Windshield Thinking
Back a few years, I had surgery for the “man cancer” so many guys get. After they yanked out the offending lower unit and a short stay in the most expensive bad hotel in town, a good friend gave me a ride home while Claudia was out of town helping our daughter who needed her mom.
They wheeled me out and I somewhat carefully folded into his Subaru, but we didn’t start driving, just sat there in the loading zone. When I asked why he said, “Ever notice how large the front windshield is in comparison to the rear view mirror?” He went on to challenge me to look ahead, to plan next adventures, to listen for the whisper of the Spirit and join in on the fun rather than squinting into the past.
Life can almost force our eyes to look long and longingly into the rear view mirror. Careers, regrets, missed moments, triumphs, loves, and losses can all crowd the view. The older we get the more tempting looking back can be. Recently, I ran across a story of a group of folks that bears repeating. Take a listen.
At a dinner party last night, everyone introduced themselves by former job titles. “Retired accountant.” “Former teacher then principal.” “I used to be in marketing.” And on through the evening. Verbal badges.
Like ghosts clinging to professional identities long since departed.
Then quietly, an 82 year old woman said, “I’m Margaret. Currently fascinated by quantum physics and learning to play the violin rather badly.” The room shifted. Someone asked her about her violin practice. The mood changed. Conversations changed. The whole night changed.
She understood what the rest of us hadn’t yet grasped: Retirement isn’t about who you were. It’s about becoming who you are. Perhaps the real challenge is not only finding new purpose—it’s shedding the comfortable weight of old identities.
A friend, who I really like, seems so tied to his past that it sure appears to color all of his future. Just about every conversation is filtered through his former profession with comments like, “Back when I was a ….” Tiresome.
Now, we all are the sum of our experiences and roles, but if not careful, these can handicap anyone from moving forward and looking out the windshield to what’s ahead while using the lessons of the past to inform the future. A person is likely to crash if they try to go forward while looking back.
If you’re a youngster, you probably already are filing this away in the “someday I might need this” folder. Hang on. The handcuffs of past achievements or failures limit any one of us at every stage of life. It’s as easy as remembering the high school phenom at the class reunion, still reveling in their high-water mark set years before while not doing much since then.
Paul, when writing to a young church, got after this idea while talking about his own accomplishments, which were many. If there was a valedictorian in his class of rabbis, Paul grabbed that award, and there were, apparently, some who felt he had accomplished enough. Paul counters that idea with windshield thinking. Here is how the one version renders Philippians 3.
I don’t mean to say that I have already have these things all together or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.
But my mind can already hear objections.
"But what about my failures and regrets?” Do my best to seek forgiveness and restore relationships, then let it go.
“I missed out on…” Possibly, and that can’t change. However, what is in front just waiting to be captured?
“I’m all used up and no one needs me anymore.” Hogwash. The field of play will certainly be different and might be smaller, but no less important. Pray for eyes to see what’s next.
On and on rear-view dialogues like these unspool. The truth is that living through that little mirror can be an escape from having to jump into and embrace today. Front windshield living makes today an undiscovered land waiting to be explored and admired and developed.
Having this as a template for each day in no way removes all regret or questions or uncertainties since that is part and parcel with living. Life is hard, often. Unfair? Certainly. The way forward can be shrouded in fog and made treacherous with ice and snow, but God is never far away.
Thomas Merton, monk, poet, writer and sometime iconoclast, said this about his life looking forward toward the end of his days.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Living out the windshield doesn’t eliminate uncertainty or doubt or concern, but living that way while trusting in the ongoing presence of FatherSonSpirit is just better. Better for perseverance, for guidance, for courage, for a sense of purpose. Not easier but better than going it alone with eyes fixed on the past.
So, friend, this new year with its artificial borderline, delivers another reminder to check your mirrors for lessons learned and past issues to be addressed, then to set sights out the front windshield for the next lap around the sun.
Let’s hit the road!
MusicMusicMusicForTheNewYear
FunniesFunniesFunnies
Karen, the church gossip and self-appointed monitor of the church’s morals, kept sticking her nose into other people’s business. Several members did not approve of her extra-curricular activities, but feared her enough to maintain their silence.
She made a mistake, however, when she accused Frank, a new member, of being an alcoholic after she saw his old pickup parked in front of the town’s only bar one afternoon. She emphatically told Frank (and several others) that everyone seeing it there would know what he was doing!
Frank, a man of few words, stared at her for a moment and just turned and walked away. He didn’t explain, defend, or deny. He said nothing. Later that evening, Frank quietly parked his pickup in front of Karen’s house ... Walked home... And left it there all night. You gotta’ love Frank!
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(This one’s for Rick A, Mike C, Eric N, Mike J, and all my other fishing buddies.
After returning from a fishing trip with her husband, a wife confessed to her neighbor:
"I did everything all wrong again today—I talked too much and too loud. I used the wrong bait. I reeled in too soon and, worst of all, I caught more fish than he did."