Road trip happiness

Before Covid I mentioned to my son that we should visit every major league baseball stadium.  I thought it would be a good father/son thing to do.  We have gotten to only 5 of the 30 so this year he wanted to add 2 more over the 4th of July weekend to get us back on track.  This would involve driving about 1,000 miles and visiting Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.  With so many variables I downscaled the trip to just Pittsburgh, 3 days and just under 700 miles.  I left the "side trip" to Cincinnati with the 300 mile extra day as an option TBD based on how everything was going.  I was willing to be open to the Holy Spirit but the weather was iffy and I didn't know how I would be feeling physically plus after 32 years of marriage I really hate being away from my wife. 

The morning of day 2, we had yet to go to the game, my son was in the shower so I had a good 15 minutes to meditate.  For some reason instead of thinking about the glory of God [ how I start all my meditations] all I could think about was Cincinnati.  I thought about the 100 reasons it wouldn't work from no research done, to parking problems to traffic to no seats even available if we bothered to look.  Then God spoke to me.  

 You wrote," being a great dad means being present." Do you think all those things really matter?  I am present to you, so you be present for your son.  

Well needless to say we went to Cincinnati. More importantly, I stopped worrying about all the things that could go wrong and focused on being present in the moment with my son.  The schedules didn't have to line up perfectly, if we hit traffic so what? [ We didn't BTW]  I felt joy almost every moment of the here and now for the rest of the trip.  It made me think of a saying from my friend Chuang Zu a disciple of Lao Tzu:

    While there is a certain amount of planning that needs to be done, one can carry it to excess as I had done.  We must do our best to plan and then leave the rest in God's [ or the universe's or Tao's] hands.  The key is not to be so busy that we lose the moments of life like I almost did.  

Pax

 

Joe