One of the attributes of highways that I have come to appreciate is the bumps. When I begin to lose concentration on long stretches, and the rackety sound of wheels jars me to full attention, it helps to avert a collision.
Drone, drone, drone, slide toward the shoulder..... BUMPITYBUMPITYBUMP!
Oh yeah. I am traveling at sixty miles an hour with precious and irreplaceable people in the back. Focus.
In my small group this week a woman was talking about the feeling she gets when her good will for others veers. She compared it to an archer whose aim is off, not completely but enough to miss the target. An unsettling feeling rises up inside of her, waking her up. It doesn't feel right to be criticizing. Complaining. Taking offense. It is enough to startle her back to where she wants to go.
It is not as if the bumps in the road can actually force you back inside your lane. But they can remind you. The grinding thoughts that are anything but serene cannot strong arm you either.
Yet they can help you avoid a crash.
If an archer should aim at a mark, and behind the mark a straight line were drawn for a mile, and if he should err only by a finger's breadth in his aim, his missile or ball keeping on to the end of the mile would depart very far from the line. So would it be if the Lord did not every moment, and even every least fraction of a moment, regard the eternal in His foreseeing and providing every one's place after death.
-Emanuel Swedenborg, Divine Providence 333
