Anger Issues

This morning on my way to work, I might have seen one of the worse cases of road rage in a long time.

I was approaching the Mission-Abbotsford bridge when an F250 or Dodge truck that was towing a trailer behind it came up behind me fast and started tail-gating me. I wanted to lane change, but I saw a logging truck merging onto the bridge, so I stayed in the left and sped up to 140km (I know, it's so bad of me) to give myself room away from the truck driver. I kind of lost him on the curve, but when we got onto the bridge, I saw it coming up close to me again. This time, I was able to find a spot and lane change to the right, so the truck could pass me. I slowed down to 100km (it's 80km limit on the bridge and highway) and watched as the truck sped away from me. Good riddance...or so I thought.

As I approached a slower car, I lane-changed to the left; there were two other cars ahead of me. As we drove along the bend, I spotted that crazy truck driver again, this time tail-gating a Jetta in the right lane. Either he couldn't get back in the left lane or he had to turn right at the next intersection, but he was following that Jetta at about 80km pretty closely. I passed him and expected him to lane-change behind me, but he didn't, so I figured that he was going to turn right eventually. As we approached the next intersection, I lane-changed in front of the Jetta with about five car lengths between us and I stopped at the red light. Just before our light turned green, I saw the truck driver pull into the right-turn lane and I figured "Yup, there he goes. At least, he's out of everyone's hair now." The light turns green and I began to drive forward. With the Jetta still several metres away from me, I saw in my rearview mirror, the truck driver all of a sudden pull back into our lane behind me. As I pulled away, I watched with bewilderment as the truck driver slammed on his brakes, his front end lurching forward and his trailer swerving slightly to the side. The driver quickly got out of his truck almost as fast as the Jetta driver did and they both ran toward each other. Because I was already driving away on the highway, I couldn't see clearly if they got into a fist fight or just exchanged heated words. I didn't pull over because I was too far away already. I just hope both drivers are ok and maybe one or both have learned a lesson about driving etiquette.

Later today, I was doing an activity with my students on moral dilemma. The world is about to end and we have to choose only five out of fourteen people to start a new world. There were people like a doctor, supermodel, and farmer on the list. After the students had some time to choose their own five, we went through the class and polled who should be saved. When we got to "religious leader," no one voted for this person. When I asked why not, as I did with the other occupations, I randomly picked a hand that went up and she said, "Because there is no God." Immediately, a thick blanket of tension covered the room. Timidly, another girl spoke up to say, "Yeah, I feel the same."

Both these girls are very different from each other, but both have had to deal with their anger in class before. Neither had very good social skills, but both were very, very stubborn when they wanted to be. I had to fight so hard to say, "Yes, there is and He loves you! You only say that because you haven't felt much love in your life and so you think there is no God!" But, I bit my tongue. The reason why there was some tension was partly because Abbotsford is known to be the Bible Belt of the Fraser Valley. Partly, the tension was there because this girl who made the remark is a very strong-headed girl and the other students have either seen or even known her wrath.

Here was my Christian-Teacher response to the class:

"That is her opinion, ladies and gentlemen. Everyone here is entitled to an opinion, but I would like to challenge you to make your opinions educated ones. D_____ has said that there is no God because that is her experience. [I looked over at her and she nodded slightly at me.] I respect that and we all should respect each other's viewpoints. But, do not let only your own experiences dictate what you believe. Find out as much as you can before you make a bold statement."

And then I somehow segued my speech back to the assignment and the tension slowly lifted.

As a teacher, I feel that my role is to direct my students to discover for themselves information about all that they wonder. I will provide the tools, they will have to use them to find answers. But as a Christian teacher, even though I want so badly to tell my students how much Jesus loves them and wants to show them that they and their gifts are so valuable, I have to be careful with what I say to my charges in this politically-correct-crazy society.

At the end of the day, my heart felt so heavy for those girls who claimed that there is no God. I realize that they have so much anger because they do not have the peace that only God can provide. That the truck driver acting out on his anger presents a convincing argument that if there is no God and we are to rely on ourselves to make this world go round, we are in deep trouble. I'm so aware that Christians are not perfect people; that I am subjected to my own temper from time to time, although I'm sure that I've got a much, much better handle on it now than I did when I was younger. But, the peace, the joy, and the calming presence of One who is greater than any trial I have and will face have helped me to discover that life is too precious to waste on being angry at someone or to try to make someone else's life miserable to make mine look better.

Tonight, I have some very specific people to pray for. Do you?