Bumper-to-Bumper Theology.

I was recently in bumper-to-bumper traffic trying desperately not to lose it. I understand traffic caused by an accident, or debris falling in the road, but not the kind caused by accident on the other side of the highway, or caused by nothing at all. Unfortunately, this particular traffic jam was one of the latter and instead of honking, flipping people off, or driving down a lane I know is closing in 500 yards to get ahead of others, I thought it would be interesting to find the theological significance of bumper-to-bumper traffic. It wasn’t easy.

To help things move more smoothly in my line of traffic, I tried to travel evenly and not put on my brakes as often as the car in front of me. In a way, I was absorbing the slowing of another car which is the opposite of what creates this kind of back up in the first place. Every time I don’t put on my brakes, the car behind me doesn’t have to either, and slowly we chip away at the traffic jam as a whole.

Although I am not very good at it, I wonder if the same technique couldn’t help in life’s traffic? What if we all tried to refrain from putting on our brakes like the cars in front of us? Couldn’t we absorb some of the back up? Wouldn’t it diminish the overall traffic in some small way? For example, when someone says something mean, what if we ignore the comment, absorb the hurt, so it doesn’t travel down the lane to others? What if we refrained from passing along gossip? What if the selfishness of a person, organization, or country is somehow absorbed so the selfishness doesn’t get passed along (or expanded)?

It’s not easy to drive smoothly in erratic traffic, but, if we all tried, there would be less traffic. It’s not easy to live smoothly in a tumultuous world, but, if we all tried, the waters would calm and winds settle.