Control

My daughter is learning to drive.

I know people survive this and she's had a learner's permit for a year so we're coming along, but the passenger seat humbles me. I have to realize all the control issues I learned to control are looming under the surface. (I am laughing at the irony and I'm really not that huge of a control freak-just the stuff I care about). 

I sit in the passenger seat with my hands placed gently on my lap. It's kind of a creepy pose normally saved for funeral homes where one wants to present an impression of calm and respect. 

My goal is not to yell or make any sudden motions. I realize that this child will someday probably wipe my ass and feed me some kind of pureed food so I want to be nice. She's learning well and the depth and speed perception issues are coming along nicely. 

It's just hard to let go of driving. And scary. And there's no emergency brake on my side to fix mistakes.

So I sit with my hands in my lap with that uncomfortable forced calm that's scarier than my craziness. When I'm not mentioning the other cars or mailboxes, I think about all the things I try to control in my life.

It's a bit ridiculous. The one that stuck out the most to me is trying to control strained or broken relationships. I try to take on the ownership and guilt of everything that is wrong. 

It has nothing to do with being a martyr and everything to do with control. If a broken relationship is my fault, then I can fix it. If I can take responsibility for something not working, then I can work harder and make it succeed. 

I want things to work out. I want people to like me. I want intimacy. And it's just hard for me to allow the universe, or God, or others to have the freedom not to want that. 

WALLS

We're taking a group from church to Germany in 2017. We are visiting Berlin and talked some about the wall. 

One fellow in the group was in Berlin right before they constructed the wall. His relatives convinced him not to visit folks in East Berlin or he might never leave. Luckily he listened. 

I didn't take any pictures of the Berlin wall in high school,
but a good shot of our big hair and awesome
jean jackets. 

The last time I was in Berlin, I went through Checkpoint Charlie a year before the wall came down. The East German guards went through my purse, which at that time was the size of Hermoinne's, and filled with McDonald's toys. I used to be so weird. 

I remember lots of gray in East Berlin. It was the beginning of my disillusionment with communism. People do not flourish in gray.

The wall, like most walls, wasn't simply a concrete structure. The wall included mines, dogs, guard towers, and guns. No one could imagine it ever coming down. Relationships seemed severed forever.

Knocking down the wall was outside of anyone's control, but not out of imagination. Many different factors came together to make October 9, 1989 the right moment, but the church was at the heart of them. The church was one of the few places where folks could talk and dream of a different way.

Parishioners were threatened, beaten, their children removed, but on October 9th, they swelled to hundreds of thousands and headed into the streets with candles and prayers.

The BBC article quoted, "Pastor Führer said: "They didn't attack. They had nothing to attack for. East German officials would later say they were ready for anything, except for candles and prayer."

It's hard not to have control, not to
be able to fix the chasms or walls. Community, candles, and prayers seem a bit lame in the face of such great division. But, they brought down the wall and sometimes they are the only tools we have when things are outside our control. 

I wonder what Hannah would say if I brought a candle next time.