My Greatest Sin

Is he really gonna write about that? expose that dark secret of an act too many of us do when we are alone, or sometimes with an audience? Is the WWMM so hopped up on Brazilian java, that any sense of decency is clouded, and no propriety left? . . .Yes, this so common, but not so hidden as we would like topic, must be addressed.

Please take the kids out of the room.

Aggressive driving, speeding, tail gating; has now become the single sin I most often need to confess (yes, even more than "that"). How can driving be a sin?, and I don't just mean in the way the average Social Security recipient seems to naturally drive 10 mph below the speed limited. For me, it's not so much how I drive, as much as the way driving aggressively can make me a bit uptight (IE. if your ever wanna hear the monkster curse, just hang out in my"chick magnet"/Ford minivan for half a day).

Not only do I occasionally use the kind of words you generally only hear if you have premium Cable services, but I also find my self judging the other drivers, and often by their ethnic groups. My mixture of a triple grande' latte with my I95 Nascar tryouts, has lead me to determine that we need to make special lanes for folks over 60 (except my dad, an ex-bus driver who has watched way too much Rat Patrol) as well as those Americans who ain't technically Americans (in DC you can always tell the cabbies who aren't legal, because they drive the speed limit, for fear of being pulled over.....which cops couldn't do anyway, because of anti-profiling laws).

I find myself getting annoyed or angry, as well as not taking in to consideration that not everyone on the road is trying to see 20 customers in the DC area in an 8 hour period. Realizing that giving "unto Caesar" also means driving in accordance with the traffic suggestions (er, laws), even if it means driving in the Granny lane, is more important than the 15 minutes my speeding might save me by the end of the day.

The funny thing is that until I drove for a living, I always drove by the book. Geriatrics could often be seen cursing at me for driving too slow (ie, the speed limit), not to mention the abundant uses of the middle finger I witnessed from soccer moms. Of course back then my sin was one of self-righteousness, because I was a "good person" for driving appropriately.

Once I even followed a reckless driver into a 7/11 to give him a good talking to (no, I am not a 72 year old retiree). It was a kid who had cut me, and several other people, off, on his way to get his next sugar free Red Bull . What annoyed me most was that the car had a Christian fish (Ichthus) decal on it, and I didn't think the driver was exactly representing Christ very well by playing "the Fast and the Furious" in a residential neighborhood. When I approached him after we parked, he actually admitted that he never considered that he may be sinning in his manor of driving, and our little talk even ended up with us both praying. He didn't know what he was doing. Luke 23:34

Well, I sadly know what I am doing, and having repented, try daily to drive as if someone had confronted and prayed with me, at a 7/11.

Please say a prayer for me, as all sin is bad, and little sins usual lead to bigger ones.

God bless
mike