Driving > Flying

To be fair, for our sabbatical we are long on time and short on money. But nonetheless - driving is better than flying. And it’s a bit of a metaphor for the lessons of sabbatical. Side note - this is not about efficiency. There is value in efficiency, being good stewards of the resources (in this case, time) that God has given us. This is not a post about efficiency, it’s more about being deliberate, unhurried, present. The idol of productivity (see previous post) has caused too many to blow through life like a western wildfire, indiscriminately destroying everything in its path. We rush through the day, week, life without even noticing what’s outside the window. Ferris Bueller said it well, “life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around every once in a while you might miss it.” Well said, and Ferris never even had email.

Consider driving, as an example. We are about 3,000 miles into our trip. We drove from Raleigh - Cummins Falls State Park - Memphis - Tyler, TX - Van, TX - Dallas - Tucson - San Diego - LA. It would have been quicker to fly to L.A. But if we would have done so, we wouldn’t have listened to blues on Beale St., we wouldn’t have seen the saguaros in Tucson, we would have blown right past the waterfall in TN, we wouldn’t have felt the 118 degrees of Yuma, we wouldn’t have driven by the oil fields of Odessa wondering what that life is like, we would have eaten fewer In ’n Out burgers, we would have flown right over the Bill Clinton Presidential Library,* we would have missed out on Gus’s fried chicken. 

 Now maybe this is unfair - not everyone gets a month off to take a vacation out west. But why not? Because we are in a hurry? Because we are under pressure to produce? So instead we fly - and miss an entire nation worth of beauty. 

 This is not about flying vs. driving. This is about presence. Let us not miss an entire life worth of beauty because we are in a hurry to fly to our destination. 

 * Funny story - I was talking to one of the workers at the Clinton Library. She was a very nice elderly lady who was very excited to be working at the Library of her presidential hero. She asked me if I had been to any of the other presidential libraries. I said I hadn’t, even though I grew up in Simi Valley, CA, which is now the home of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. She then went on to tell me how great the Reagan Library is - it even has Air Force One parked outside! She then whispered to me, so as not offend anyone in the room, “Reagan’s library is better than ours.” To which I whispered to her in reply, “well that’s only fair, because Reagan was a better president than Clinton.” My dad would have been so proud.