This essay is by Elise Tegegne:

Hands gripping the jittery steering wheel, I punch the gas and catapult forward. For most of the bends of the indoor track, I’ve inched along with the care of a debutante taking her very first Driver’s Ed test (the other drivers zipping past with a huff). But now that I’ve found a straight stretch, I indulge in the momentary thrill of on-demand speed. Jolting ahead, my body and my kart shake together as one ravenous, chimeric beast, our screeching echoing against all the other drivers’ screeches. Inhaling heat, rubber, and gasoline, my breaths are short and shallow.

It’s my first time go-karting. Normally, I avoid anything loud, fast, or adrenaline-inducing, especially when such things are deemed “entertainment.” Water parks are near the top of my list of “Dreaded Places.” The mere mention of roller coasters unleashes vague sensations of traumatic memories. Best Buy is a miserable den of sensory overload. Even music is too noisy some days.

But my husband is a thrill-seeker, the kind who was calm enough during sky-diving to actually enjoy the 14,000-foot fall, who lined up for the scariest roller coasters the first time ever setting foot in a theme park, who dreams of bungee-jumping into some dark abyss. And it was his birthday, so I thought I would (as my dad would say) “live a little.”

As I sat queued up in my kart before the race began, cortisol tingled through my body. The other racers, mostly teenage boys, seemed to be serious go-karters; some had even brought their own helmets. I’d had to unwind my tight bun to fit into mine. I tried to remember the introductory video I’d watched (twice) in the waiting room. After clicking into my seat belt, I rested my pastel ballet flats against the pedals. The track waited, a two-tiered, black coil of curves.

Soon, the high-school-aged attendant motioned for the queued drivers to go. I tentatively stuttered forward. Veered to the right, easing off the gas to avoid hitting the sides. Veered to the left, barely accelerating. Veered to the right again, and up a ramp. Veered to the right again and down down, my foot pumping the brake to cool the increasing momentum.

All my energies were focused on driving. Steer right. Steer left. Brake. Gas. More brake (mostly brake). Swerve out of the way of everyone else. I couldn’t think of anything: the laundry I needed to fold, how sick my Nana was. Worries, dreams, reflections of any kind dissolved. Past and future collapsed into one intense, burning present.

I realized that — in the middle of a go-kart race — I’d stumbled upon prayer.

Ever since my son was born, I’ve felt God leading me to live continually, wholly before Him, to “practice His presence,” as Brother Lawrence would say. Remaining God-focused at all times requires practice. So I’d set a timer on my phone for five minutes, close my eyes, and attempt to simply be with God. But most of the time was spent batting away distractions like houseflies: the milk I forgot to add to my grocery list, the endlessly-recurring question of what to eat for dinner, the library books I needed to return. Even now, nearly a year and a half later, I still struggle to cultivate the holy emptiness so full of God.

But here in the middle of the searing cacophony of the race track, I’d discovered that most elusive of spiritual disciplines: single-minded focus.

For a mother who routinely juggles at least four tasks at once, the grace to center all of my attention on one thing was beautifully liberating. I felt a rare kind of free. Was this part of what brought the teenage boys to the track again and again? Not just the adrenaline, but the space to find — in the midst of a world beeping and glittering with distraction — a single, bright-burning center?

At the end of our two races, my husband and I exchanged high-fives and smiles. I’d come in last both times. But I’d had fun: and an epiphany.

What was it about go-karting that sparked such intensity of focus, the single-mindedness Meister Eckhart might call detachment and Henri Nouwen prayer? Perhaps it was the newness of the experience, the awareness of unexpected perils at every turn. Even the slightest wavering in attention could send me hurtling into the rubbery walls, or worse, another driver. Shifting my eyes from the race before me — even for a second — could harm me, or someone else.

Also heightening my focus was a sense of my own incompetence. I trembled under the full weight of my inadequacy before something grand and unknown. Clutching the rigid little steering wheel with my unskilled hands, I wouldn’t dare turn aside to distractions.

I wonder if I approached God as I approached the race track. As if for the first time. Bumbling and agog as a toddler. Expectant, wondering what awful and wonderful things might happen. Full of fear and quaking and awe. Knowing hazards and glories await the one who stumbles before the Holy One.

And ultimately: knowing my weaknesses are kissed with grace. My course is in divine hands. And the end, oh, the end is good.

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