Who Has The License To Drive Me Crazy?

I will confess that I am crazy, but I didn’t get there by myself. Somebody has been driving me crazy. When I use the word “somebody,” I mean a lot of people.

I didn’t always know I was crazy until a few years ago The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage looked at me and said, “Are you crazy or what?”

I did not know what led to that declaration. Reflecting on the past, she was likely correct. I am crazy, but I am not the one behind the wheel driving me crazy.

Over 30 years ago, a friend and I went to New York City. We took a train there, and he picked up a taxi when we arrived. We spent the rest of the day driving around in a taxi. I’ve never been in a taxi before. I was impressed by how much the taxi driver knew. He could negotiate traffic better than anybody I’ve ever seen before. I wish I had his skills.

If you’ve ever been in New York City, you know how crazy the traffic is. That was over 30 years ago, and I’m sure it’s much worse today. That taxicab driver got us to where we wanted to go, and we had nothing to worry about.

I thought about that the other day as I was driving across town. Our town used to be small and quiet, with not much traffic. We had snowbird traffic in the wintertime, but then the traffic almost died in the summer. I enjoyed those days.

That has changed in the last few years. I can’t tell the difference between snowbird time and summertime. The traffic is just simply crazy.

Almost every day, we hear news of a traffic accident within the scope of our neighborhood. The other day, somebody drove into a daycare center, and several children were killed.

The lady driving was drunk.

How do crazy people get a license to drive in our community?

Every time I drive across town and return, I’m slightly crazier than when I started. The fact that I’m still alive is almost a miracle.

Each time I come back, The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage sees I’ve gotten a bit crazier. She often replies, “You seem a little more crazy than when you left. Is everything okay?”

If she thinks I’m crazy, she should ride with me across town. It’s been a long time since she rode with me. Usually, she drives her Sissy Van, and I ride along with her.

I wouldn’t repeat this out loud, but I’ve recently noticed that drivers stay clear of her as much as possible. They don’t want to cross paths with her.

Last week, we drove across town to our Sunday morning ministry. The traffic was a bit jammed, slower than usual, and some people behind us seemed to be in a hurry. They couldn’t get around us, so they beeped their horns to get us to hurry up.

They did not know that the person driving the car was The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. You don’t cross her and live to tell about it.

The more the person behind us blew their horn, the slower The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage went. I could see that one driver was very anxious and blowing his horn.

Finally, the traffic eased up, and he could drive around us. As he did so, he shook his fist in the air and pointed us toward heaven. He used the wrong finger, but everybody makes mistakes. The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage looked in his direction and gave him one of her signature smiles.

I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall when he got home.

As for me, I just kept quiet, tried not to smile too much, and pretended I didn’t see what happened.

If The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage thought I was crazy, she should sit in my seat and see things the way I see them.

Driving to our Sunday ministry, I wondered, “Where did she learn that kind of driving?”

I almost blamed it on her father. Then the truth hit me smack in the face like a pie. I was the one who taught her how to drive after we got married. I sighed deeply and thought, “How did I get it all wrong?”

We finished our Sunday morning ministry and were driving back home.

It is very hard to keep quiet around my wife. She seems to know what I’m thinking before I even think it. Halfway home, she glanced at me and said, “What are you thinking?”

This can go either way. Either I get in trouble, or I say nothing.

“Are you thinking,” she finally said, “about the nice service we had this morning?”

Very few times, I have had an open door out of a situation. I smiled at her and said, “I loved your piano playing while we sang hymns this morning. It was wonderful!”

I’m not sure, but I think I dodged a bullet. That doesn’t happen often.

I was reminded of a Bible verse along this line. Ecclesiastes 7:9, “Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.”

This is seen on highways across town. Why can’t people just rest and not be hasty in their lives? A hasty spirit leads to anger, which never solves any problem.