To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here
A few years ago a spiritual director gave me an interesting challenge.
“Try to become more self-aware concerning your driving,” she said. “Make as many observations about your own behavior behind the wheel as you can.”
Ever since emerging from the BMV at age 16 toting my very first license, I have loved driving. Short trips to the grocery, long trips from coast to coast, even driving through heavy rain or blinding snow – being in the car has always been a blast.
This is going to be fun, I thought.
But the more I reflected on my highway etiquette, the more I found myself in desperate need of spiritual intervention.
The first thing that dawned on me is that I’m often running late. I routinely fail to leave on time to ensure that I’ll arrive on time, usually because I’ve been trying to squeeze in just one more call, or one more email, or tackle one more task at home.
That tends to transform my driving time into makeup time.
Everything will be fine if I just go a little bit faster. And if everybody else gets out of my way.
Comedian George Carlin used to say there are two kinds of drivers. Those who drive faster than I drive are maniacs, and those who drive slower than I drive are idiots.
It occurred to me that somewhere along the line I had gotten into the annoying habit of honking my horn. The light’s green, buddy. So are you waiting for a personal invitation?
My youngest son noticed this behavior one day and said, “Dad, what are you doing?” I tried, calmly, to make the case that using the horn is part of the healthy “vocabulary” available to drivers who need to communicate with each other. I asked him about the most recent time he had honked his horn. Tyler thought about that for a moment and then said, “Dad, I’m pretty sure I’ve never honked my horn.”
That got my attention.
I also began to grasp how reactive and judgmental I can be when sitting behind the wheel.
It dawned on me that in face-to-face conversations, I genuinely enjoy listening to others, hearing their points of view, and silently offering gifts of grace and forgiveness. When cars are backed up on the interstate, however, all because some moron was trying to change lanes at the last minute because he wasn’t paying attention, all bets are off.
I can’t stand tailgaters. There’s really no excuse for such a dangerous and irritating practice.
Except when I tailgate other people, of course. Then I can think of all kinds of excuses.
Psychologists call this the fundamental attribution error. When I see you engaging in bad behavior, I attribute it to your flawed character. When I do the very same thing, I attribute it to extraordinary circumstances.
When you drive recklessly, you have an anger problem. When I take similar risks, it’s because I’m an important person who really needs to get to that meeting (the one where I’m going to lead a Bible study on how to manage anger).
The Bible uses another term for this phenomenon: hypocrisy.
There’s a reason Jesus warned his listeners not to cultivate a judgmental spirit:
“Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor” (Matthew 7:1-5, The Message)
We are so often deaf, dumb, and blind to the workings of our own hearts.
And rarely do we take into account that other people are grappling with their own extraordinary circumstances – many that are self-inflicted, but others that are no doubt genuinely extraordinary.
My spiritual director was right.
Reflecting on my behavior behind the wheel has helped me come to grips with some genuinely important issues.
Which means that if I happen to pull into your car’s blind spot this weekend, at least you can know that God is helping me with some blind spots of my own.