Volume 8, Issue 2, page 7

16

BYARTHUR J. BURKS

Part 5. CHAPTER III - THE DAY HAS WINGS

:30 A.M. You were right on time again
You slid behind the wheel of your
sleek car which needed washing and
was not a recent model. There was
room beside you for a Passenger.
There always was. It had been lonely
one comparatively small person in
car so big. It had always seemed a
bit ridiculous for so much machinery ,
gasoline, oil, metal, rubber, to be
required for the almost exclusive use of
just one man. But it was the nearest, in
the world's crowded areas, man could come
to riding on wings without leaving the
ground. In your father's youth walking
had been fast enough, driving horses
sometimes too fast.

of I rode into Jerusalem on the colt of an ass," the Passenger of
course read your thoughts. If you minded, He
wouldn't, but you didn't mind. You couldbe quite unselfconscious
with Him. "We traveled slowly in my day. but
never having known speed, we didn't miss it."

You had the usual wait at your gate which gave on the crowded
highway. You didn't dare move right out into
traffic. There was a hill to your left and huge lumbering trucks,
traveling ten miles above the state legal limit-which
meant 25 miles above the limit in your small town, where 35 miles
was marked plainly on many unread signs --and
cars driven by others in a hurry bore down on you quite too fast.
Drivers could always see you waiting there for an
opening. but nobody ever deliberately, as an act of courtesy,
gave you an opening. You had to take it, guessing
that a truck or fast car wasn't coming, or making sure that there
were no cars coming from the opposite direction. so
that if a car did come from your left

and you were a sitting duck as you turnei right, whoever menaced
you could swerve to his left without hitting
someone in the other lane . You could be careful of all the
traffic regulations and still be killed. You blamed people
who ignored the signs which said plainly, "Speedlimit 35 miles".
but you also broke the speed limit when you were
in a hurry, traffic

light, or for some reason at the time the 11%sit seemed
ridiculous. You were more than usually aware this
morning that if everybody adhered to the speed limit, you could
drive out of your gate in perfect safety, and reach
your parking area without having to allow time for hunting a
parking place.

You started to fume at the delay at the gate, when you felt the
amusement of the Passenger. He wasn't
fuming.He knew that fuming was for the childish, the
unrestrained, not for self-controlled adults behind the wheels
of cars. You made, then and there, a resolve to fume no more. It
was of course pure coincidence--how could it
have been anything else?-but a big track slid over the hill,
obeying the law as to speed, the driver saw you trying to
sneak out, and actually stopped, or slowed

MAY, 1961 The ABERRI

With

SOS

down, to lei you Into the stream of traffic.'He could do this in
perfect safety because the truck was huge and drivers
behind him would be taking care. They'd think twice and thrice
before crashing into hix. You thanked the driver with
a couple toots of your horn, and he said you were welcome with a
couple toots more. Then traffic rolled again.
Moreover, all the several miles you had to travel you watched
gates and side roads on your right, looking for chances
to let other stalled drivers into the traffic with you.

"Makes you feel good, doesn't it? You felt good when the truck
driver gave you a break. You feel better all along
here, so that you want to give someone else a break."

Couldn't be Jesus, talking like that! Would he use a phrase I Ike
"gave you a break "? Would He be up on slang,
or cliches? Or were you interpreting Him in your own words? No
matter. the idea was there, and you did feel good.
You were only sorry circumstances didir't give you a chance to
give the other fellow a break. Still, you had always
done that - when you had time.

You didn't use the horn as much this morning. You started to,
because of habit, but each time stayed your hand.
Each time you thought: He's not deliberately trying to hold me
up. He's slowed down because of something ahead
that I can't see. In his place I'd slow down, too, probably. I'll
be patient, and he'll speed up again.

He usually did.

There was a brief fewminutes when the driver directly ahead of
you -a woman if you were a man, a man if you
were a woman - was driving at exactly the legal speed limit - 50
miles an hour, after you got out of your own
reduced speed area. To pass her, or him. you'd have to drive over
the limit, by ten miles an hour or more.

The speed limit is 50 miles an hour, without exception, you
remembered from somewhere. If you pass him, or
her, you'll slow to 50 anyway, because you are a law-abiding
citizen --some of the timel--so all you'll be
doing is "taking the high place at the tablel" More than that you
will be, for a few moments,
breaking the speed limit, and therefore the law of your state.

You were ever so little behind your schedule this morning, so you
started to pass anyway.
At exactly that moment she, or he, signaled a right turn, so you
slowed down a bit to give
her, or him, time in which to get out of your way, and had lost
nothing.

"You were riding her, or his, bumper almost too closely, weren't
you?" said the Passenger.
"If she, or he. had turned without signaling, you'd have crashed
into her, or him, or have
been compelled to slam on your brakes hard, 'hard enough to make
everybody behind you slam on
his, or her, brakes--wouldn't you? Isn't it a bit dangerous?"

Well, yes, it was, and you had learned even if what came to you
hadn't come from Jesus at
all. but from inside yourself. Jesus could well have stirred
those ideas in your