DON’T PANIC!

Ah, another week down!

Picture this. You're driving along, traffic is light, and the sun has graced you with its presence. It's mid to early afternoon though, so your retinas are in no risk of frying. You've got the cabin temperature just right. You've been driving for a period of time that still qualifies as a welcome relief from your previous postural position. In other words God is in his heaven and all's right in the commuting world.

As you sing along with "59^th Street Bridge Song" a flash of white appears in your peripheral vision. Your eyes begin the terrifying bob up and to the right. Yup, there it is, a mid size American made sedan with angry red and blue light bar. Suddenly the fire ants begin the conga line dance across your brow and 2 bottles of what should be your six pack fold in on themselves.

Now, we all know we should look at our speedometer first, but we don't. Instead it turns out that each of us has a tiny reptile brain in our thigh that only begins to fire when a policeman appears behind them. Two things happen next. First you wish you had some idea just how fast you were traveling and second it occurs to you that you've just flashed your brake lights at the trooper behind you effectively acknowledging to him that you knew you were speeding.

Ok, whip out the checklist. Wallet, check, clear path to the shoulder, check, vehicle registration (signed of course), check, and proof of insurance, check. No wait, you have one of those insurance companies that send you something in the mail 4 times a week, did you put the most recent card in the glove box? Ugh! You can hear the officer now, "Do you know why I stopped you?" How do you answer that? "Why yes officer, I was speeding, I have a tail light out and I'm quite possibly inebriated". The next question will probably be "Do you know how fast you were going?" There's another hum-dinger. "Yes officer, somewhere more than a Segway but something slower than The Starship Enterprise?"

Just as you (hopefully) start to remind yourself that this person with the campaign hat and perfectly creased wool trousers is in fact just a human being and even more importantly a public servant whose overriding goal is public safety, the dreaded machine makes a dip for the shoulder and uses one of those handy Police Only u-turn paths in the median.

I've been the unhappy recipient of two speeding tickets in my life. The first was when I was 16 while driving my first car, a turquoise '69 Ford Falcon Station wagon through Mukilteo and the other recently while speeding through Home. 2 speeding tickets in almost 28 years of driving doesn't make me a serial offender. Add to this the fact that I worked as a radio operator for the Washington State Patrol for a number of years you'd think I would be spared that onrush of baseless guilt. Not in the least.

Where does this come from? Sure, there's a good chance that your checking account will be lighter after a traffic stop, but the vast majority of us take the lesson away that we are suppose to and slow down, if only for a time. So what's all the hubbub, bub? The truth is that every time this happens to me it's a pretty safe bet that I was speeding. Not fast enough to whet the appetite of the freeway shark, but who drive's the speed limit? In seems either people are driving 10 MPH under the limit or mach 9 with their hair on fire. Still though, I know it was fast enough to fall into the speeding column.

There's something deeper at work here I think. At times it seems like there's more experiences grounded in fear, guilt and dread than joy. Each week on Thursday Tammy and I participate in a program called Alpha and at one point in the evening we get together in groups of 10-12 and talk about each night's topic. The course is a basic introduction to the Christian faith and the conversations are a chance for the participants to share their thoughts and feelings. One thing that's been very uplifting about participating in the leadership of this program is getting a chance to not just listen to others, but to actually hear what they are saying. I have to say it's been genuinely liberating to hear that those feelings are mostly universal.

So, next time you see that light bar in your rear view mirror remember, we've all been there and very few of us actually respond differently than you do. Of course there are a few who respond with "Game on!" but there'd be no good movie chase scenes without those folks would there?

Don't drive angry! Drive weird!