I saw the lights flashing as I rounded the bend just before getting into town. It was hard to tell in the dark whether they were schoolbus lights, until the blues started blinking on and off. Flares alongside the southbound lane told all the story I needed to know: an accident. Slowing down for oncoming traffic, I waited till the flashlight beckoned me forward, a straight up and down motion. But when I proceeded, the motion suddenly turned a frantic left to right, motioning me to the other side of the flares. I crept along till I could see the officer who was yelling at me. I rolled down the window to an angry face demanding why I started driving down the wrong side of the flares. "You motioned me forward," I explained.
"Didn't you see me?" he shouted. Actually, I didn't. All I could see in the dark punctuated by flashing lights was his flashlight, but decided it best to keep silent rather than mention that his flashlight motion indicated I was to drive directly forward. Just like that, this little incident was over, except that I prayed for him as I drove on my way. Maybe he had had a long, rough night. Lord knows, traffic cops are understandably on edge these days. Even more so these nights.
Being early for my morning breakfast with Willie, I stopped to see what the gratitude suggestions were for the day. I'm finding it's best to ponder through the day rather than scratch my head at night. Today's prompt was "A gift humbling, honoring, happy."
It is always humbling to be chewed out, whether deserved or not. I don't feel I deserved it, but then, I don't know what this man had been through while on his shift, let alone what might be going on in his personal life. I chose to honor him by simply listening politely then driving on. And I am happy that over the course of the past couple years I've learned this lesson in gratitude. There was a time when I'd have stewed all day on how I didn't deserve to be treated that way, but when I remember the injustice and tragedy unfolding in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the decades-long brutality of the North Korean regime, the depredations of ISIS and Boko Haram, this morning's little incident is revealed for what it really is-an irritation, not worth fretting over. I am grateful to be living at a time and place in history where not being where a cop thought I should be only resulted in getting yelled at, not beaten up.
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