“Angel of God, my guardian dear ... ever this day be at my side ...” I kept repeating under my breath.
Welcome to Part 18 of a weekly series on the formation journey of Josh, a first-year novice at the Marian House of Studies in Washington, D.C.
I stopped our community’s beige Toyota Corolla at a red light on one of Washington D.C.’s peculiarly twisted streets. After the War of 1812, the city’s engineers deliberately designed the streets in a bizarre pattern to baffle potential future British invaders. Instead, as my fellow novice Joseph says, “The city engineers only managed to confuse repeated generations of Americans for 200 years.”
It was evening and the streets were not very well lit.
I also get tired in the evenings, but in winter I have an effective solution to the problem of staying awake and alert while driving. I lower the windows.
The streetlight ahead of me turned green and I pressed the gas pedal. Soon, the freezing cold wind was blasting about the inside of the car.
Driving conditions
I was driving to the airport to pick up Fr. Matt, who, unfortunately, was stranded at the airport. I had driven him to the airport earlier that afternoon to begin his vacation, but the flight hadn’t worked out (likely due to a storm) and now he needed “rescuing.”
I squinted in the darkness, for many cars facing me and behind me were using their high beams, which made it difficult for me to see the lines on the road.
I was following Google maps on one of our house cellphones. Someone had turned the phone’s volume off and I wasn’t sure how to turn it back on, so, I was trying to navigate by glancing occasionally at the phone.
I reached a rather ambiguous curve in the road where my lane separated into two lanes heading the same direction, but divided by a barrier.
I had to look at the phone for a second and think hard to realize which lane I needed to be in. I was in the wrong one.
There was still a moment to switch to the other lane.
I turned the wheel and glided left, in front of the barrier. I was okay, though forced onto the shoulder of the road – and then I wasn’t okay.
Right in front of me was an abandoned car parked in the breakdown lane. I was heading straight for it at about 30 miles per hour.
Turning the wheel sharply, I managed to get left just in time to avoid impact.
“Angel of God, my guardian dear ... ever this day be at my side ...” I kept repeating under my breath.
Close call
I had been praying a lot to my Guardian Angel ever since I started getting blinded by all the cars using high beams tonight.
As I drove, cold, winter air gusted around my body, ruffling my hair like crazy. When I'm tired, I sometimes drive with the windows down to help prevent me from falling asleep at the wheel.
When I arrived at the airport, Fr. Matt was waiting on the sidewalk and got in to the passenger seat.
“Do you want to drive?” I asked him.
“No, you can drive,” he answered. “I hate driving in D.C.”
He understood my need to keep the windows down while driving, though.
Noticing that my phone wasn’t giving me audio directions, he passed me his phone, which worked properly.
The volume was pretty low, so Fr. Matt offered, “If you like, you can raise your window and keep mine down.”
He’s a trooper. But I can be a trooper, too.
I raised his window while keeping mine down.
Fortunately, I was meeting fewer cars with their brights on, on the return journey.
Things seemed to be safer, now.
Closer call
Abruptly, a white car veered from the left lane into our lane.
I instantly slammed my foot down on the brake and we plunged almost to a standstill; the car behind us rushed in but managed to stop in time.
I continued driving, praying to my Guardian Angel interiorly the rest of the way. We arrived home safely.
Later, at dinner, telling the community about the white car zooming into our lane, Fr. Matt put his fingers an inch from each other and said, “We were this close to getting creamed.”
Not once, but twice on the same trip, I almost had an accident. The first was partially my fault because I was confused by the map, though anyone who leaves a car dead on the road should leave emergency lights on, if possible, especially if leaving it right behind a curve in the road!
We were alive and unharmed, thanks be to God … and my guardian angel!
Novice Josh reports, "Our novitiate penitential practices this year will involve temporarily suspending Novice Notes, as we're pulling back from many of our uses of technology during Lent. It has been a lot of fun working on the blog, and I look forward to getting back to it after Easter!"
Is God calling you to be a priest? Or do you know someone who would make an ideal priest? Contact us!
{shopmercy-ad}
