Nativity Catholic Church
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Roller Coaster Faith Not long ago, someone was sharing with me a little about their journey in faith and their relationship with God. Very early on in the conversation, she likened her travels with God to those of a roller coaster ride. While I don’t remember much about the specifics (my conversation partner, in fact, was rather short on the “specifics” this time around), I got stuck musing on the image of the roller coaster—and actually, how much I have always enjoyed them. Well, if truth were told, “always” is a bit of a stretch. My history with roller coasters didn’t begin with love at first sight. When I was a young boy, our family managed the luxury of a brief summer vacation at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. Due to a sudden growth spurt that summer, I was just tall enough to touch the line that allowed a rider onto the infamous “Blue Streak,” a monster of a roller coaster that still scares the daylights out of a new generation of thrill seekers. My dad seemed to be pleased that I hit the mark, but as I gazed up at the towering first hill climb of the Blue Streak, I was petrified. In my nascent days of amusement park adventures, I was leery of the spinning teacups, let alone jostling my way through the hairpin turns and chiropractic thrusts of a wooden coaster. I recall my dad working his fatherly magic to console me that I was “big” enough and “brave” enough to handle the Blue Streak (and to stop crying like a baby!), but I had serious doubts on both accounts. Once we got far enough along in the line, there was no turning back; and the worst, I now figured, was that I’d go down in a blaze (“blue,” of course) of glory and my father, too—justified punishment for coaxing me onto this wood-and-steel terrorist! Perhaps due to the Blue Streak’s ability to scare away any shred of sanity that still remained in me, I eventually fell in love with roller coasters, and I have enjoyed them ever since (although, I’m not quite as fast to throw caution to the wind, or my bones into motion-trauma, as I used to be). My favorite has been the “Jack Rabbit,” a 1921 masterpiece of a roller coaster in Kennywood Park, West Mifflin, PA, that plunges riders through a 40-foot natural, tree-lined ravine. The best part of the 1 minute, 15 second start-to-finish careening ride is the last “dip” that jolts you out of your seat. Indeed, any “ride” with God is much like the roller coaster experience—just look at the travails of the Israelites after the Exodus from Egypt, or the twists and turns, bumps and grinds of the 3-year spin taken by the apostles and disciples with Jesus. There are momentous climbs up Sinai-like mountains and vertiginous drops into gardens of agony. Sometimes the events of life and the demands of staying faithful to God flash before us so quickly that we don’t know what hit us. Often, before we really enter into the thrill of knowing and loving God, we must first make that long, drawn-out, clickity-clackity climb up that initial hill. There are times when the waiting (as there always is in any amusement park for the ever-popular coaster rides) to see and understand the “inscrutable ways” of God is nerve-wracking and nearly intolerable. Much like a roller coaster ride, we rarely get to see what’s ahead of us or behind us—often we simply react as the twists and turns come. The undulating waves of life, much like they do in a coaster ride, set our stomachs to spinning, and we look to God to calm those dyspeptic fears. But one thing is certain, whether we approach our journey with God with unbridled, know-no-fear enthusiasm, or whether we reluctantly inch our way along, sometimes being cajoled by someone wiser and more brave than ourselves—the “ride” with God is always more than we can imagine…gets our blood pumping…and lifts us beyond the mundane track of life.
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