Originally published August 7, 2017
One of the best tools technology has provided us is Google Maps on my iPhone. It has provided many an adventure for Michael and I as we drive around our country, as it tells us where we are, where we're going, what's around us, and how we can get there. We often take detours down country roads we wouldn't otherwise venture on because I'm able to plot our course and make sure we can loop back to the main road, or find an alternative way back. We've had so much fun with it! But, as with any technological advance, it has a downside, too. It has crippled the millennials, as they have no idea how to read the map. They turn on Siri, in whatever ethnic voice they like to hear her, and she tells them when and where to turn. They never even look at the map. Sounds helpful, that you shouldn't have to look at a map while driving, but there will come a time when you need to know where you are. There is no highway that dumps you onto the South Carolina coast. I love that about going to the beach. You must leave the highway a couple of hours before you get to the ocean. I use that time to remove myself from the traffic and busyness of everyday life. There's nothing like driving through corn, tobacco, cotton and bean fields to clear your mind of modern problems and worries.
There's nothing like drive through fields of tobacco to make you think of simpler times. Left, in Florence County, SC.
For years we have left the highway as early as Columbia, and snaked our way through Sumter (my old stomping grounds), Manning, Kingstree and Andrews before we saw the convocation of the rivers in Georgetown. It was an easy ride, pretty straight, and through enough towns of significant size that if you needed to stop for a coke or some barbeque, you could. This year, we decide to head down I-20 for a bit, and cut south to Lake City, the defining geographic marker on this route. We started later than usual, as we attended the funeral of our dear friend Jack in Greenville, so we were traveling in the dark and in a bit more of a hurry than usual. The new route had a lot more twists and turns than the old one, and we had to do them in the dark. But we could tell, even in the dark, that these roads were interesting. Michael is a South Carolinian, but he's what you call an I-26/20 South Carolinian. He's only lived in places where those two highways dump you out - Charleston, Columbia, Greenville. He has not routinely travelled many two-lane roads through the fields of summer. He was fascinated. So on the way home, we decided to go that same way, so we could see the fields we missed coming down the Saturday night a week before. Both ways, coming and going, we depended on Google Maps, because we didn't know the route, and there were more turns than on the other route. Michael drives, and I keep one eye on the phone, and one on the scenery. Isabel, my millennial, also uses Google Maps, as she is old enough and on a different enough schedule to drive herself to the beach this year. She had to work on that Saturday, so came on Sunday, bringing her boyfriend, Larson. And on the departing Saturday, she had to go to Charlotte to pick up her dad. Fully versed in how to use a phone (which does not, I learned, mean Google Maps), and having made the trip to the beach 16 times before (which does not, I also learned, mean she ever paid attention to how we got there), I confidently said to Isabel, "See you at the Beach." "Text me the address," she requested. Done. And, I sent her some additional points about how to check in at the gate, and get her car tag. Isabel and I have had discussions about directions before, and my suggestions have always been met with a display of her phone, as if, duh, mom, I have a phone. She'll be 18 in October. She's practically grown. There's not much more work for me to do here, so I try to make what little lessons I have left to teach applicable to adult world problems, because those are the ones she'll have from now on. Actually, I've never had to manage Isabel much. She's an only child, which means she's always been able to relate to adults well, and is very good at entertaining herself; as a kid she read books, and now she looks at electronic things, but regardless, she has seldom needed adult guidance in her everyday life. I never even checked on homework - I didn't helicopter her work. I asked if it was done, and she usually said yes, or no, I'm working on it. And that was that. So I did not discuss with her how she was driving to the beach. She has a phone, I've been told. When she and Larson arrived, I did ask her which way they came, and she said something innocuous, which upon clarification I discovered it was the old way - through Sumter, Manning, Kingstree and into Georgetown - but only because "that's the way my phone told me to go." Well, she got there, didn't she?
Here we are, on the beach. Our annual beach selfie.
When it came time to depart, Michael asked Isabel which way she was going, as she was not returning directly to Greenville. Remember, she's going to Charlotte to collect her dad, who had driven a motorcycle there to be repaired, and would wait for Isabel to bring him back to Greenville.
"Whatever way my phone tells me to go!" with the perfunctory wave of the phone, as if we didn't know what one was, and a teenage snort.
Fine. As usual, I did not micromanage her, and trusted that she would get to her destination with the phone.
After the cars are packed and my mom has cleaned the house more thoroughly than the maid service will, we have the traditional farewell breakfast at Eggs Up Grill and get on the highway, each family in their car, heading home, away from the beach. Michael and I are driving all the way to Tennessee, 9 hours, and will welcome his daughter, Olivia and her boyfriend for a stay the very next day. So we stopped to load up on veggies (Olivia is a vegetarian) and fish (I just don't buy fish in Middle Tennessee) before we leave the coast. Then, we head back the way my phone tells me, through rural Georgetown, Williamsburg and Florence counties before we hit I-20 for the long haul home.
We were just inside the northeast corner of Williamsburg county - one of the state's poorest and most rural counties - when my phone rang, and it was Isabel, who was crying hysterically.
"MOM! I'VE GOT A FLAT TIRE AND I DON'T KNOW WHERE I AM!"
I could barely understand her.
"Isabel, where are you?"
"MOM! I HAVE NO IDEA! I'M ON A TWO LANE ROAD IN BETWEEN TWO FIELDS."
"Isabel, I'm going to need a little more detail. What road did you take?"
"I'M ON ROPER WOODS ROAD. I DON'T KNOW WHERE THAT IS."
At that exact moment, Michael and I were at a crossroads. Literally. Because Isabel's phone had given her the Sumter-Manning-Kingstree route, I assumed it would route her the same way, back to Columbia, to I-77 to Charlotte. So I motioned to Michael to curve to the left, and head to Kingstree, where she may be closer.
And then, Williamsburg County being what it is, we entered a dead zone. No Service. The two most dreaded words anyone looks for on their phone. Not 3G, not just one bar, but the words: No Service.
For 20 minutes.
As we drove into the "urban" area of Kingstree (population: 3221), cell service returned, and I called Isabel, who remained hysterical.
"Isabel, we're on the way," I reassured her. "Send me your location."
The cool thing about Google maps is she can text me her location.
Remember when we were at the crossroads, and we turned left, off our Lake City route, to head south to find Isabel in the predicted Kingstree? She was actually just a few minutes ahead of us on our Lake City route where, if we had taken the right at those crossroads, we would have come up on her within a couple of minutes. Of course, I had no idea that was the way her phone told her to go.
Calming down, she was more accurately able to describe to me where she was.
"I'm at a red brick church surrounded by corn fields," she said. OK. Along with the Google coordinates, that's something I can work with.
"We'll be right there. In about 20 minutes."
By the time arrived, she had sipped the drink we advised her to get at the gas station before leaving the beach, and was confident help was on the way.
Michael taking advantage of the teachable moment, and letting Isabel practice changing the tire. Note the Jesus Saves sign. The irony of the Jesus Saves sign did not escape Michael and I. It likely did escape the annoyed teenager.
There was a period in my life when I was lost. Right after my divorce. Before there were cell phones with maps. But that's not the kind of lost I was, though my internal compass was broken for sure. I spent several years drafting my own map, and I didn't even have the right tools to do it. I went to church, certainly, took Isabel to Sunday School, even taught it, but wasn't paying any attention to the most important road map, Jesus.
I thought I was, living a life that made me happy, that pleased me. But eventually all that pleasure wore me down, and wore me out. I got tired of serving myself. Because serving yourself doesn't feed you, ironically. Self-serve yogurt is great, but self-serve love will destroy you.
Jesus repeatedly asks people to follow him in the Bible.
And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” Mark 1:17 As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. Mark 2:14 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Mark 8:34 But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” Matthew 8:22 and the hardest one: Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” Matthew 19:21
They were lucky. He meant literally, follow me, so it was easy to know where to get up and go. It's not so easy, admittedly, today, to know which way God wants you to go. Sometimes he's hard to hear, and he's had to yell at me before, so I don't want that to happen regularly, either. We have a road map, generally, in the Bible, but sometimes the parables and convoluted directions are hard to follow when coupled with modern society and human temptations; the world gets all jumbled up. Things that feel good aren't necessarily good for you. And too much of anything is never a good thing. I yearn to be perfect, or at least a pretty good person. But I can tell you right now I'm not going to sell everything - that's a little extreme for my modern sensibilities. Isn't going to seminary on top of a mountain enough? So I am trying my best to follow Jesus, and am grateful for forgiveness and grace, which I try to practice in my earthly relationships, too. I know I can't be perfect (not selling all my stuff) and that I don't always get the memo. But I do know that the only surefire way to not get lost is to follow Jesus. And that no matter which way Google Maps takes me, I'll always be on God's path.
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