The Most Important Thing in Life
CHAPTER 5 THE WRONG DIRECTION (Part 2)
The first visit to Boston by this unsophisticated, small-town Midwestern high-school hick proved to be a Tale of Two Cities. I loved the home of the Celtics, Patriots, Bruins, and Red Sox. I did not like the cold, crowded city. I ended my visit early, ready to be home. My grown-up kids travel the land in their various endeavors, but they all have that same homesick DNA.
As I waited for a taxi to the airport, a Charles Dickens type bystander suggested I take the subway, which would be quicker and less expensive. He gave me instructions on where to enter this underground transportation portal and how to take the Red Line and change trains at South Station.
The only subway with which I was familiar was a sandwich, but this sounded so metropolitan. I went down the steps to purchase a subway token, through the subway turnstile, and onto the recommended train. The subway train traveled underground at high speeds before it came to a sudden stop. The doors opened as many passengers exited, only to be replaced by hundreds of others, pushing and pressing their way into the crowded car. With the swishing sound of closing doors, the train roared back into the darkness until it approached the next flashing light.
This was all wildly unfamiliar to me. The subway sounds, crowd, and many exits created choices beyond my customary options. The town I grew up in had only one flashing light. It was not a stop light. There was an electrical short in the Dairy Bar sign. There were only two ways out of my small town. Fast or slow.
I panicked when the subway car passed the Charles Street station. My recollection of the advised directions to the airport bound Blue Line was cloudy. I exited at the next stop and boarded the nearby Green Line. Red? Blue? Green? What’s the difference?
Apparently, color recognition matters. Unbeknownst to me, the Green Line went the wrong direction. It headed away from the airport and out into the suburbs.
Eventually, we appeared above ground moving through the darkness as a trolley car. My late-night mass transportation passed many exits with no airport in sight. The farther we traveled, the fewer people remained on board. Soon, we were far away from any city lights. I lost my bearings! My confusion became fright.
I did not know whether these subway trains turned around or just dumped the remaining passengers into some abyss. Perhaps I should ask another passenger, but there were only two choices. One man appeared as if he had been on this subway car for twenty years. At least his stare and smell fit that profile. The other guy looked like the chainsaw murderer. Leatherface just stood there with a menacing scowl, muttering something. I suspected the buzzing sound was coming from under his overcoat.
If you are in a horror movie, you make bad decisions.
Too embarrassed to ask and too afraid to do nothing, I got off alone at the next exit in complete darkness. No station and no people. It looked like the middle of Nowhere. This could not be Boston or anywhere near an airport. I had definitely gone in the wrong direction.
Thankfully, I saw a taxi driver using a pay phone under a streetlight. He informed me I was headed in the wrong direction from the airport but offered to take me there. The ride cost more than if I had originally travelled by taxi rather than by the subway to the suburbs’ route.
I know that some readers are questioning the truthfulness of this story. To the surprise of many, there was a time before cell phones, Google maps, and Siri directions. You had to ask another living person.
I once stopped to ask for directions in Hollyrood, Kansas. That’s right. Hollyrood, (with an “R”) the land of dreams. Some dreams come true; some don’t. But keep on dreamin’. That might be the sage advice in Pretty Woman’s Tinseltown, butthis Holyrood intersection might be where dreams are buried because no one knows the way out.
The highway came to a three-way split where the sign to Kansas City pointed straight up. I stopped to ask a mechanic the best way to get to KC. Gomer Pyle pondered for a moment, then asked, “How are you going?”
Well, I might take a train;
might take a plane, but if I have to walk,
I’m going just the same.
I’m going to Kansas City. Kansas City here I come.
He cut me off before I got to part about the crazy lil’ women there and I’m going to get me one. That was OK. I already had one in the car.
While I am referencing a world unknown to many of you, let me add this hurtful zinger. My younger son wondered if I lived when the world was still black and white. What?
“Hey, Dad. Were you born when the world was just black and white like Beaver and Opie?”
That’s what I get for letting him watch TV.
This subway fiasco was not a black and white decision. My wrong-way adventure had been full of many colors with embarrassing red and scared white still to come.
My wrong-way subway adventure eventually led me to the wrong airport in New York City. I took an air shuttle out of Boston’s Logan Airport to NYC’s LaGuardia Airport. However, I missed my connecting flight back home. Why? Apparently, there are two big New York City airports. Who knew that? My plane ticket home departed from Kennedy Airport; I spent the night on a bench in the LaGuardia terminal.
The nightmare got worse. Feeling stupid and a little fearful, I sought to make the best of it. I ordered some hot chocolate and a sandwich at the late-night coffee shop. Suddenly, three large, very tall men closed in on both sides of me. They looked like giants. My parents had warned me about pickpockets, robbers, not talking to strangers, and not taking candy from giants!
The tallest man pushed up against me as he reached for the sugar and cream, knocking me into the giant on my left side which caused him to spill his coffee. His annoyed stare down was terrifying. With my heart pounding, I hurriedly backed out of the area, leaving behind my hot chocolate and uneaten sandwich. I returned to my terminal bench struggling to breathe.
Terminal: Webster’s Dictionary describes terminal as “the end of something,” like a transportation route or a person’s life. It carries the idea that this is where you get off…permanently. I felt like I was in a double terminal. I seriously thought this airport terminal bench might be my life’s terminal. Hope had faded.
My decision making was at an all-time low.
[Note: As years have passed, my decision making has plummeted to new depths.]
As I surveyed my safety options, I recognized some familiarity to the faces of these tall men scattered around the waiting area. I was hanging out with the Boston Celtics basketball team who had just played the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden. It would not be accurate to say we were hanging out together in the airport. Instead of asking for autographs, I ran the wrong way toward my secluded corner of the terminal like some scared chicken.
This wrong way subway incident–embarrassing, frightening, even dangerous–was an allegory of my spiritual life at the time. I, along with many well-intentioned people, was headed in the wrong direction spiritually. Just because the world cheers and celebrates the folly and futility of our lifestyle choices, does not mean we are headed the right way.
In a previous session, right direction had to do with one’s goal at the end of this life’s journey. Most people die the way they lived. There are no surprises. We end up where we are headed.
The signposts are clearly marked: Love always wins and self-centeredness always loses. Always.
My subway misdirection allegory begs for contemplation of another question. Is there any advantage to which direction we go in life? Certainly, which direction we take makes a difference if the destination is the airport. But what if we are searching for meaningful purpose and lasting happiness?
Which direction provides the highest benefit? Every direction along life’s journey advertises happiness, but which one produces the greatest advantage? Have you ever really considered that question?
Is there any advantage to race, nationality, sexual orientation, educational opportunity, environmental factors, appearance, ability, health, or wealth?
What advantage results from the direction you choose to take in life? What if you deliberately choose to ride the self-centered subway train? What will you have at the end of your journey? Those questions are realistic stuff, worthy of more than just a casual thought or mindless pursuit.
The #1 Textbook tracks down the truth amidst all the false information, fake news, and intentional deception. The advice is realistic, right, and relevant.
The most privileged man in history devoted his unsurpassed wisdom, incomparable wealth, and uncontested freedom to the study of lasting happiness. King Solomon’s credentials were impeccable. He was a scholar skilled in science, the arts, philosophy, theology, architecture, botany, and business.
He carefully and thoroughly analyzed man’s work and leisure, suffering and joy, treasures and pleasures, from beginning to end. He lived life the right way in wisdom and then the wrong way in foolishness.
He explored every possible advantage in life. He worked the hardest and partied the wildest. He built the biggest, possessed the largest, invented the newest, enjoyed the finest, and became the greatest. He explored the farthest, lasted the longest, climbed the highest, and sunk the lowest.
He went to the limits of amusement, alcohol, achievements, agriculture, abundance, adoration, affairs, and ambition. They all came up empty. After he exhausted all the A’s, he moved right on through the alphabet of activities until he had finished the Z’s. He had more and did more than anyone else before him or since.
His test of pleasure became a test of himself, and his blue book was marked, “Vanity.” Written in red ink letters across his lifelong research thesis were the words: “This is all worth nothing; it is vanity, apart from God.”
That study took place nearly three millenniums ago, yet still stands true today. The top-rated song of the last century was the Rolling Stones’ I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.
Much has changed, but nothing has really changed. More possessions or different pleasures have never brought lasting happiness. The perception of change is a man-made illusion whose bubble will burst. Why?
The divine design of life cannot be changed. Life is fundamentally broken. Something is missing. “You cannot straighten out something that is twisted, and you cannot count something which is not there; there is no use thinking of what might have been because it never existed” (#1 Textbook).
There is no use thinking of what might have been because it never existed. Contemplate on that truth instead of wishing for what might have been in your life. It never existed. Consider the divine design for your life.
Left to ourselves, we can never figure life out or fix it. Not with calculators and duct tape. Not with computers and gorilla glue. When people embark on a self-centered journey through life, they will always self-destruct. It is in our DNA.
In the movie Star Wars, the rebellion stole the plans for the first Death Star, which had a fatal flaw built into its core. The direct hit from Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing caused a chain reaction to set off the Death Star’s destruction from within.
Without love for God, every man and woman remains in self-destructive mode, from past to present and into the future. It is inherent in our design, a chain reaction of errors, broken and irreparable.
Politicians promise change, advertisers promote change, self-help books describe how to change. Why is there no change? Life is broken!
People are still unfair to the poor. Leaders are still corrupt and incompetent. Injustice, racism, prejudice, conflict, hatred, and selfishness remain constants even with new technological and philosophical advances. Life cannot be fixed!
We continue to make bad decisions and run in the wrong direction carrying our treasure chest of toys, trinkets, and trash. It does not matter if we chase the wind on camels, wagons, subways, or spaceships. It will be travel to futility.
Most life coaches in our enlightened culture argue and refute that conclusion, which makes this reliable information so relevant. The world and its advertising agencies market the prospect of happiness in the next things it wants you to possess, whether it is a new job, new spouse, new car, new home, or new identity.
However, something new never fixes the fatal flaw within the human heart. People are the same, as self-centered as they were three thousand years ago. Humans still desire to be happy, just as they did then. The built-in self-centered flaw in the search will continue to self-destruct for another three thousand years, apart from divine intervention.
Thankfully, God is the same and He does intervene.
God designed the dead-end goals of self-love to draw and drive us to Himself, so we do not self-destruct.
Our Creator designed us to enjoy life to the fullest when we love Him by loving others. Any other direction is the wrong way.
DIRECTION matters if we are to learn how to love. Our DECISIONS matter too. Many of us have sunk to new lows with our selfishness. How does that happen? Selfish choices are always wrong decisions.
The most important directive and decision in life can be found in the #1 Textbook. “Love the Lord your God…for in His presence is fullness of joy.” Love is a decision to not live a self-centered life. That is not always easy; it is always best.
Decide to Love First. Then decide to Love Most.
“If you have not chosen the kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you chose instead. For you have missed the purpose for which you were formed, and you have forsaken the only thing that satisfies” (William Law).
Recognition of God’s presence and purpose marks the beginning of your dreams of meaningful significance and lasting happiness, not the end. Any other direction is deadly to those aspirations.
Many do not even look for spiritual help until their life is in pieces. The self-centered train will always leave you stranded on the Green Line of Envy or the Blue Line of Bitterness. There is no reason to self-destruct. Stop. Get off. Find a spiritual taxi or shuttle or even a park bench where you can think and look at your life.
People get ready; there’s a train a comin’. You don’t need no baggage; you just get on board. All you need is faith to hear the diesel’s hummin’; Don’t need no ticket, you just thank the Lord. (Curtis Mayfield, covered by Aretha and Seal)
Self-centeredness and Love travel in opposite directions. One direction destroys relationships along the way to its selfish destination. The other salvages the lives of stranded people no matter what colored line they traveled.
If you are not on the Love First, Love Most train, then it will in the end make no difference what you chose to do with your life. You will have missed the purpose for which you were created.
This is the part where the O’Jays start singing in the background. “People, all over the world…join hands. Start a love train, love train.”
Where are you on life’s journey? What is your direction?
Look up. God will always be there waiting with arms wide open.
There is still time to learn to Love First and Love Most. All Aboard!
Why is the right direction so important?
It is the only path to lasting happiness. (next session)
Love Anchor 1: Remember the most important thing in life. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength; and love others as yourself.
Love Anchor 2: Love First. Love Most. God lives inside of you to lead you to others He intends to love through you.
Love Anchor 3: Study the #1 Textbook. Love for God and love for others lasts forever. The instructions and directions are in the book.
Love Anchor 4: Right Direction Matters. Life is about right direction, not perfection. Course corrections take just one step.
LOVE FIRST...LOVE MOST 