Opinion : The wisdom to find Serenity when GPS is your guide

Like just about everyone else who makes a living working with computer-related technology, I both love and hate it.

I love the career opportunities it has given me; I hate it for its frequent, exasperating pranks.

I recently wrote about some planks computers have played on me. Recently, I learned how a GPS device can toy with your mind, and schedule.

I got a taste of how a GPS can give you less-than-perfect advice during a church mission trip to Kentucky. We were sight-seeing, and the GPS sent us off a main highway and through a variety of small towns connected by winding, two-lane roads. When we finally arrived at our destination, I got out of the van and looked to my left. There was the highway we had left an hour earlier.

Recently, I accompanied our 19-year-old to Tennessee. She brought a GPS; I brought the atlas.

I let her navigate, but kept the atlas nearby just to verify we were going were the little computer said.

We had stopped at Kentucky Bend to see a Civil War memorial (some Iowans were there in 1862). Kentucky Bend is the tiny part of southwestern Kentucky that is separated from the rest of the state by a horseshoe-shaped bend in the Mississippi River. And like most river areas, Kentucky bend has many short, roads that are nothing more than short black lines on the paper. Since we had arrived at this destination by following the GPS directions, I allowed Leah to find her way out of that area.

And she did. I was so impressed that I put away the atlas.

Big mistake.

We made it to the city of our destination, and were just a few miles from the camp site, located on a street named Serenity.

Turn right, said GPS. We turned right.

It was a little after 10 p.m.

We found ourselves on a two-lane road with tight curves and steep hills.
We drove for a while.

Turn left, said the computer.

We turned left.

More hills. More curves. More miles.

No camp.

Turn right, says the computer.

We did.

After about an hour of this we came to a sign indicating we were about there.

And by there, I mean a totally different city than we were hoping to see.

I got out the atlas.

We were about 25 miles south of where we wanted to be.

We called the camp directors.

“How did you end up there?” they asked.

I mentioned Serenity.

Oh, she says. Your GPS is trying to take you to another Serenity.

I disagreed. Wherever we were going at 11 p.m. after driving all day had nothing to do with serenity.

Try another address, she said.

We did.

This time we followed the atlas back to the city where we had last visited. We got to an intersection I remembered well.

When you get to that intersection, the lady had said, turn left and we are just a mile up the road.

We did.

There it was.

“Lots of people report that problem,” said our human guide. “Apparently the GPS is trying to send you to the street called Serenity in another town.”

I thought of that famous prayer that day: Lord grant me the courage to change the things I can’t, the serenity to accept the things I can’t and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Now, I pray for the wisdom to remember to take an atlas – especially when someone else is relying on a computer to get us where we want to be.