The Meek Will Inherit the Earth

          “People will do things in cars that they’d never do face to face.”

          These are the words of a friend who worked in road construction for many years.  He was describing a general spirit of meanness which people, perturbed by a slow-down in traffic, were apt to exhibit toward each other or the construction crews.  He went on to say that when people get behind the steering wheel of an automobile the standard of human civility and patience seems to drop a significant percentage.

          I remembered his words after my traffic encounter today.  I was on a bicycle climbing the crest of the hill on Hubbard Road in Bethlehem, and just as I began to pick up speed on the other side, someone in a pickup truck passed me and then turned into a side road no more than five feet in front of me.

          I tried to make eye-contact in his rear-view mirror as I lifted up one free hand as if to say, “What?  You couldn’t wait five seconds for me to be out of the way before you made your turn?”

          For his part, he offered me the standard one-finger salute which by now is surely a sign of a lack of imagination, but which implies that either I was in the wrong (which I wasn’t), or he was just plain mean (which I doubt). 

          You see, I suspect here was a man who, when out of his pickup, is a hard worker, a loving husband and father, and a tithing churchman, but something about the anonymity of painted sheet metal and four wheels turned him into someone even he wouldn’t recognize when he looks in the mirror.

          I know that bicycles aggravate people in cars.  Some of my best non-cycling friends have admitted they’d like to get rid of all those people in Lycra shorts and rainbow-colored jerseys.  The typical complaint is that cyclists slow the traffic and don’t we all know that everyone is always in a hurry.  And, yes, I know that some cyclists are rather arrogant or cavalier on their steeds.  My apologies, but maybe we’d all be better off if we all slowed down.  Apparently, moving fast in cars hasn’t made us a kinder, gentler species.  In my experience, cars just make us all more short-tempered and less tolerant of each other, although my life as a cyclist has curtailed my bad car habits tremendously.

          But consider this, we’re going to be out of oil in another generation.  Bicycles will start looking pretty good by then.  But, if you haven’t ridden since you were fifteen years old, you might have a hard time getting back on the saddle when you’re eighty.  As for me, I plan to be riding until I can’t get out of a chair by myself.

          I’ll always be cautious around people in cars.  After all, sitting on a twenty pound bike, going fifteen miles per hour, I can’t very well argue with two tons of steel going forty-five or better.  I tend to feel rather meek sitting on the saddle of my Schwinn.  So, pickup truck driver, I’m sure you’re basically a decent guy, but please be a little kinder next time, as a favor to this traveler using a more fragile means of transportation.  And, oh yeah, don’t forget - the meek will inherit the earth.  

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How Long, O Lord?

Several years ago, in an effort to show the power of the book of Psalms as a resource for prayer, I wrote out prayers based on the various psalms and shared them on my blog.  I hoped to help people claim the ancient psalms as a still relevant and contemporary “school of prayer.” 

If you have spent much time in the psalms you will note that roughly three-fourths of them are rather melancholy.  As I sought to share deeply the emotional honesty of the psalms through my own prayers, some of my congregation who read my blog-prayers became concerned for me; that perhaps I was going through a crisis of faith.  They could not bear to think that their pastor might honestly identify with a psalm like Psalm 13: 

            How long, O Lord?  Wilt thou forget me for ever?

            How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?

            How long must I bear pain in my soul,

                 and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

            How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? 

Well, maybe these parishioners had never had a moment’s doubt about the omnipresence of God.  Maybe they had never experienced any delay in God’s answering of their prayers.  Maybe they had never been perplexed by the presence of so much evil in God’s good world.  Maybe they had never been disappointed with God.  Or . . . , maybe they simply were living in denial. 

Phillip Yancey, in his book, Disappointment with God, deals with three questions: Is God unfair? Is God silent? Is God hidden?  The conclusions he reaches are not neat and tidy.  We are still left with the question, “Why?”  But what the book of Psalms does is give us permission to ask those questions and let them linger.  The psalms give us license to express our doubt, our disappointment, our anger, even our hatred, and leave all those emotions in the hands of God.  Even when the psalm seems to imply that God is distant and unresponsive, in the very act of praying the psalmist is nevertheless expressing faith in God. 

So much that has been in the news lately – mass killings, ugly politics, devastating weather – may leave us wondering if there’s a God who cares.  Before we Christians rush to the defense of God, perhaps we need to listen to the questions people ask, questions that have been asked in the form of prayer by God’s people long ago, “How long, O Lord?  Wilt thou forget me for ever?”

 

Perhaps there is something to be learned in allowing time for lament and expression of doubt and pain.  Perhaps only after such honesty can we then move to the conclusions of Psalm 13: 

            But I have trusted in thy steadfast love;

                 my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.

            I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.