OCTOBER 20 '98
Driving home to Cedar Rapids Saturday it was raining. Somebody in a
micro-car passed me. No problem, except the driver pulled right in front
of me and it was like driving in a hurricane. I could have gotten over
it, except, his cruise control was set about a half mph faster than mine.
Of course, I questioned general upbringing, parentage, age, gender, ya
da, ya da, ya da. The only consolation was figuring my headlights in his
mirrors were probably pretty blinding. When it started getting hilly he
couldn't stay ahead, I whipped around, gave a better spacing than given,
and set the cruise a little faster than before. It was easy to imagine
the guy back there tightly clinging to his steering wheel saying, "next
downhill your butt is mine." Fortunately, no shots were fired.

It was appalling really. Thinking of anything that would differentiate
that driver from me and help justify my anger. No wonder its so hard to
stamp out bigotry. We're always looking for ways to devalue other human
beings. Anger is the natural way to react to being offended, but its a
poor way. Understanding is better, love and forgiveness- ideal. Christ
died for our sins, but I don't think we have any idea how much he died
for, or how easily we take His grace for granted. Too often our lives
are not much of a testimony. We let the days, and our opportunities to
serve Him, go by like they don't even matter. Our daily lives have
forgotten Christ.

Oh my God, I'm getting preachy! Somebody hand me a snake. Or turn on
Geraldo. Not Springer, I'm not going to backslide that far. No, I'm
not sure I understood that one either. But maybe I do. This must
somehow all be related to Dad's Christian Reformed upbringing, or my
guilty conscience.