Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - July 14, 2024
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”
The car. Is this partly what we mean by evolution? The way the lives of human beings are so bound up with cars, at least in our society. To the teenager it is the longed-for sign of independence, the badge of "cool." Parents are torn about the transition of Jim from dependence on them for rides to being able to drive. They are relieved that they do not have to spend all the hours between the end of their own day and bedtime toting a child to soccer practice, ballet lessons or the scout meeting. On the other hand, when they hear the wheels screech in the driveway, that is hair-raising!
Somewhere past adolescence and college the car becomes more purely a utilitarian item: picking up groceries, getting to the fishing locale. The last big hurdle comes when age and physical limitations require surrendering the independence of driving one's own car. The sons and daughters of the aging parent now are the ones who worry about what he or she will do with a car, what dangers there are.
How closely the car is bound up with our transition to responsibility and maturity and even, later, with our giving up some of that responsibility. How hard it is to have to leave in the hands of someone else our mobility, our freedom. Me, my car, mobility and independence: what interesting relations between us and these machines.
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
