to the pound and let them do the dirty work for me, kept it even though I had all the pets I could manage, bullied someone else into taking it, given it to someone I knew couldn’t take care of it. I would have kept driving without asking for directions, which I have done plenty of times in the past.

When the Greater Intelligence gives me an answer, the Voice does not sound like Charleton Heston saying, “Lock and load.” I have to be alert. God might be speaking to me through my neighbor, or the person I’m entangled with. Maybe through the clerk in a convenience food store.

Or through an ominous looking stranger in a parking lot in a city far from my own town. That happened once during a particularly stressful period. A man who looked as if he could mug me asked as he was passing by, “Are you going to make it?” Maybe the stress had already driven me crazy, because I answered him. “I can only hope,” I said. I hurried on, afraid he might want to start conversing, when I heard him yell, “Stop!” Instead of bolting for my car like a sane person, I did stop. I turned to face him. I could not quite comprehend what he was telling me, but instead of nodding my head in agreement and making a break for it, I asked him to repeat himself. “Prayer,” he said. “Hope and prayer. Remember. It takes both.”

If I am particularly obtuse, if I have forgotten it takes both hope and prayer, sometimes God has to speak to me the way He did to William Kaczmark. A stranger who heard the missing persons report observed the Kaczmarks’ vehicle weaving erratically between lanes. He got them to pull over. Then he grabbed the keys and called the police. Violet said if the stranger hadn’t stopped them, they would still be lost.

So it really is not just guys who are challenged when it comes to asking directions. Any time I think I can bull my way through a situation based on sheer perseverance, I’m bound to make a bad situation worse. I’ve found it does take hope and prayer. That’s when I need to ask for directions. I need to ask for a miracle. I’m going to be lost until I do.