Indy Boswell

Slashing sleet blew wildly across the windshield as Minor pulled out of the driveway. As he made the turn towards Jordan, eight miles to the south, Minor eased down the accelerator, and his Lincoln Town Car slowly gained speed over the slick two-lane road. Having spent the last few hours in Krampton discussing some of Meister Eckhart’s more esoteric writings with his old friend, Vive, Minor was in a thoughtful mood. He touched the radio controls on the steering wheel and on came FM 101.

Eight miles away the windshield wipers of an old beat-up ’91 Chevy slapped back and forth, clearing only half of the sleeting ice from Ellie’s vision as she accelerated quickly through the four way stop on the outskirts of Jordan. Fearful that her daughter’s three-day old cold had turned to pneumonia, Ellie was rushing Kimberly to the hospital in Krampton. Hoping that music might soothe her daughter’s discomfort, Ellie reached over and turned the knob to the radio.

As Minor drove past an old vacated country school house on the right, a salesman on the radio began to tout, like a modern day Elmer Gantry, the great car deals that were being offered over the holidays. Seven miles away with her mind elsewhere, Ellie did not hear a word of the same commercial. Thirty seconds down the road, another salesperson in another commercial began extolling the opening of a new hair salon in Krampton. Shortly after the cleansing properties of a modern day conditioning wonder had been fully explained, the early evening deejay from FM 101 took back control of the airwaves.

“All right, folks! We’re back in business again! What do you say? Let’s not waste any more time and get right to that song that I have been promising to play. The one by everyone’s newest sweetheart, Carrie Underwood—Jesus, Take the Wheel.”

Minor smiled at the coincidence. Less than an hour before during his conversation with Vive, Minor had raised issues about this particular song, arguing that it was sending the wrong kind of message to the public. “It’s not what Meister Eckhart would have recommended,” Minor had told his friend at the time. Now however, regardless of his disagreement with the song’s lyrics, Minor touched the volume button on the steering wheel to turn up the sound to the radio.

Six miles to the south Ellie also smiled at the coincidence, but her smile was different from that of Minor’s. Since becoming a single mother shortly after Kimberly’s birth, Ellie had experienced especially difficult times. With her parents in Florida for the winter, outside of Kimberly, Ellie felt totally alone and abandoned. It had been a long hard year, and recently Ellie felt that Jesus, Take the Wheel had become her own special theme song. Ellie could not count the times that she had listened to the song over the past month and wished to herself that she could just turn everything over to Jesus, including Kimberly, and just let go of the wheel. Now as she was driving through the sleet and snow on the slick highway with her daughter in the backseat, she sadly shook her head at the irony of her situation.

“She was driving last Friday on her way to Cincinnati on a snow white Christmas Eve. Going home to see her Mama and her Daddy with the baby in the backseat. Fifty miles to go and she was running low on faith and gasoline. . .Before she knew it she was spinning on a thin black sheet of glass. . . She threw her hands up in the air. . .Jesus, take the wheel”

Minor thought again about Vive’s earlier response. I wouldn’t be too quick with your judgment his friend had responded at the time. It’s somewhat like walking the razor’s edge. I fully understand the weak side of the argument. But the question remains–how much of your inner being should you turn over to God, and how much should you retain for yourself. Don’t forget that in his sermons on poverty Eckhart told us to empty ourselves of everything. He said that if our souls were to be proper abodes for God and places fit for God to act in, then we should also be free from all things, including our own actions.

Now only four miles from Minor’s thoughts, Ellie tightened her grip on the steering wheel and leaned forward to try to improve her vision of the road ahead. Almost as a prayer in and of itself, Ellie began singing the familiar words of the chorus as her radio idol pleaded for assistance. “Jesus, take the wheel. Take it from my hands. Cause I can’t do this all on my own. . .But give me one more chance to save me from this road I’m on. Jesus, take the wheel.”

I still cannot buy it Minor thought to himself as the first chorus ended. What would happen if everyone gave up the wheel? In fact, what would happen if I gave up the wheel right now? Looking ahead and not seeing any cars, Minor lifted his foot from the accelerator and pulled his hands away from the steering wheel. The car continued forward, but then began slowly drifting to the center of the road. Minor quickly took back control of the car and pulled the Lincoln back into the right hand lane. Considering the results of his impromptu test an affirmation to his argument, Minor smiled to himself.

Three miles away from Minor’s experiment, Ellie stopped singing with the music. With the weather worsening she began to worry about the deteriorating road conditions and especially about the ninety degree turn that was coming up not much more than a mile and a half ahead. With the windshield wipers flapping back and forth in time with the music, Ellie listened to America’s idol begin the second verse to her country pop hit.

‘It was still getting colder when she made it to the shoulder and the car came to a stop. . . She saw that baby in the backseat sleeping like a rock. ..She bowed her head to pray. . .I know I’ve got to change so from now on tonight. . .Jesus take the wheel, take it from my hands. . . And give me one more chance to save me from this road I’m own.”

As Minor drove toward the first of two, sloped, shortly-spaced, ninety degree turns on the road between Krampton and Jordan, his mind shifted back to something that Vive had said in their earlier meeting. “You’re not necessarily wrong in your one way of thinking,” Minor remembered Vive saying, “but I believe there is another way for you to look at this issue. I would agree with you that regardless of the situation everyone must take personal control and responsibility for his or her actions in solving their particular problems. But accepting that as a given, there is something that I have come to learn that I don’t think you are taking into consideration. I consider it my own little secret.” Minor remembered nodding his head when Vive asked him if he wanted to know what his little secret was. “It’s nothing Earth-shattering,” Minor remembered Vive’s response. “In fact, there’s really not much to it at all. It’s just that over time I’ve learned by following the advice of the prophets that I can solve whatever my problems are a lot better than I can without following their advice. And for that reason alone, I think it’s okay if you throw your burden on Jesus. By doing so, it makes you think of him; and thinking of him makes you think more like him. And if you do that, then I think you will find yourself in a better place—with Love as your focus. After all, don’t forget,” Minor remembered Vive’s last invigorated statement, “Jesus was Love! And Extreme Love and the Highest Knowledge are One!”

As the young crooner on the radio finished her final familiar “Jesus take the Wheel” chorus, Minor navigated his way through the first ninety-degree turn and prepared himself for the more tricky one that was upcoming about a tenth a mile away. The road was slick. And as Minor’s Lincoln entered the second turn from the west, an old Chevy entered the same turn from the south.

Suddenly, one of the cars hit a patch of ice and began sliding across the median. The driver of that particular car quickly grabbed the steering wheel, began pumping the breaks, and doing everything she could to regain control of the potential machine of death. Much to her great relief, the tires of the Chevy found a small patch of dry pavement, enabling Ellie to pull miraculously back into the right hand lane just as the lights of an oncoming car flashed by safely on the left.

Twenty minutes later, Minor was making a pot of coffee in his kitchen as he prepared for friends to stop over for a visit.

Twenty minutes after that a kind doctor came out into the waiting area of the hospital in Krampton and informed Ellie that her daughter was going to be fine.

Twenty years after that Kimberly was found to be a very special girl.