Car line at my kids’ elementary school is like a slowly moving convoy of parked cars. It stalls and creeps forward on a two-lane road that widens only for a single, left turn lane. That lone turn lane happens to be where the crossing guard works his magic of shuttling distracted children safely across the street and intermittently blocking the progression of traffic. If you venture car line, which means you retrieve your child from school by car, you are both willing to exercise patience (as it takes on average 20 minutes to get through) and willing to be a part of a massive traffic blockade. Through-traffic that unwittingly chooses this wrong road at this wrong time of day gets stuck behind you. It has no clue that yours is an idle lane terminating in a slow parade of semi-parked cars swallowing up students whose age, backpacks and lunch sacks make them extremely inefficient at loading. For the through-traffic, it takes some time to figure out what’s happening, and by the time a motorist does, his only option is to use that single left turn lane as escape. No sooner has he committed to his escape route than the sentinel of the street, that safety-vested crossing guard, waves his resolute, red stop sign and blocks the car’s path to initiate yet another slow crossing of encumbered students, parents and gear. Every day I see the pattern repeat. Continue reading “Car Line Rules”
A Mosque at 9-11
No need to read an article. The headlines are clear. A hot dispute continues: is building a Muslim mosque near the site of the 9-11 bombings of the World Trade Centers right or wrong?
Because the arguments center on the question of right and wrong, I can’t help but remember a statement made about that question many years ago. In China in 1952 a man was imprisoned for his Christian faith. He spent 20 years in prison before his death in 1972. He was Watchman Nee and, “Right or wrong,” he said, “is the principle of the Gentiles and tax collectors. My life is to be governed by the principle of the Cross…” He then went on to tell this story. Continue reading “A Mosque at 9-11”