My neighborhood abuts against a main east-west arterial through north Seattle. From this arterial multiple roads enter my neighborhood. The road my house is on was paved many years ago and has withstood the passage of time with the same degree of admixture most old roads do; the odd pothole, loose pavement turning to gravel, and the absence a clear definition between where the pavement ends and the mossy dirt beside the road begins.
One very important modification was made at some point in the road’s life however: two smallish cement traffic features. Imagine something in the order of a traffic circle, but instead of creating a circular flow of traffic, they are offset in such a ways as to make you swerve rather awkwardly between them.
Their purpose is only to allow one car at a time.
My first 6 months of encountering these traffic features was sometimes an opportunity for abstract reflection on the arcane minds of traffic designers in Seattle. More often than not they were a chance to behave like a teenager and feel the cool ‘swoopy’ feeling of going through what amounted to a very short slalom. Occasionally I also just hated them for being in my way. Impeding my choices. Curtailing my freedom. I mean, these damned things made me slow down, pay attention, be aware of others, and even sometimes (the horror!) give way to another car!
I liked them very much.
Seattle drivers are known for (as I suspect, in all fairness, many drivers everywhere are) a distinctly passive aggressive streak. They (usually) won’t pass madly, go too much over the speed limit, or in general be an active nuisance to others. However, one thing they are known for is a perfected indifference to each other. Vehicular neglect. They may not cleanly get around you, or want you out of their way, but God help if you’d like to merge. They will just sit, either truly unseeing or just not caring. And always, always, the studied and intent lack of eye contact. (In reality, they want around, to pass you, to tailgate you till can feel them breathing on your neck…but we’re far too nice to do anything about it here in Seattle.)
I’d rather someone tell me, decently and in order, to fuck off.
But I’m really not hoping to talk about traffic per se, other than it shows us something about having a lot of anonymity, power and freedom that abstracts us from other people. I want to get back to those traffic features…
Only allowing one car through at a time means I as a driver had to enact a host of virtues. Forethought, social interaction, the self-limitation of personal power, placing myself second, patience, and a certain sort of civic conviviality that is necessary for any community bigger than a few dozen people to function.
Hell, I even waved.
Many artifacts from our culture participate in this ‘un-encumbering dynamic.’ Technology in general because of the quick power it provides, the disposability of online ‘relationships,’ the endless duplication of every possible practical item necessary (or unnecessary) to life to avoid the reality of sharing something, the little cocoons of insulated luxury we spend our lonely free time in, and the ease and eagerness with which we leave home, family, and community to name a few.
A world with some number of encumbrances (imperfect roads that don’t let me zoom on my merry way, a broken family, a spouse who just won’t do things the right (my) way, the senescing of our bodies and powers of mind, the computer failing me and forcing me into other more incarnate ways of relating) can serve as a useful prop for God. He shows me that I too am ‘but dust’ and am not (currently) fitted for a life of unrestrained power and freedom anyway. It would make me miserable in the end. More importantly, and more happily, the imperfect world of limited resources, time, and freedom forces me to face others, and perhaps, by the grace of God, to embrace them as the gift that they are. I need Paul’s truck. He needs my blender. I need my gay neighbor’s pain, alienation, and other-ness. He needs my reactionary and backward Christianity! I need ‘them’ with their virtues and vices. They need me with my virtues and vices. (If for no other reason than to teach them patience with a fusty old pedant!) The little bits of grace we show each other are windows into another world.
I think it important at this point to distinguish between encumbrances that orient us towards others and those which pull us away from others or otherwise wreck us. You’ll have to figure which is which in your own life. Nor am I saying one should never be rid of this or that particular discomfort or impediment. I’m saying we ought to be suspicious of the plan to remove all sense of imperfection, the need for others and their grace toward us, and testy little inconveniences from our life. I’ve had those plans, and I know where they lead.
Someday, all things will be renewed. This world and its many structures will die and be resurrected on that glorious cosmic Easter Day. This dynamic we struggle through for the time being will be undone. No more sickness, sorrow, pain, and tears. The same perfect power and love the pushes the stars in their courses will have invaded and remade even the darkest recesses of my heart, and hopefully yours too. We will not need our encumbrances to remind us and make us love other people. Perfect power, freedom, and love. I think we know this deep inside too, hence our desire for perfect power and freedom now. These inklings and intimations have been masterfully placed within us, and while we tend to use them as excuses to hurt one another, they are bread crumbs leading us home if we’ll let them be. But the time is not yet ripe. A seed must die if it’s to give rise to a plant. We are already on our way, we are not there yet.
For now though…
Endless consumption, easy power, instant response times, action and movement utterly devoid of difficulty and delay, especially without the difficulty, delay, and blessing of other human beings is a rather anemic vision, don’t you think? Our encumbrances are sometimes heavy. Perhaps we might be wise to get rid of some of the heaviest ones. Nonetheless, we should try to be thankful for the ones we can be, the good ones; they keep us from floating off the earth altogether.
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