Calming, My Foot!

Traffic calming my foot. For some reason the city governments have devised a number of ways to slow traffic and I suspect, calm driving in some small way. The problem is, it doesn’t calm anyone or anything. Case in point. They have put some speed bumps in the middle of the street. I know, the thought may be a good one but the reality is, it only works for a moment. Most crazed drivers go like crazy, slam on the brakes, make it over and squeal the tires onto the next one. Is that really doing the job?
Have you experienced the “bump out” to narrow the two lanes down to one. A very effective through street is suddenly a rush hour traffic jam. Small one, but a traffic jam all the same. Or how about the tree lined streets where the trees are planted close together and close to the street. Supposedly they believe it to again slow people down. There are others but you already get the picture.
Did you know that these things work in one way but not in another? In one way, most of them slow down most of the drives. Traffic does indeed slow down and carefully navigate past them and proceed back up to regular traffic speed and on their way. Notice I said, “Regular traffic speeds.” Until the price of gas hit six dollars a gallon, regular speed was considerably more then the posted speed. You have been on the road where someone is trying to do double the speed and they sit on your bumper until you move over and let them by. Again, you get the picture. It may calm the traffic for a minute but . . .
These things never get to the root of the problem. Traffic doesn’t need calming. The drivers do. Just heard this past week where the residents of a certain road have petitioned the government to NOT install traffic calming. They have it right. They realize the traffic along their street is moving too quickly but they also know that these devises only irritate drives. If anything, people need something to calm them. By the way, it’s not a young male with a broken volume on their car stereo sitting next to you with their windows rolled down so you can listen to his music that you don’t want to hear. I guess that has something to do with the young male mating call.
Life is like that. We are all in a rush, here, there and everywhere. Get there and then off to the next appointment or party or or or. We are in a world that is constantly on the go. It seems like we only slow down to sleep for a couple of hours so we can go go go again. I should talk, I’m writing this at 3:00 a.m. because my mind is already in overdrive. What we need today is time to sit and think. Time to relax and just be. Time to call on God to reach down His hand and calm our hearts when we come upon a bump in the road we travel. And to help us through the narrow streets of life where we find ourselves hedged in on all sides.
Maybe it’s like one of our dear friends said to us a number of years ago. I come to church because it’s the only time in my life where I can sit, relax and do nothing but think. Yes, it is a time to indeed sit, think and reflect on our lives and how God can calm our weary heart.
See you there?
Something to think about.
Rob