Saturday, May 2, 2009

Adventure, Verbally Speaking

Adventure comes in all sizes and packages. An optimist can make an ATTITUDE ADVENTURE out of anything, including what seems like a disaster to us normal people. The optimist can arrive at a reserved(for a week) accommodation that has just lost its power due to wind shears (what ARE wind shears anyway---giant scissors of wind?)and has no water(electric pump) and in a minute, turn the whole thing into an Adventure just by proclaiming it to be so: It'll be an ADVENTURE, guys----just think, we'll actually get to use those FLASHLIGHTS we always bring and instead of formal meals we can have PICNICS with sandwiches and potato chips; no showers? We'll SWIM in the lake! This proclamation exclamation goes viral: instead of the rest of us jumping into our vehicles and driving the 10 hours back home or stomping over to the office to demand a refund, we decide to stay. And so, thanks to our resident optimist, we remember the year of our ATTITUDE ADVENTURE with great fondness...

Another kind of Adventure creeps up on us, beginning with a startling realization, then an adjustment of perspective, and gradually our eyes and head end up so clouded we can't see or think right. And finally, we have to accept that our usual calm voice of sanity has been attacked by fear and morphed into a mental scream of UN-sanity! Melodramatic, you say? You don't believe it could happen to you? Then join me in a little walk through YOUR TWILIGHT ADVENTURE: you get off the metro at dusk(twilight) only to find that the car you left there earlier in the day has disappeared ( startling realization). You walk around all the buildings, looking for a place it could be hidden, then the perimeter of the lot; everything looks familiar, and yet not(adjustment of perspective). You KNOW you parked your car right there and yet it ISN'T there (clouded thought process)! Are you crazy? Maybe so! Aaaaaaaaaah! (un-sanity). By now the only one way to make it through your TWILIGHT ADVENTURE and back to the world of sanity is to use your secret weapon: tell yourself the TRUTH: there is a logical explanation for what you are experiencing. Your car did not fly away by itself. It could have been stolen, but one car, surrounded by so many others? What you need to do is find someone to help, but you're the only one here! Truth: prayer can link you up with Someone else. You pray. A lone runner appears in the distance, jogging toward you on the trail right outside the lot. You jog, too, up to the fence and the runner recognizes desperation when she sees it pressed up against the wire and fear, when she hears the voice of un-sanity... She COULD run away, thinking SHE is having a TWILIGHT ADVENTURE, but thankfully she stops, and listens to your story. She asks a question or two, and then, oh frabjous joy, she tells you the truth: you need to get back on the train and go one more stop. You get back on and debark 10 minutes later to the sight of an identical parking lot---and there in front of you is your car, right where you left it!
Note: TWILIGHT ADVENTURES are only pleasurable in the re-telling, not the re-living...

What kind of Adventure experience have you had lately? I'm hoping for more ATTITUDE ADVENTURES and no more TWILIGHT ones....

4 comments:

  1. I'm always amazed with how we view our circumstances. Some people seem to handle them so much better than I do. I have to kind of 'brace' myself to get ready for an adventure! My adventure lately involves the fact that we have three cars, two of which aren't working, and five people who need to be four different places...

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  2. Ahh...yes...the great DC adventure. that was one I could do without reliving. I like the theme about perspectives!! I need to think more like that instead of "why is this happening to ME?"!

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  3. Attitude is everything, as our old buddy Chuck Swindoll says.
    This is great stuff.

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  4. Well, I finally got here to read this blog after returning from our adventure of house-searching in AL. Well expressed experiences and insights! Because our whole family is in the middle of this moving adventure with all of its subplots, we, collectively and individually, seem to vascilate betweeen optimism/excitement and insecurity/irritability/sadness. Basically, we know it will all work out, because He is in control-not we.

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