Rides

I'm not a brave person. I don't know that I've ever done anything brave. I have done dangerous things and lots and lots of foolish things. Sometimes I did dangerous things because I didn't know any better, sometimes because I was too afraid to admit I was a coward, and sometimes because it had to be done. I've gotten off a motorcycle just about every way imaginable: high-side, low-side, over the handlebars and off the back. Every once in a while I stopped the bike before I got off. I've tried riding horses that didn't want to be ridden — and I know a couple of unique ways of dismounting. I've been punched, kicked, stomped, knocked down, and my pastor ran over me with a car. I'm not brave but I do have a high tolerance for pain.

Snakes used to scare me. My mom once beat me for what seemed like a good thirty minutes trying to get me to go into the cellar after, I think, a jar of pickles. I had seen a lizard's tail — but it could have been a snake — flash behind something down there the day before and a whipping didn't seem all that bad. I have a high tolerance for pain. I'm not scared of snakes any more, but they still creep me out. If I walk up on one unexpectedly, I exhale forcefully enough to make a distinctive sound, sort of like "ah-fhoo". Releasing my ki, I then moonwalk about six inches off the ground and proceed to chop the poor creature into multiple pieces or blast it into the next county.

I used to be afraid of heights, but I could climb to the top of any tree — maybe I figured I'd hit a limb on the way down. I could shinny up a rope, but I didn't trust ladders. Eventually I got used to stuff like that. Flying never bothered me, though otherwise I don't necessarily like being more than twenty or thirty feet off the ground, and I'd never make it as an ironworker, but I wouldn't call it a phobia.

I rode all the rides at the fair when I was a kid. I never liked the ferris wheel unless I was riding with a kissable girl. The first really cool rollercoaster I rode was at Silver Dollar City: Fire In The Hole. It was a brandnew ride when I got on in 1972. A few days ago I rode it with my fifteen-year-old granddaughter, and, even though we had ridden it about seven times in a row just before the park closed for the winter, it still made her scream when we took the first drop in the dark. It is a combination dark ride and rollercoaster, all indoors, and a cult classic.

But SDC has more rollercoasters these days. There is Thunderation, a rather modest steel coaster that goes through a tunnel and has several cars turned backward. It tops out a little under 50mph and has an 80-foot drop. Then there is Powderkeg, a launched coaster that goes from a deadstop to 53 mph in 2.8 seconds. You'll pull about 3.9g's on Powderkeg. It tops out close to 65mph and has a 110-foot drop. It is over half a mile long, has lots of curves, and is very smooth despite the acceleration. I'd call it my favorite Silver Dollar City ride. Finally, there is Wildfire. It maxes out at 3.6g's, but the top speed is a little higher than Powderkeg. It also has a 155 foot drop and I don't know how many inversions. I don't know how many inversions, despite the fact that I rode it twice last Saturday. A bunch. Upside down is not one of my favorite positions. I can handle acceleration. The drop isn't that bad, but upside down I wasn't too sure about.

It was just my granddaughter and me on the rides, and she cannot be intimidated. I was with her on her first little steel rollercoaster — which also went upside down. I can still hear her screaming that she was going to kill me for talking her into it. She's fifteen. Probably next year or the year after, she'll be riding with a boyfriend. Loops don't make any difference. We rode Powderkeg and the Giant Swing. The Swing was kind of a letdown. It's not nearly as cool as our old favorite the Orbiter at the late lamented Celebration City park.

From the Swing we went to Wildfire. I was not really looking forward to it, but I wasn't going to back out. I made sure the pockets of my cargo pants were well secured. You're in a car on Wildfire, but you can't touch the floor. The harness comes down and buckles with a couple of seatbelt-type straps. There's no question that you are locked in tight. I made it all right going up the hill and through the big drop. I saw that first loop coming, and I did the unthinkable. I shut my eyes. Like a twelve-year-old girl. I don't think I screamed. After that, the loops just kept coming, and I made it without a major heartattack. We left the park for a little while to eat a late lunch and came back to ride Thunderation backward until our backs gave out. Then we hit Powderkeg three or four more times.

Finally, after sunset, it was back for one more shot at Wildfire. My granddaughter was going to ride it by herself, thinking, I suppose, that I hadn't really enjoyed it the last time. She had seen my pained picture in the gallery. Now the crowd had thinned. As I walked toward the entrance, I thought about the harness. I checked my pockets. Lunch had been shaken down on the other rides. There was no chance I was going to lose it. "I think I'm good this time," I said. "I think I'll ride."

I was relaxed enough as I strapped in. With eyes wide-open, I took in the sometimes blurred track ahead. Every turn, every loop was just more to be enjoyed. I was completely at peace, laughing in the cool breeze, ground over my head, stars under foot.

God answers prayers, then, through the limitless array of experiences, reactions, and thoughts that come to us, both despite of and in light of what we may think of as unanswered prayers. There are always responses ... (Spoto, In Silence)

Prayer is never unanswered. It sensitizes us to the will of God. God's will is revealed to us as we pray, and, in our prayer, we find the power to embrace that will and unite our own with His. We find that His will is not something to dread. Jesus was not masochistic or stoic when He said, "Not My will, but Thine be done", and neither are we.

In fact, it is a lot like learning to love rollercoasters and thrill rides. Once you are convinced that the designers mean to create sensations rather than kill you, it is easy to relax and — ok, maybe not relax — but thoroughly enjoy the trip. Once we learn that God's intention is not to destroy us or play games with us, but rather to give us eternal, abundant life, joy, and peace, we may not be able to exactly relax, but we can certainly begin to appreciate the track we find ourselves on. Even if it's upside down in the dark.

Why We Pray

What are our thoughts but silent prayers? What are our good works but pleas for blessings and forgivenness? What are our labors but prayers for success and prosperity? What are good habits but a petition for good health?

I am reading a book by Donald Spoto, In Silence: Why We Pray. I find much of it helpful and affirming. One of the things Spoto attacks (though attack is a strong word for a writer so obviously broad and tolerant in his approach) is prayer as magic. Magic involves bargaining and manipulation. We are probably all tempted to do this at times as we approach God and bring our concerns to Him. We want an often-miraculous solution to a problem. In fact, this is such a common misunderstanding of prayer that it is used by people like Dawkins as evidence that God does not exist — or doesn't matter. Dawkins claims, if I remember correctly, that people who are in touch with God should be able to consistently win the lottery — either by praying that their numbers would come up or that God, who sees the future, would tell them what the numbers will be for the next draw.

We'll put aside for the moment the utter ridiculousness of this argument for anyone who actually knows anything about Christianity. It is essentially the same as asking why all Christians can't fly or walk on water. The materialist mistakes prayer and communion with God for magic. The devil, whom I have reason to suspect is quite real and a person in the broad sense of the word, may work magically on a very limited scale to lure in some of his adherents. God does not.

Spoto does a good job of clarifying the purpose and intent of genuine prayer, and he illustrates the difference between the legitimate Christian prayer of petition and magic as he goes line by line through Matthew's version of the Lord's Prayer. He also discusses the will of God in relation to the will of man — his point being that God does not have a will in the same constrained sense man does. We can speak of God's will only by analogy to our own — a valid understanding I think. After all, God, as Spoto points out earlier, differs from us in that He is not a "Being among beings" — He is not an Individual among individuals. He is a Person in relation to us, as possessing some of the attributes of a human personality. Though it is probably better to say that we are like God in possessing some of His personality attributes in our small way, since we are made in His image rather than the reverse.

While I generally agree with Spoto's analysis and reflections, I struggled with some of his language:

It is always tempting to regard prayer as the solution to a problem — or, worse, to all problems. But prayer is not a means of escape from the ordinary lot of physical and emotional life, which necessarily involves experiences of diminishment, darkness and dying. In fact, prayer is rarely the solution to any problem at all.

The issue here is the use of the words "problem" and "solution". Spoto is using them in a sort of technical sense, but he does not bother to tell us that up front. We have figure it out from the context. See how he concludes that paragraph:

We do not pray for utilitarian or functional or financial reasons, nor because prayer can produce beneficial results. We pray to know more deeply Whose we are; from that awareness derives everything we genuinely need in life.

So, contrary to what the author seems to be saying about prayer not solving problems, he proclaims prayer as the solution to all problems. Prayer does without question produce "beneficial results" if it results in us knowing "more deeply Whose we are". What it does not necessarily result in are UPS deliveries of free red bikes on Christmas Eve. I think knowing why I am here and being in communion with the One who sent me here, is pretty "utilitarian" and "functional". I think we will have a lot fewer financial problems if we understand our purpose and destiny, which, as Spoto agrees, is revealed through prayer.

Paul's words to the Athenians are recorded in Acts, Chapter 17. In that passage, he says: ...so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring' (Acts 17:27-28). Spoto uses these words as a springboard to consider the intimate nature of prayer. It is not a long-distance communication with a distant, withdrawn Deity who must be appeased by sacrifice and approached with formality. (Formality and reverence are not equivalent.)

Prayer is much like breathing. We do it, Spoto believes, whether we realize it or not. When Paul urges the Thessalonians to "pray without ceasing", this is what he must have in mind. Our lives are prayers. Our thoughts are prayers. Our words and our works are prayers. We are doing all we do in Him for our being is given to us by Him and it continues only because of His presence. How could it be otherwise in light of the truth that God is so near to us, that our lives are inextricably bound up in His, that He, as the Ultimate Reality, is the Father of us and of our reality. If we reject that light, we have nothing but darkness: ... If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness. Apart from prayer, there is no life. There is only emptiness and bleak, meaningless existence — hell.