Just Another Car on the Road: Into the Dark
The benefit of driving as much as I do, is that every day on the road, I learn something new. You have to pay attention — and I do. One of the sermons that I preach every day to my wife and kids is situational awareness. Well, today, I had to be the listening choir.
I digress, but it’s definitely possible for driving to become a ho-hum experience. You can sleepwalk through blocks at a time, traffic lights, and common turns. Going from point to point can be so routine that you find yourself going through the motions.
Well, today was one of those moments. I was just going through the motions. Then the oddest thing startled me from my meandering into complete presence of mind. It was late afternoon, the sun setting, and I had to turn down a road that was mysteriously dark. As I peered through the windshield down the path, the darkness announced that this route was impassable. I ain’t gon lie — I was a little intimidated. (That’s a nice way of saying I was scared — but don’t tell nobody.)
As I crept, ever so slowly, down this mystery lane, the deeper I got into the darkness, the more I realized I could see better than I thought I would.
Yeah — I hear you know-it-alls — your eyes adapt to the surroundings. Your pupils swell in an attempt to capture as much available light as possible. Your other senses heighten to digest the nocturnal offerings so that the entire body can function as pristinely as possible. Situational awareness is an understatement. It’s more like instinctual aptitude — fight or flight, let’s get down if we have to get down, or let’s get out if we have to get out. I hear y’all — and I agree.
Isn’t that just like life.
Sometimes you look down the path, and you just can’t see your way through. You calculate that the darkness may be too much. A single person contemplating marriage, a widower pondering life without, the bankrupted, the transition to college, growing old … You name it — it looks dark down that path. But when you muster the courage to travel it, however fast or slow you deem appropriate, you find the darkness just ain’t that dark.
I thought I was easing into the dark, but I was really stepping into my own light.
This is Ralph, and I am just another car on the road.