Last night, I took the girls to the Sox-Oakland game. We got a late start. The highway was a parking lot. I took back streets most of the way, about a 25-mile trip. Despite the fact that we missed the first inning -- and the three home runs the Sox hit during it -- we had a great time. There were three rowdy young college stallions in the row in front of us. These guys clearly would have flirted with my girls even more brazenly than they did, if not for the disappointing presence of the paternal figure that sat in between the objects of their casual, carnal desire.
The girls had driven to my office and parked their car there. On the way back from the game, they were both asleep, and I forgot about their car. So this morning, when Eldest Daughter needed to be at work by 9AM, I first needed to get her to my office, where the car was still parked.
We were running late. A line of perhaps 15 cars was waiting to turn left onto the street where my office is located. At the front of the line was a huge gravel truck.
So what did I do? I cut the line. I waved meekly at the truck driver, imploring him to let me in, but I was so far beneath the cab of the truck he didn't even see me. So, as the light turned yellow and the oncoming traffic stopped, I cut in front of him. He let loose a long, angry blast on his truck horn, and it was well deserved. I had just become one of the asinine drivers I often long to wreak vengeance upon.
Fresh from a Mussar retreat, I was ashamed that I had done such a thing. As I saw the length of the line in the left-turn lane, I instantaneously weighed three considerations -- traffic laws, and the etiquette embodied within them; physical safety; and what my daughter needed -- and I threw the first two to the wind in the service of the third. There was no cop around to serve me my just desserts.
In and of itself, it's not a major transgression. But it sent a bad message and set a bad example in every sense, except that it probably exceeded what my daughter expected I would do for her.
Why do I go on about this minor event? Because it reminds me of the sad story of Mordecai Gafni, about which I posted yesterday. As me True Ann-Sister notes, Gafni is but one in a long and venerable -- or perhaps venal -- tradition of spiritual leaders who have abused their power and their adherents in order to satisfy dark desires and relentless needs they have not confronted in themselves. If they had confronted themselves, they likely would not have continued their abusive ways. Ironically, as the Mussar tradition notes, it is in the restraint and proper use of the "evil inclination" that great things can be done: this inclination is the nuclear fuel of the psyche. If they had restrained this inclination within themselves, would they have blunted their charisma, amputated their power?
My transgression doesn't rise -- or sink -- to the level of Gafni and the others, but it's made of the same stuff: a desire to put myself and my needs (in this case, the desire to please my daughter) before others, even if it means violating law, decorum and safety.
I'll pay, one way or another; but perhaps, in recognizing it, I've already begun to free myself from the choking vine of the need that gave rise to this morning's ill-advised derring-do.
--T.A.
Great post. Hope you caught my link.
http://hoosierdiary.blogspot.com/2006/05/wwkd.html
Posted by: Vikki | May 24, 2006 at 03:56 PM