Straight is the Gate and Narrow the Way

You know the kind of experience that is just dripping with some type of analogy. This is one of those experiences that is still a little too close to draw any type of parallel even though it happened better than a decade and a half ago.

Freshly home from the mission, I resumed singing with a fireside choir. A fireside had been scheduled in St. George, so I carpooled with Chad, a good friend from the church frat, and his mother. We sang our show, and then one of the other choir members and his wife had decided to go home early. I didn’t necessarily have anything I needed to get home for, but the thought of being the youngest person hanging around St. George didn’t appeal to me, so Chad and I hopped a ride with Craig and his wife Shauna.

We didn’t get very far out of St. George when Craig’s minivan started venting white smoke. Apparently white smoke is bad, so we quickly pulled over. It was mid afternoon and we were in the Toquerville area, so it was hot, hot, hot. We were hoping that someone from the choir would pass, shuttle Craig into Cedar City, and then we’d get a tow truck.

Minute after hot agonizing minute passed. Even though we had the sliding door to the van open, it was still an oven. I informed my traveling companions that I was going to do some exploring. Off I bounded down the freeway shoulder to see what I could find.

I’d walked about a quarter mile northbound when I passed my third fresh deer carcass. Nothing smells quite as good as rotting flesh on the side of the road, so I decided to turn around. I passed the van and its sweltering occupants and tried south of our caravan. I’d walked probably a half a mile and the van was starting to get kind of teeny behind me, so I’d almost decided to turn back. I hadn’t come across anything interesting yet, but something ahead caught my eye. There was some type of culvert poking out from underneath the interstate. I jogged over to take a look.

As I got to the culvert, I found that it passed all the way underneath both directions of the freeway. That’s kind of interesting. It was probably six feet in diameter, so at 5’10” I could comfortably walk through.

Maybe I’ll just walk underneath the freeway and then I’ll go right back.

Off I went – the culvert was dry, and there wasn’t even much indication that it had ever held water. In a couple of minutes I’d traversed the distance. Emerging from the other side, my intention was to take a look at what was there – à la the bear that went over the mountain – and return. What emerged before me was a wide expanse of a dried up lake. The soil on the lakebed bore deep cracks making it look like a dirty patchwork quilt. I remember seeing a cover to a Weekly Reader in elementary school that showed drought conditions in Texas with soil just like that. In my seven-year-old mind each cracked piece of earth was surrounded by a chasm that must have gone several miles into the earth. My interest was piqued again.

I’ll just go down to the lake bed and then I’ll go right back.

I shuffled down a small hill arriving on this dried-out lake bed. The crunch of the clay soil under my sandals was every bit as gratifying as I had hoped it would be. It expanded out from me for hundreds of yards in every direction. I thought maybe I’d do a little running just to appreciate the grandeur of the southern Utah desert. As I jogged around, I noticed a tiny ribbon of darker dirt that snaked through the middle of the lake. It couldn’t have been 18 inches wide, but was consistent in color and width all the way through. Dark dirt means water, and this was kind of interesting. I’d been away for probably twenty minutes or so; I’d better head back.

I’ll just go see what’s making the moisture and then I’ll go right back.

As I got closer I could see there was a pencil-thin stream of water in the middle of that dirt. Determined to take a look I got closer until all of a sudden the dry clay under my feet gave way sinking me to mid shin in mud. This was bad.

I pulled my leg out of the thick, clingy mud. I was filthy. The thought of returning to the van with a muddy foot was horrifying to me. Craig and Shauna were already down about the potential cost of van repairs. I didn’t want a muddy tag-a-long making their day worse. I looked for a possible solution. The streamlet weaved its way towards a face of rock that I could now tell hid a small canyon. If the water leads to the canyon, perhaps there is a pool of water that I could clean myself up in. I weighed the time I thought I had left before Craig could have gotten a ride to Cedar City and returned with a tow truck. I probably have enough time. I jogged along the side of the water towards the canyon.

I’ll just go wash my foot off and then I’ll go right back.

As I got into the canyon, I marveled at how sharply the water had cut into the volcanic rock. It zigzagged back and forth a couple of times, and at the end there was a little pool of water. Saved!

The pool was relatively clear water about twenty feet across and no more than five or six inches deep. Its deepest point was against the canyon wall. It was inhabited by approximately six million fish about sardine size. Half of them were floating on the surface dead. You can imagine that they smelled pretty nice. I walked towards the water, when the sinking mud started to get me again. Hmmmm – I can’t get to the water without getting muddier first, and I wouldn’t be able to get back out without being filthy. Maybe I can scale along the rock wall from a dry spot to the water. Then I can scale back out.

The next twenty or so minutes involved various attempts on my part to shimmy along the rock to get to the water. All attempts ended about the same way: either I had to put a foot down to keep from falling backwards, or I ended up falling into the water and using my hands to get my feet back out of the mud. When I finally gave up I had mud from elbow to hand and knee to toe on every limb of my body.

I sprinted back out of the canyon, across the lake, up the hill, through the culvert, up the freeway, to a van that was no longer there.

What was now waiting for me was a white Buick with white leather interior and two of my traveling companions who were now quite worried about me. I stood there as they stared: muddy, sunburned, sweaty, and smelling like dead fish. Questioning eyes and open jaws hurled incomplete questions at me about my whereabouts and filthy condition. I stood in silence hoping that I wouldn’t have to recount what seemed like a very logical chain of events before I showed up covered in mud.

“Just get in the car.” The first complete statement was given. We traveled in relative silence to Cedar City where gratefully I was able to walk over to Grandma Mary’s house and use her garden hose to clean myself off.

I’m sure there are dozens of analogies that can be drawn from my parable-like experience. I’ve tried a few times to work it into a Sunday School lesson, but I have a hard time leaving a class with the advice, “straight is the gate, and narrow the way. Those who leave it end up muddy and smelling like dead fish.”