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Driving on Pine Island

3 min read

The bumper sticker reads: “When I grow old, I’m moving North and drive slow.” Snowbird driving habits are stereotyped as lousy. Some are wild others are slow while others stop in the middle of the road to read a map and others don’t even know the proper driving etiquette at a four-way stop sign. Islanders like to say: Aah, it’s June and now we can safely drive on our way without a care in the world, or can we?

Last June a deputy pulled over a driver outside of Matlacha. The driver asks: “What’s wrong officer? I certainly wasn’t speeding.”

The officer replied: “No you weren’t, but I saw you flashing the one-fingered salute as you swerved around that slow-driving lady. I further observed your flushed and angry face as you shouted at those pedestrians crossing in front of Bert’s and how you pounded your steering wheel when the traffic slowed at the WildChild gallery.

“Is that a crime, officer?” the driver asks.

The officer: “No, but when I saw the ‘Jesus loves you and so do I’ bumper sticker, I figured ‘This car has got to be stolen.'”

Driving in traffic can create tension, but regardless, whether we are residents or visitors, most of our driving problems can be summed up as a straight-forward discourtesy and a selfish disregard for others. It is the same problem that we have in our personal lives – a dehumanizing disregard for people and holding our own selfish desires as ultimate.

The antidote isn’t complicated. It’s a four-letter word different from the ones used in driving – love.

Loving each other as Jesus taught means to see other people, other drivers as human beings, not just as cars. Through the lens of love, we see that in each car is a driver and that each driver is a person and each person is a child of God. Seeing in this way means to treat each person, in or out of a car, as “deserving our loving kindness, just like God loves us” (Titus 3:4).

It’s so simple, but it is so hard, therefore on the night before His death Jesus gave us the commandment: “Love each other, just as I have loved you. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (John 13:34-35). If Jesus had owned a car He would have said: “that includes when you are driving.”

You will enjoy your day more if you drive in the lanes of love!