“Peter Began to Sync” by Brian Flanagan
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
I recently had a real rollercoaster of a day (both literally and figuratively) at Six Flags Great Adventure. We got to the park nice and early and barely had to wait in line for anything. We went on Batman the Ride followed immediately by The Dark Knight Coaster. Nitro was next; the first time in the front row and the second in the back row.
We had been at the park hardly an hour and a half and had already gone on four rides. I remember waiting three hours for Superman: Ultimate Flight when it first opened in 2003, so we were feeling pretty good about ourselves.
Then we decided to go on El Torro. “El Torro” is Spanish for “Don’t bring your iPhone On This Ride”. I secured my wallet, phone, sunglasses, and keys in the buttoned pockets of my cargo shorts, and tucked my hat down the front of my shirt as I had seen a man do on a ride earlier in the day, which I thought was a genius idea.
Somewhere between “Ahhhhhhh” and “Whooooaaaa”, my phone decided to jump out of my pocket. When the ride came to a stop, I had one of those moments where I declared with all the authority I had over the universe (which apparently is none) that this did not just happen to me. My beloved iPhone was (well, actually still is) now lying beneath this rollercoaster in a super restricted zone that only rollercoaster mechanics can access.
To make matters even more ironic, we were able to pinpoint by satellite my phone’s exact location on the other side of the military-grade fence using the Find My iPhone App, and there was nothing the security staff or Lost & Found staff could do for me. It was straight out of the movie “The Sandlot”, and I didn’t have a treehouse.
My first thought was that this was the end of the world. Yet somehow God still managed to work in all of this, and I was able to be at peace. We honestly had a lot of fun sitting on each other’s shoulders, looking at the satellite picture and trying to spot the phone over the fence. When we went to the Lost & Found to report it, the person in front of us in line was incredibly irate, and the desk-worker was quite flustered. I felt the Holy Spirit working through me as I calmly inquired about the next step in the process and made the desk-worker smile. I even drove home with a spirit of peace and detachment.
Okay, so what does any of that have to do with this weekend’s readings? For one thing, God works in unexpected ways and shows up in unexpected places. In the first reading, he’s not in the wind or the fire or the earthquake, but he’s in the still small voice. In the Gospel, Jesus shows up walking on the water toward the disciples.
In no way was I expecting to lose my phone on a rollercoaster, but I encountered God through that experience. He also taught me a thing or two about trusting in him and having faith, just like Peter had to trust Jesus when he walked out toward him on the water. Peter freaks out when he stops trusting and begins to sink, but Jesus saves him and calls him to a deeper trust.
I feel like the Holy Spirit similarly reminded me of all the practical ways that this was not the end of the world; once I got home, I could still text from my iPad until I sorted this all out, and everything on my phone is not only backed up in the cloud, but accessible from my other devices. I felt like I was sinking, but I remembered my phone was syncing. Really this apparent disaster has been little more than an inconvenience for a few days.
So what’s the moral of the story? When you feel like you’re drowning in some tough unexpected circumstance, even in the midst of real tragedy, God is always present and trustworthy. That doesn’t mean he will take away your hardship, but he will always see you through it and provide you with what you need (not necessarily what you want). Or maybe the moral of the story is “wear shorts with zipper pockets” or “go to the beach instead”.
