Post #7 of 40

Giving Up My Mild Road Rage

I don’t remember where I first heard “Slow to anger, quick to forgive.” I like the rhythm and the juxtaposition of slow and quick, and I like the way it describes the way I want to be. Just recently I heard Psalm 86:15 read at church - “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness."

And, so I went to the internet wondering if the exact quote “Slow to anger, quick to forgive” could be found in the Bible. If it is there, I couldn’t locate it.

I found this lovely reminder in the book of James, though - “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.”

When I was in graduate school, I was a graduate assistant at a demonstration school, and I said to my lead teacher, “You are so patient with these children. What is your secret?”

She said, “I’m not patient, and I’m not demonstrating patience. I know each child, and I understand child development, and if you have that in place, you don’t need patience.”

I took her thoughts to heart as a wife, mom, teacher, and coworker. Where I really struggled was in the car.

When cars cut me off or followed me too closely or beeped when I took 3 seconds to put my foot on the gas when the red light turned green, I would call them names that a Southern Lady would not have uttered, words I hadn’t heard in my home…ever! It seemed innocent enough to call these rude drivers expletive-laced names.

During the 1990 - 1991 school year I taught kindergarten at an excellent public school in Germantown, Tennessee, about a 30 minute drive from our little midtown bungalow in Memphis. Most of the time the drive was easy, and I rarely pulled out my saucy vocabulary.

Actually, for much of my commute during the first half of the year, I prayed for healthy pregnancies and babies for my sister and me. Janet and I were both having fertility challenges, and the possibility of neither one of us having children felt heavier than what science could handle. (FYI: We have three kids, each, now.)

So thirty minutes of prayer and meditation each way, mostly about bringing babies to our families, times 5 days a week for 16 or so weeks of school for the first semester ended up being about 80 hours of prayer.

I wonder if God allowed me to conceive so I would stop saying the same prayers over and over.

On Christmas Eve, 1990, I found out we were growing Baby Rebecca, and in between reading every book on pregnancy, labor, and infants, I started thinking about this habit of calling other drivers names. I had eight months before Rebecca’s birth, enough time to break the habit. And, I did.

My go-to word for the drivers became “Bozo,” but I continued to feel the irritation with other drivers. I would feel it in my stomach and in my heart. I’d clench my teeth and shake my head, but the worst thing I called the rude drivers was, “Bozo.”

My irritation continued until one weekend when I attended a Bhakti yoga retreat led by Amy Barnes, around 2009 at Gray Bear Lodge. My friend Andrea and I decided to meet there now that I lived in Birmingham, and she lived in East Tennessee. Andrea and I had become friends right after Rebecca was born. I noticed her the first Sunday I was back at church in Memphis, when I saw her, a tall, gorgeous alto, sitting in my spot in the choir loft. She and I shared a love of music, yoga, careers, and family life.

Amy Barnes, the retreat leader, and I had gone to the same junior high in Nashville, and we had recently reconnected. The retreat included lots of yoga, hearty meals, and kirtan. I hadn’t been to a kirtan prior to the retreat, but Amy had given me a copy of her CD a few months earlier, and I had played it and sung along incessantly.

Kirtan with Amy filled me with joy. All of the happy chemicals in my brain were released, and I felt full of life and light and energy as I meandered my way back to Birmingham on a Sunday afternoon following the retreat. My slow driving on the unfamiliar, curvy backroads of Tennessee gave the locals a good reason to beep at me, pass me, and show me their unmanicured middle fingers.

And, for the first time in that sort of situation, my jaws were relaxed, my stomach was happy, and my smile remained. I said aloud, “I know you’re probably on your way to church…or a kirtan, and you don’t want to be late. It’s okay, buddy. Be safe.”

Thinking of these folks heading to church…or to a kirtan gave the same sort of “understanding” that my lead teacher in graduate school had possessed, even if the story I was making up was most likely just that - a story.

I have continued practicing this “understanding” of drivers for more than 10 years now after giving up my mild case of road rage. Tom and I recently saw a car run a stop sign in our quiet East Side of Providence neighborhood, but we were far enough away that we had been in no danger.

Tom honked, and I said, “He was probably on his way to church or a kirtan or a funeral.”

Tom said, “Sarcasm, much?”

And, I just said, “Nope.”