Simply A Night Owl

The other day, I made a traffic stop on a car.  The driver was doing 10 mph over the posted speed limit in a business/residential area.   I’m not going to spell out for you everything that this person told me about why he was speeding because (1) it really doesn’t matter for the purposes of this post and more importantly (2) what he told me was in my mind, quite personal.  (For him, not me). The purpose behind this post is what was said at the very conclusion of this stop.  This driver told me because of everything that he had been through in the last two months, that he thought it would be appropriate for me to give him a warning.  Of course, this was after I had written the ticket and he was already holding his copy in his hands. I told him that I understood that he would rather have a warning but that was just not going to be the case today.

He looked up at me from the driver’s seat of his car and I shit you not, he said, “I’m going to pray for you!” and then sped off in a huff.  The exclamation point as used is accurate, if not understated.  His tone was sharp, accusing and cutting and I was able to easily discern that if he was in fact praying for me, he was asking God to open up earth and swallow me into it. This got me thinking and of course, you what happens when I do that.

Here I am, a person who is going through the beginning stages of deconstruction.  Someone who is now finding confusion within the institutional church and fault with Christianity as a whole.  Then I get to meet this person on the street who repays me for doing my job by using his Christianity as a weapon against me.   Kind of makes me wonder how pissed off he would have been if I decided to shift gears on him and open a discussion on why he thought it was necessary to exploit his relationship with God in this manner as if my very salvation rested on whether or not I gave him a warning for speeding.   Of course, me being me, I would have reminded him of the words of Solomon.

You know what’s really funny about my job?  If I go out, do an investigation and arrest somebody, thus depriving them of their freedom and putting them into jail, it’s okay because I’m just doing my job.   On the other hand, when I write someone a traffic ticket, you’d think that I just took away their first born child or killed a family member or something.   Heaven forbid if I go as far as writing a parking ticket.   I might have just as well strapped them down to a table and waterboarded them.

I guess that it should come as no surprise that people will attempt to make someone feel like shit solely with the intent of making themselves feel better.   It’s worse when they employ God as their method of attack.  In today’s society though, especially in the United States, it is quite commonplace for religion to be used as a weapon.  Let me give you a couple of direct examples of how Christianity has been used in this manner toward me.  I’ll start with the mild and end with the “not so mild”.

• I stopped a man for speeding.  When I walked up to the car and explained the reason for the stop, he told me that he was not paying attention because he was listening to CSN.   What was funny about this was that I was also listening to that station at that particular time so I made sure that he knew that I was also listening to that station.  Then I wrote him a speeding ticket.
• I stopped a man for an expired registration (five months expired) on a Sunday morning.  When I wrote him a ticket for an expired registration, he told me, “I can’t believe that you are writing me a ticket on the Sabbath.”   Here was my answer to him.  “Well believe it.  What day the Sabbath falls on depends on which calendar you use.  If Sunday is the first day of the week, then the Sabbath falls on a Saturday – which takes the steam out of your argument.   Secondly, if I agreed with you that today was the Sabbath, your action of driving around with an expired registration has caused me to work.  Now stop using God as an excuse – it really makes me mad.”
• I made a stop for a speeding violation one night.  As I presented the driver with his speeding ticket, I was provided with tracts and told that I really needed Jesus in my life.  (Can you say, “slightly assumptive?”)

The great New York Yankee’s catcher Yogi Berra once told a batter who had just made the sign of a cross when stepping into the batters box, “Why don’t we let God just watch this game?”   Do people who so blatantly use Christianity as a weapon consider that I wonder?  Here’s a little something for that person to stew on.  Dude, maybe I was part of God’s plan for you.  Maybe my presence at that very moment kept you from being t-boned by a drunk driver at the next intersection.   Ever think about that?  Maybe it’s simpler than that.  Maybe, just maybe, in God’s grand purpose, whether or not you get a speeding ticket doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.   Like Yogi said, maybe we should just let God watch this game.

Emotions are a powerful thing though.   In this case, the man was a little short sighted and could only focus on the big bad cop who was writing him a speeding ticket and needs prayer.   I can’t even begin to imagine how God feels when people act this way in His name.  I can only assume that He does not feel so good about it.

In the end, this man was definitely right about one thing.  After a full shift of having to listen to that type of nonsense, I most certainly need prayer!!   So having that in mind, I put a big smile on my face and some perkiness in my voice and I said,

“Thank You!”