I’m partial to daylight I’ve decided, especially while driving.
And particularly when driving along Interstate 70 in mid-Missouri.
Locals know I-70 to be a major trade route, populated with a steady stream of tractor-trailers all doing their best to do the speed limit. And that qualifies the Big Rigs as slowpokes along this stretch of asphalt. Many smaller vehicles (of which there are plenty, particularly on Game Day at Mizzou) dart by doing 80 mph or more.
That pace is a bit brisk for my tastes, but I manage to tolerate the other drivers’ impatience OK when I can see what’s coming (and going).
After dark, it’s a different story: Headlight glare has become a bit of an issue in the rearview mirror. (Is it just me, or has the auto industry gone nuts with upping the intensity of the halogen lamps installed on late-model pick-ups?) Distance-and-clearance become difficult to judge…and so I notice that an uncomfortable tension, even fear, begins to build in me. And before you know it: pain. Last night, on the way back from Columbia, an uncomfortable throbbing manifested itself in my head when we still had many miles to go before we slept.
So why make the trip at all, if I’m fairly certain its byproducts will be unpleasant? Why, in other words, subject myself to such terror on the trade-route? The answer in this case was the birthday celebration for a dear Uncle – as it happens, the second nonagenarian party I’ve been to in as many weeks.
And that’s the thing: If you spend any time around folks who’ve seen at least 32,000 days in their rearview mirrors, you learn that focusing on fear is no way to go about living your life. Sure, you’re going to find yourself facing situations over which you simply have no control. “People are saying ‘peace and security,’ [but] then sudden disaster comes upon them,” as St. Paul notes in one of his earliest letters to Christian communities.
People of faith – like my beloved Uncle and my dear Momma – are not in darkness, though. They live as the “children of the light” that St. Paul knows so well. And from that wellspring of Christ’s grace, they derive a full measure of courage.
They don’t bury their talents. They give thanks for them, and put them to work. They become Kingdom people, cooperating in the Holy One’s plan for the world – willing to take risks, while using their gifts (whether large or small) to help usher in the reign of God.
Still a long way from home, but willing to take the risk…with a “worthy wife” at my side, gamely taking photos while I drive. 🙂
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 