Huron Expositor, 2016-06-08, Page 44 Huron Expositor • Wednesday, June 8, 2016
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Canada
The fender bender of life
For Such A
Time As This
0 ver the past 21/z years
I have driven thou-
sands of kilometres to
all sorts of places in all kinds
of conditions.
Twice we have gone to the
Southern U.S. for a period of
time, the last time via Hou-
ston before Florida with the
total trip being over 9,000
kilometres.
Since last May, I have been
commuting from Woodstock
to Seaforth on wonderfully
beautiful country roads often
arriving in daylight and
returning home in the
darkness.
And in the very interesting
and different avocation that I
began last April [2015] I have
driven vehicles from compact
cars through to the 3500
series of heavy pickup trucks
in a variety of weather situa-
tions, from as far away as
Ottawa, Montreal, Kirkland
Lake and Sault Ste Marie, and
delivered them to Flint,
Bluffton and Zanesville Ohio.
This has meant travelling
through Montreal, Ottawa
and Toronto in the midst of
rush hours on the busiest
roads. It has meant coping
with Detroit traffic on I94 and
I75 and often dealing with
the snarled traffic through
the whole Toledo area with
the heavy amounts of con-
struction that have large
cement barriers beside you
for miles on end.
It certainly requires one to
keep their wits about them
and to pay attention to the
surrounding environment at
all times.
So, last week I was two
blocks away from our apart-
ment in Woodstock, stopped
in a strip mall just outside a
Column
Pastor Laurie Morris
pizza place fulfilling a small
errand. And wouldn't you
know it, as I went to leave
there were a group of people
milling about on the sidewalk
in front of my vehicle and
alongside it, and in paying
'too much' attention to them,
I failed to make the second
check into what was behind
me and I managed to have a
fender bender with a pick up
truck backing out from a
parking space on the other
side but a few spaces south of
where I was.
The driver of that pickup
truck had a built in rear view
camera so he clearly saw that
I wasn't there when he
started backing up and I was
there later - so it was my
inadvertence that caused this
mishap, not primarily his.
Ironic eh? But what we
hear so often, most accidents
occur within a kilometre or
two of home.
Well, I got to thinking about
this and it reminded me of a
couple of very real truths
about life.
Often people will speed
recklessly, change lanes
wildly, not accommodate dif-
ficult weather conditions or
do an assoi.tanent of danger-
ous moves which cause acci-
dents - I have seen all of
those on the roads. They are
hardly 'accidents' - but rather
irresponsible actions that
lead to a crash.
But there are other times
when a simple failure to
make the one extra check
leads to an accident as well.
There was really no intention
to be irresponsible, but nev-
ertheless a problem
developed.
Now both scenarios have
the same result - they often
cause personal pain as peo-
ple are injured or killed. Vehi-
cles are disabled or some-
times completely destroyed.
In the case of the vehicle that
I damaged, there is incon-
venience for this man as his
vehicle will have to be in the
shop for at least a couple of
days to be fixed. And none of
those things I have men-
tioned account for the finan-
cial hardship that is the result
of having to pay to fix the
vehicles or having insurance
rates increase.
I got to thinking that in our
society we have largely for-
gotten the concept of 'sin.' We
excuse most of our behav-
iours as idiosyncrasies or irri-
tants, and especially so as we
have abandoned any idea of
absolute truth and eternal
principles.
But sin has a couple of cat-
egories much like I described
in terms of accidents.
The word 'sin' largely
means 'missing the mark'. It is
an archery term. It has more
to do with the inadvertent
errors of our life in falling
short of that which would be
honourable, helpful and cor-
rect in life situations. We
inadvertently are sinning all
the time.
The word 'transgression' is
what we normally consider
sin to be - it is the idea of
crossing the line of speech,
behaviour, attitude and
actions that breaks into an
area of moral failure. We usu-
ally know when we are 'trans-
gressing' and have often
come to be able to justify it.
The problem is that whether
sin or transgression is inten-
tional or inadvertent, it always
negatively affects more than
ourselves. For we are not her-
mits living alone away from
everyone else, but we live in
society, in community and in
relationships and all 'sin' in
the big sense of the word has
negative effects for more that
ourselves, the same as an
accident with a car does.
I am reminded that the
most necessary attitude on
the part of the 'sinner' is
repentance - the willingness
to recognize the offence of
the sin and the willingness to
take responsibility for it and
to seek to make amends and
restore what has been
wounded. The longer we put
off doing this by self-justify-
ing our behaviour, the more
we alienate ourselves from
others over the long term.
And the most necessary
attitude on the part of the
person affected by another's
'sin' or 'transgression' is for-
giveness, for in failing to
release that person and hold-
ing a grudge toward them, we
end up in a prison of our own
making.
One of the reasons that I
trained to become a Chris-
tian pastor over 40 years ago
is because the One whom we
have sinned against most,
made it His business to pro-
vide forgiveness for all who
would receive it at great cost
to Himself - the death of His
own Son. When I was ten
years of age I received His
forgiveness and by His grace
have lived in the light of that
ever since. It doesn't remove
the 'sins' of life - as my recent
'accident' should not have
happened - but it does mean
that I can move on with a
clear conscience.
By the way, the gentleman
who was driving the pickup
was very gracious and we
have worked out an amicable
settlement.
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