Really Fast

If you have ever left my presence and any particular informal setting at the same time, you have probably heard me say, "Drive really fast!" If you're like most people, you made what my mother and dear sister (not the one that is married) call a mental footnote and you thought to yourself, "Joshua must drive like a maniac." If you actually take the trouble to ask me what I mean, I will probably tell you that what I really mean is, "Be sure that you drive faster than I can run," thereby telling you that I think that I can run really fast. The reality is that I do not know that I have ever quite run a six-minute mile (isn't it the four minute mile that lots of people can run?), but I like to think that I can run really fast anyway. Perhaps I should go to some trouble to determine whether or not I can run a five-minute mile (after some training).

But back to the driving. I have recently discovered that I am a poor driver. I had previously been under the false impression that I was a good driver because of some people's praise (those who thought otherwise were ignorant) and because of the fact that I had been in so many collisions that were not my fault. But one night, not too long ago, I found myself sitting on a four-lane road with my left hand (or left foot) turn signal on. Presently, a vehicle approached the front of the Illuminate 2 and stopped ~15 feet off of its nose. I then figured out that I was not in the center lane (because there was no center lane), but in one of the lanes that was supposed to be utilized for travel in the direction that I did not want to go. I moved back to the side of the road corresponding to the direction that I wanted to go (more or less) and turned left a bit further down the road. I continued to drive along to my worship pastor's house, and as I did, I determined that good drivers don't get themselves into situations like the one I just described and that I must not have been a good driver since I got myself into such a situation.

I find these things quite convenient:

1. My worship pastor has been trying to convince me that I am a poor driver ever since his first trip in the Illuminate 2 which was to the Red Sea Church in Portland.
2. My worship pastor is a professional driver
3. My worship pastor has offered to help me improve my driving skills

Let me tell you about how I finally accepted my worship pastor's help: A couple of weeks later, I was at his home again and I was told to make a list of my list of strengths and a list of my weaknesses as a prospective husband. In as much as I began with the strengths list, and in as much as I was having such a good time with it, and in as much as I don't like thinking of my weaknesses as much as I like thinking about my strengths, my strengths list was much longer than my weaknesses list. Even so, bad driving was at the top of my weaknesses list because I remembered at that moment that my mother had also told me that I should learn to drive in such a way that a woman riding with me would begin to think of herself as precious cargo.

Wouldn't you know that at the end of the meeting, my worship pastor informed me that the next meeting time would be spent on discussion regarding the termination of the items on the weakness list and that he would be willing to help me to put an end to my bad driving and that he could have begun to do so during our trip from Portland to Silverdale if I had been willing to listen. So I took, several days to think about it and determined that I would have to accept his help.

I am a bit annoyed because I still don't think of myself as a poor driver, or even a person who can learn anything about driving from my worship pastor, but if I am going to be at all committed to truth, I have to look at the logical conclusion that the facts are pointing to: I am a poor driver.

Also annoying is my tendency to try to explain away all of my problems, which my instructor observes. I can totally see myself moving backwards and becoming an ignoramus regarding my own problems.

Have you ever noticed that the last person to notice his own problems is the person who possesses these same problems? No, I don't mean his wife.

I realized this when I was still a teenager, so obviously, I won't have any problems left after I terminate this last one.

Ignoramus.