Equality

Driving to work this morning. Rush hour. Usual mix of parents in Chelsea Tractors on the way to the school round the corner with one child in the back, businessmen in BMWs whose lateness alters the right of way at junctions in their favour (so that if you don't let them in, they feel affronted), cyclists for whom the Highway Code is something for other people and (very few) people like me - that is good drivers, always courteous and kind. We only deviate from this moral Highway Code in times of extreme adversity, when the justification is clear to all but those selfish drivers who get in our way. What is it about the rush hour that gets me so judgmental? Is everyone else as judgmental, or am I assuming they are because I am? I don't know, but I started thinking about it when I entered a 30mph speed limit area.

I am passionate about speed limits. I love obeying them. Not because it is safer to do so (although that counts). Not because it is illegal not to do so (although that counts too). No, the main reason for obeying speed limits is that it annoys the BMW driver behind you. So this morning it wasn't a BMW. So what? A Range Rover Sport is just as good, perhaps better. So I slow down to 29mph. Smug smile and a look in the mirror. WHAT!? He has slowed to 27 mph! Now it is immediately obvious to me that he has done this solely to annoy me. He knew I was trying to annoy him, so outdid me by proving that he didn't really mind (although I knew he DID). The bastard. Right I'm gonna get him.

So I can't go to 26mph, because then he'd know I was bothered, so I stayed at 29mph, but when we got to the end of the limit area, only accelerated slowly, gingerly almost, as if I was 78 and out on a Sunday. And I didn't accelerate to 60 either. Oh no, that would be too convenient. Fifty-six. Too fast to overtake me easily. Not fast enough to be getting to where he needed to be as fast as legally possible. Perfect.

Oh yes, this is working. He's accelerating, not sure if to try to overtake me or just to get the intimidating radiator grille in my mirror. Not sure. Don't care. I've got him. And what is more, I've got a better view of him too. Wearing designer shades, overweight (MUCH more overweight than I am), expensive clothes, ostentatious car. Oh I'm so much better than him. I don't need to flaunt wealth to demonstrate my worth. I'm in a 102,000 mile 10 year old Peugeot. I know that true worth comes not from what we earn, or how aggressive we are, or what clothes we wear. Oh, I thank God for letting me be a better person than him.

Oh.

Oh, dear.

I forgot that. I'm a Christian. I'm not a better person than him. We are equal. We are the same. And suddenly I can see the way pride lurks to pounce on us in every way. It's easy to love a fellow Christian, when they share your ideals and value you for your faith and piety. But I have to love this man. This man who I regard as so inferior to me in his outlook, I have not even done him the honour of trying to find out if my radical assumptions are right. Even if they ARE right, and he has judged me as inferior because I am in my Peugeot and getting in his way, haven't I done the same? I still have to love him, put his needs level with my own, or even better, above mine. And trying to annoy him isn't doing that. In fact it is the reverse. My judgement on him will at best have no impact. But if it does have impact, the only possible outcome is to anger him. He will pass that anger onto to others, and the consequences stretch so far through the fabric of the world's day, they cannot be imagined.

Jesus forgave the men who tortured and killed him. I cannot forgive a man whose only problem is looking (to me) like someone who I believe might not respect me, when I have done nothing to earn his respect. If you're reading this, man in the Range Rover, I'm sorry. And really, genuinely, have a good day.