This quote came from a post about cycling, but it got me thinking:
"At least once, and usually more, when I ride the road (US-40 a rural Kansas Highway), some <driver>
will pass me, crossing into the opposite lane going up a hill.
Inevitably, a car will be coming from the other direction and have to
swerve, brake or something. It never ceases to amaze me that the guy in
the other lane nearly always honks or flips me off when he comes by.
I just don’t get it. The car that was passing me is nearly always
crossing a double yellow line on a blind hill and the other car blames
the cyclist. What’s up with that?
It is even worse when I’m riding with someone else. The drivers of
the cars think, mistakenly, that we’re breaking the law by riding two
abreast. Somehow that mentality gives these people the need to try to
enforce their mistaken thoughts by honking or coming by dangerously
close, usually passing illegally themselves. It is super weird, like
the law should even matter enough to endanger someones life."
I can resonate with this on a couple of levels. Obviously, as a cyclist, I experience the bad side of this mentality. However, I can also relate to this on a more philosophical level. A truth that was exposed be Jesus to the religious leaders of his time is that the church also has the tendency of doing this to our own detriment. We talked a bit last night in our small group that the church has always had these blind spots, where we are threatening people in order to keep "the law". I'm not sure what the best way is to deal with these things, but I know that we are called to keep learning from people different than us, keep looking to Christ as our guide, and being willing to have our worldviews continually be moved, as unsettling as that can be.
