All in all we’ve been fortunate on our drives up and down Rt. 95.

Since we moved to Saint Simons and have made trips back to Pennsylvania for various holiday and family gatherings, we have avoided living through some of the horror stories that we all know can happen. Perhaps the closest we came was our return from one trip to find that 95 was closed at one of our southern Brunswick exits. All traffic was diverted off to travel through Brunswick, which suited us just fine. Had it happened somewhere else we might have been stuck without a good route for getting around it.

The trip home to St. Simons last week, on January 2, was largely uneventful, although we saw more traffic throughout the 770 mile drive than we have at any other time. That long stretch through the Carolinas with only two lanes is often annoying, but this time it was packed with cars for many miles, often slowing to a crawl for a time, only to pick speed back up without indication of what the cause of the slowdown was. Sometimes we could see far enough ahead to recognize a car in the left lane that wouldn’t move over, causing a bottleneck. This is, in fact, a phenomenon many states are cracking down on. Slower cars in the left lane are more dangerous than speeders because they can cause such gridlock.

In heavy traffic, it doesn’t take much to throw the flow off. Someone taps their breaks, and the chain reaction of others hitting their brakes can lead to a huge slowdown quite quickly. It’s a fascinating phenomenon, which has been studied quite a bit. You can Google the topic and find things like Traffic Flow Theory and Traffic Stream Characteristics; reports full of formulas and traffic studies that show how heavy traffic impacts speed based on the number of lanes and whether or not there are trucks, and how many trucks there are.

Someone made a statement recently about how in life, we all

move so fast. And the more we are surrounded by people moving fast around us, like driving in a pack of speeding cars on the highway (which I might do from time to time), the less we tend to realize how fast we are going. It is a relativity issue. This person was remarking on it from the perspective of the busy-ness of their life, and those who work with and for them, as he wondered out loud what his slowing down might do to impact the experience of others around him. If he slows down, will it mean others will slow down too?

I would tend to say yes. While one of us who chooses to slow down might impact another person, we won’t get everyone to slow down. But the more people there are who slow down, the more it causes others to slow down, just as it does on the highway. Don’t get me wrong, I and many others are still going to want to get to where we’re going; bosses want results, tasks need to be accomplished, our goals require attention to meet them. But sometimes we rush along so fast that we’re not as healthy as we might be, or we’re more prone to accidents and mistakes, or we simply don’t get to focus on what’s most important.

It’s ok to spend some time in the passing lane, but I don’t think we want to live there, or rather, I don’t think it’s healthy to live there. We need to remember what it is to enjoy the journey, to take the time that we have and use it, appropriately balanced between our commitments, our families, and ourselves. That might mean reclaiming Sabbath, or learning to say no, or any number of things. Whatever it is for you, maybe every once in awhile it’s useful to tap the brakes.

Tom

O God, who on the holy mount revealed to chosen witnesses your well-beloved Son, wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening: Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may by faith behold the King in his beauty; who with you, O Father, and you, O Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.