trust?

Yesterday, on my way to the middle school, I saw an accident. There was no Hollywood explosion or anything at all spectacular, but in the chill of a calm January morning, someone was rear-ended at a traffic light. It was so smooth, so effortless. It might as well have happened to me. At one moment, a car sat alone across the intersection from me, and the next, as the light turned green, a car had glided noiselessly into the back end, making an accordion of its hood. Some smoke tainted the frosty, but otherwise clear, air.

The light turned green in the midst of the accident, almost to spite the confusion that had materialized beneath it. Machines tend to do that. People respond, people react. I had driven through the intersection, only to turn around at the next side street and head back toward the scene. People had responded and reacted: on cell phones, milling around beside the cars, waiting for the police to come. Both drivers were unharmed. Meanwhile, traffic had stopped.

I thought about that accident for the rest of my busy day - traveling to and fro. And I thought about how we take for granted the fact that it does take care to operate a vehicle, and the damage that ensues when necessary care is not given. There’s almost an unwritten code of trust and courtesy with vehicle transportation. Are we worthy of that trust? Do I text and drive? …Sometimes. That accident could just as easily happened to me: me as the driver of the unsuspecting car sitting at the stop, or me as the careless driver. What is there to do? One situation I cannot control, the other I can. Driving is a bit terrifying when you think about it that way!

And once my imagination gets working along these lines, I worry for myself, for Kevin, for my friends and family who are out on the road every day. Can I afford to put myself out in good faith that the next car ride I take might be my last? Obviously, if I take that fear to its logical conclusion, I could never leave my apartment at all and would cut off communication with the outside world altogether for fear of being hurt or exposed to the world. (It doesn’t help that Kevin and I have been watching Monk again - can you see its influence?) So we do have to step out trusting others. I’ll admit, that’s something I struggle with. Not even just in terms of physical safety. As a Christian, I cannot hide inside myself: it is loving to others to let others love you back. It is loving to entrust them with yourself.

I think marriage has tested my ability to trust outside of myself, and I think I’m trying to build that. In many senses, there is so much security in being married - being fully known and yet loved, and always accepted. But then, with others, outside of the beautiful little unit of Kevin-and-me, it’s almost more difficult than ever before. Sorry I’ve taken this from a description of an accident to an internal struggle of mine, but you know that’s the way our minds work. This is my train of thought. And now I’ve put it out there, entrusting it to those of you who are reading. The application.