On a recent trip to California, I discovered what real traffic is. I had forgotten one can sit for forty-five minutes on a bridge, and not due to an accident, but simply from an overabundance of cars. Because I was in no particular hurry, I scanned the people in the cars surrounding me - they drank coffee, ate muffins, applied mascara, talked on cell-phones, even read the paper. No one looked all that distressed. I exhaled - Ahhh, I'm home.
Here, I have found, traffic is getting stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle - a horse trailer, a tractor or front-loader, or just a lost car from Kansas or Nebraska driving twenty miles under the speed limit. Because most of the highways here are two-lane with bad visibility, it can be the most aggravating thing in the world, much more than city traffic, because in this case it is one car that is delaying you with no sign of an intention to pull over. The feeling is more akin to something being against you than - Akkkkh! Traffic.
Today my traffic happened to be a house. Yes, a house - a rather big white house with green shutters seated on the back of a truck. Two trucks preceded and followed it - lights blinking, orange flags waving, and the larger than life yellow sign - as if it wasn't already obvious enough - OVERSIZE LOAD.
I sat back and turned up the radio, residing myself to the fact that I would be even later to the appointment I was already running late for. I watched the house, somehow balancing itself on that little panel of truck. The wind was heavy that day, and as much as houses are able, it swayed with the elements. It became almost a performance - with the red lights, orange flags, the yellow sign, all seeming to accompany the somber rocking of this one white house.
I have been angry lately, and for no reason that I can think of other than I'm a little overtired. I'm short-fused - tiny things set me off - and I feel that, at times, my emotions are out of my control. No one has suffered more from my outbursts than my husband, but probably strangers in society as well, as I have not any smiles or kind words to offer of late.
It was, in that moment, behind that house, that I realized my anger was the oversize load. That I was the truck, carrying a burden too cumbersome for me. Christ's yoke is light, but sin is heavy, and affects those around you. There are little lights flashing, flags waving, signs reading - Ostorozhno! Be aware! We literally teeter back and forth, back and forth, until we completely tumble over. Yet we continue to sin, preferring our own load to that of Christ's. After all, what would we do without our anger, pride, envy, greed? We would be naked, at a complete loss.
I decided then that I would try not to be so angry, as I really have nothing to be angry about. Perhaps anger isn't even the right word, but an inability to be thankful to God for everything that I have. I'm too busy looking for that which I do not have, and this search has become very, very burdensome.
So today I say - thank you - for my family, for my friends, for my health, for my Church, but most of all, thank you for the ability to see, for a moment, into my own soul.
Here, I have found, traffic is getting stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle - a horse trailer, a tractor or front-loader, or just a lost car from Kansas or Nebraska driving twenty miles under the speed limit. Because most of the highways here are two-lane with bad visibility, it can be the most aggravating thing in the world, much more than city traffic, because in this case it is one car that is delaying you with no sign of an intention to pull over. The feeling is more akin to something being against you than - Akkkkh! Traffic.
Today my traffic happened to be a house. Yes, a house - a rather big white house with green shutters seated on the back of a truck. Two trucks preceded and followed it - lights blinking, orange flags waving, and the larger than life yellow sign - as if it wasn't already obvious enough - OVERSIZE LOAD.
I sat back and turned up the radio, residing myself to the fact that I would be even later to the appointment I was already running late for. I watched the house, somehow balancing itself on that little panel of truck. The wind was heavy that day, and as much as houses are able, it swayed with the elements. It became almost a performance - with the red lights, orange flags, the yellow sign, all seeming to accompany the somber rocking of this one white house.
I have been angry lately, and for no reason that I can think of other than I'm a little overtired. I'm short-fused - tiny things set me off - and I feel that, at times, my emotions are out of my control. No one has suffered more from my outbursts than my husband, but probably strangers in society as well, as I have not any smiles or kind words to offer of late.
It was, in that moment, behind that house, that I realized my anger was the oversize load. That I was the truck, carrying a burden too cumbersome for me. Christ's yoke is light, but sin is heavy, and affects those around you. There are little lights flashing, flags waving, signs reading - Ostorozhno! Be aware! We literally teeter back and forth, back and forth, until we completely tumble over. Yet we continue to sin, preferring our own load to that of Christ's. After all, what would we do without our anger, pride, envy, greed? We would be naked, at a complete loss.
I decided then that I would try not to be so angry, as I really have nothing to be angry about. Perhaps anger isn't even the right word, but an inability to be thankful to God for everything that I have. I'm too busy looking for that which I do not have, and this search has become very, very burdensome.
So today I say - thank you - for my family, for my friends, for my health, for my Church, but most of all, thank you for the ability to see, for a moment, into my own soul.
1 comment:
This is a beautiful post. I keep coming back to it!
Post a Comment