Milestones

Living amidst the chaos of the twenty-first century, it’s almost impossible to escape the cosmic undertow of negativity that pervades Western culture — families breaking up over politics, random murders, and pandemics that threaten to wipe out whole populations. Back when our ancient ancestors were traipsing through the wilderness in search of small game for dinner, they had to be ever wary of large game in search of human beings to eat for dinner. Three million years of evolution have hardwired paranoia into our psyches.

If life weren’t so full of things to be in fear of, psychologists would be out of work, but the other side of that coin is that life — my life, your life, and every other life — is filled with positive events that, had they not happened, would have ended our lives before they began. Those events are what Malcolm Gladwell calls “Milestones”.

I took some time to study my own history and uncover a few milestones that got me to this place, at this time in history, with the worldview I have — not just the obvious ones like meeting my wife and seeing each of our kids born, but the more subtle ones.

Transportation Issues (milestones one and two)
In 1922, when my father was eight years old, he ran away from home, leaving behind three siblings, a loving mother, and an abusive father. Dad’s plan was to hop a train for Mexico, a place that seemed as exotic and different from his circumstances as any could be.

That eight-year-old hobo made it as far South as Temple, Texas before a railroad cop spotted him in a railyard and hauled him to the local sheriff. Refusing to give his real name, my dad spent his remaining youth in the Methodist orphanage near Waco, Texas, but his transportation issues didn’t end there.

The summer after high school graduation, my dad and several friends borrowed a truck from the orphanage and went on a camping trip in Colorado. Unaccustomed to the mountain roads, they ended up rolling the truck down a steep ravine. My dad lost his right foot to that accident and much of his lower right leg to the gangrene that followed.

Those might seem like seriously negative milestones to the average reader, but they netted positive results. In the midst of the great depression, my dad was still allowed to attend SMU on a previously granted football scholarship, even though he’d lost two years due to his extended hospital stays and could no longer play sports with an artificial leg.

Secondly, he was ineligible for the draft which sent many of his close friends on a government-financed European vacation where they did battle with Hitler’s war machine. Even more important, he ended up working in Dallas, Texas during the late 1930’s.

Hillbillies (milestone three)
My mother grew up as one of six children born to an Oklahoma sharecropper who was married to a half-native American woman that Okies referred to as a “half-breed”. Their house had no electricity and no plumbing.

In school, my mother excelled in subjects that earned her a two-year scholarship to Dallas Business College, a rare opportunity during the Great Depression. You might guess who she encountered during her sojourn in Dallas.

The Hurried Nurse (milestone four)
In 1955, I was born the last of five kids, and when I say last, I mean I was a surprise that showed up ten years after some of my siblings. Since my mom was thirty-six and diabetic at the time of my birth, my parents couldn’t use the mid-wife, and I had to be born in a hospital.

Driving a really old car twenty miles to Methodist Hospital in Dallas, my parents barely got to the hospital in time. Dad dropped mom off at the front steps and went off in search of a parking place.

Labor started and mom couldn’t make it up the steps. Luckily, she encountered a nightshift nurse that got off work at 7:00AM and was coming down those stairs. That nurse carried her into the building, and I was born at 7:15AM.

Hijacked Date (milestone five)
In June of 1973, I had the world by the tail. I’d recently graduated from high school, had a well-paying job, and still lived at home with minimal expenses. I had a nice car, wore nice clothes, and had plenty of spending money.

On June 27th, I went to pick up Shirley, a girl one year my senior, for a date. I knew the bouncer at a Dallas nightclub, who would let two under-aged kids in the door for twenty bucks. This was the night I would get lucky.

When I arrived at Shirely’s home, there was an older four-door clunker parked out front. Once inside, I met the owner, a boringly clean-cut youth pastor from Shirley’s parents’ church, and a schmuck that I could easily roll right over.

While waiting for Shirley to come downstairs, schmuck — who was “using the parents’ washer and dryer because his broke” — tried to strike up a conversation with me. Like every fool who ever approached me, he started off by noting my unusual height and asking if I played basketball. I informed him that I hated basketball, a sport for those with more physical coordination than mental acuity.

Then schmuck dove right in and asked me, a perfect stranger, what I thought about Jesus Christ. I told him pointedly that I’d rather talk about basketball. When Shirley came downstairs, her mother hurried her into the kitchen for a whispered conversation.

Long story short, schmuck and I debated until 2:00 in the morning and I simply could not refute his premise that there is a God who created all we’ve ever encountered, and that God has a personal interest in every human being. A lot of pieces fell into place for me that night and a lot of my previous worldview came into conflict with my new understanding. My date with Shirley never happened.

Since that day, I’ve been an avid student of the Bible because I believe it best presents the whole story of a united truth. In the last ten years, I’ve also gained an insatiable appetite for subjects like biology, chemistry, geology, genetics, and quantum physics. What I’ve come to understand is that it all stems from a single truth and that the only conflicts between those areas of knowledge arise from my failure to comprehend the bigger picture.

If every single one of the milestones that influenced my life — some before I was even a sparkle in my daddy’s eye — had not occurred precisely when and where and how they happened, I wouldn’t be here to write this. If you stop and look back, I believe you will find an eerie similarity in your existence.

So, the next time the negative cosmic undertow of the twenty-first century starts sucking you under, don’t forget the apparently pre-ordained milestones that landed you where you are instead of at the bottom of an abortion clinic dumpster. Maybe you think I’m crazy for thinking this way. Great. Let’s talk. I’ll buy lunch.

A meeting of great minds who think alike