Dashboard Confessions: The Lenten Art of Automobile Driving

The other day I had a breakthrough of sorts while driving in my car. Yes, in my car. And – I know this may sound a bit odd – it was a Lenten breakthrough.

I was casually driving home from work. This was a miracle in itself because I am the sort of person who tries to cram too many things into too little time. But this day, I took an easy pace in the car throughout the drive home. There had been relatively few traffic back-ups. Even when there were traffic back-ups, I felt able to take them in stride without the usual rise in my blood pressure or agitated hand gestures.

I was in the home-stretch; only about 4 blocks from home. I eased into the left-turn lane and glanced down the street ahead and to the side to insure that I was clear to turn. You see, overall, I’m a really good driver. I’m the kind of person who shoulder-checks before changing lines on the highway. I’m the kind of person who stops before an intersection so that the lady who has been waiting for ten minutes to turn left can finally do so.

As I was saying, I was in the left-turn lane checking my bearings for the impending left-hand turn. It was clear. I began my left-hand turn. As I casually turned onto the next street, I noticed a car pulling up to the edge of a parking lot entrance that was on my right-hand side. The problem was that there was an SUV parked on the right-hand side of the road just before the driveway entrance. It was serving as a visual barrier between my vehicle and the car that had recently arrived at the edge of the parking lot entrance.

As I casually drew up next to the parked SUV (the visual barrier), the driver of the car at the edge of the parking lot burst out of the entrance right into my path.

Now, this was not one of those scenes from a movie where life and death hang in the balance. This was not an impressive t-boning of vehicles waiting to happen. It was not even something for the evening news. There simply was not enough speed involved for that to happen.

Thanks to my driving skills – and to the fact that we were both going about 10 miles per hour – nothing happened whatsoever. I slammed on the brakes with all of my might and then laid on the horn with the might that was leftover: BBBBBBBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And then, with whatever remaining might I had (which was very little by this time), I threw up my hands and gave one of those ‘what in the name of God were you thinking?!’ looks to the driver of the other car.

He didn’t even stop to take in my dramatic gestures and facial expressions. He quickly turned his head toward me while babbling into his cell phone earpiece and carried on his way without so much as responding to the situation.

I sat there hitting my steering wheel weakly and muttered aloud something like “Stop talking on your cell phone, idiot!!”

I then let out a loud sigh and drove the remaining 3 ½ blocks home. I reported the event to my wife and kids loudly when I entered the house: “I almost got into an accident on the way home! The guy didn’t even stop and look at me!” My kids were interested in the event (secretly wishing that I had hit the car so that they could see a crumpled vehicle) and my wife was simply glad that everything was okay.

All ‘casual’-ness, relaxation, and peace had escaped my being. I think that I had somehow thrown them out through the braking, honking, and hand gesturing. We ate some dinner and life went onwards.

As I was reflecting on the event later, I have to say that I was angry. I mean, this cell-phone kissing megalomaniac idiot vaulted his vehicle into my right-of-way without any visible remorse or much recognition. He obliterated my once-in-a-blue-moon casual drive home in the span of 5 seconds, forcing me to be upset and anguished over the lack of justice in this world throughout dinner with my family.

And then I started thinking of Lent. I started thinking of the words I had heard the other day about Lent being a time for God to lead us into a time of Jesus-focused reflection and repentance. I recalled my decision this year to give up “giving things up for Lent” this Lent. I’ve done it so many times that I wanted to take a break from giving up sweets, caffeine, beef, or my music addiction.

I started thinking of Lent and how this near auto accident was about one of the most revealing Lenten exercises I had been through this year. Here I was brooding in anger over not getting in a car accident because some other person had not recognized what they had put me through. I was bitter over how someone else was not recognizing their ‘deadly sin’ of nearly causing an auto accident. I was furious that the situation had removed ‘casual’ from my car drive home.

I had sunk into self orbit. My life had shrunk after the near miss because I chose the way of anger, bitterness, and self-pity. My life had shrunk because I saw all goodness and rescue as a credit to my abilities. I had not enlarged my life by seeing the event in a true or accurate way in relation to the other or God. I chose to see it all as relating to my self.

It’s sobering and un-funny how we do this all of the time in life. We choose to see everything and everyone – even God! – in relation to our wants, needs, and feelings.

Lent is a time for Jesus-focused reflection and cross-centered repentance. As I reflect on the way of Lent, I cannot help but wonder about our daily lives. I cannot help but wonder if daily experiences – like a narrowly avoided auto accident – might not be the greatest disciplines for a true experience of Lent. I wonder if the daily ups and down might not be God’s most subtle – and glaring – interruptions into our lives by which he wants to arrest our attention with the need to look again to Jesus and have our souls “produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Luke 3:8).

So, I’ll be driving my car all Lent. Maybe you should, too.