don't watch the wrecks!

OK, I admit it, I was rubber-necking. Doesn't everyone? As you can see from the photo, it wasn't much of a wreck anyhoo . . . BTW that little car is known as a Ficho, which is the Yugo version of a VW bug, except it looks like a pregnant cockroach. And I was making my twice weekly ride up the mountain on my bike and I came up on this just-happened accident and I was trying to figure out who got hurt and how the accident happened and if perhaps they had run over a cyclist such as myself with this particular damage to the car.

Now when you are rubber-necking, you generally are not paying attention to other things, and of course this can have significant consequences for the driver of a car, but even more so for a cyclist . . . because what is at every accident? Of course, broken glass! So while I was slowly huff and puffing past this tiny accident and not watching the road, I was driving through loads of broken glass!

Not only was the accident distracting me from the negatives, but it was also distracting me from some powerful positives! It was literally keeping me from seeing the glory of God! This morning was an unusually beautiful morning . . . the rain from around midnight having cleaned our polluted air to the point that you could see the entire northern mountain range which are still snow covered even if it is the 18th of May! Here is the view that I was missing!!



Of course this little photo cannot convey the distances and majesty and scope of the scenery, but at the risk of sounding redundant, it was magnificient -- the splendor of God on display!

As I continued on my ride fully expecting my tires to go flat at any moment because of my idiotic distraction with the little accident, it occurred to me that I often, most days in fact, live my life just like that. Perhaps I don't see a car accident everyday, but the urgency of the immediate, the constant noise of the modern world in music and video/tv, the mundane trivia of everyday work, the pressure of deadlines, the insane schedules of the modern world, the overwhelming input of information, the everyday scream of constant distractions, or as Lynn Joesting Day describes this phenomena as "human enthusiasm for unexamined change" constantly grabs and unfortunately holds my ever-shortening attention span, I often miss the dangers in my life and the glory around me as well.

I think I need more immunity to the attraction of the loud and obvious, and more awareness of the dangers and glory in life. Help me Lord.