Road rage without a car

If I ever wanted to dedicate a blog to the mysteries of driving in Boston, "Road Rage Without a Car" would be the title of it. However, this blog posting is dedicated to those people who drive us up a wall. You know, the people, for no good reason, seem to get under our skin and bring us to teenage levels of gossip and loathing.

Sex and the City coined the term "frenemy." This is supposed to be a friend but is based upon being enemies. This term has me think of Newman from "Seinfeld" or the relationship between Karen and Grace (well Karen and anyone really) on "Will & Grace." There are sweet and tender moments but they are also met with moments of sheer anger, frustration and cutting sarcasm. Sad, but this is a grown-up version of what I saw in middle school. Somehow, we take what was acceptable back then and dress it up for the after party.

Today I was reminded about the pain of others. Sometimes I'm so busy finding the way out of my own hurt and anger that's hard to see it parallels someone else's. We're walking side by side and yet fighting each other instead of helping. My own hurt and anger came rushing out in a desperate attempt to name the pain. In the process, I realized we're not so far from each other as we would have ourselves believe.

What I also discovered in this process is that it is up to me to get through the pain and find a way to love. It is not up to anyone else to do it for me. It's in this moment I need to seek out Jesus to come a little closer to me. I need to seek out respite from a storm of emotions and thoughts. Jesus is just waiting for me to ask for directions... my own GPS on this crazy road trip. Life isn't supposed to be filled with rage. I'm not supposed to speed up to hit the massive potholes. I'm also not supposed to speed up for the bumps. It worked on the Dukes of Hazzard, but not for me.

People are like speed bumps... stay with me here on this. We are supposed to approach with caution. If we go too fast, irreparable damage can be done to both. If we avoid them all together, we miss out on slowing down and catching some of the more interesting aspects of life. (You can't tell me that what you see in front of a grocery or department store isn't interesting on a Saturday afternoon!) Each one us us has felt like part of a journey but also a little run over. The balance is getting to where I need to go without running over people along the way. Slowing down helps that.

I don't have a solution... I'm not even sure I articulated a problem. I just know I needed to think this out in my own haphazard way to prevent driving too fast over a speed bump and find out I lost my muffler in the process.