Grace

I’ve been teaching my older son to drive so I’m confronted by questions of patience and understanding and calmness a lot more these days. My patience and understanding and calmness with my son are pretty easy most of the time. He’s almost never done anything that could have turned dangerous! He’s pretty careful so we wait until the road is really clear before going, and he sees other drivers rushing up and pushing their way in so he slows down to avoid the commotion.

My patience and understanding and calmness are stressed much more by the other drivers. I learned defensive driving decades ago during my driving training and it’s all stored in the corners of my brain, but as I explain it to my son I recognize even more clearly just how wild a lot of drivers are.

Yesterday on the freeway during rush hour a driver came racing up a lane to the left that was going to end in less than 500 feet (the great big yellow sign tells us all that) and whipped in right behind me, immediately tailgating me, and he gave a “thank you” wave to the guy he almost hit when he forced his way between us. A few hundred feet later, he swerved into the right lane and then back into my lane, almost hitting my car as he forced his way into a very small space. He gave me the same “thank you” wave! My response was a hand gesture, too, but it wasn’t friendly and warm.

My son got upset with me. A couple of weeks back we studied the unit on hostility and aggression while driving. “That was a hostile act,” he reminded me. I told him, “The guy wasn’t even looking when he waved so he didn’t see it.” Then I started thinking about it. I wanted him to see it, but not just to get back at him. He seemed totally oblivious to how dangerous his driving was, how anxiety provoking and shocking and offensive. I didn’t want to anger him—I wanted to startle him back to reality. I’m pretty sure he’s still oblivious, even as you read this.

Later on, same trip across Dallas to Plano for soccer practice, I was entering another highway with an entrance ramp that becomes an exit only ramp pretty quickly. I got up to highway speed and signaled, ready to move over before being forced to exit, but a woman driving a mid-size SUV talking on her cell phone was coming up just barely faster than the speed limit. Not fast enough for me to slow down and let her rush past in the short space I had to enter the road. She was alongside me, talking and barely moving ahead, and my lane was ending. I gave about three quick honks on the horn—the “friendly” kind you’re supposed to give before passing a freight truck on a two-lane highway as a signal—and she slowed down just enough for me to move on the highway as the lane started to exit.

I’m warning my son about other drivers as much as possible, with specific examples whenever I see them. It’s not helpful to say, “There are just a bunch of nuts and idiots running around out there.” I say things like, “See that guy who switched lanes quickly and rushed up to tailgate that slow car? He didn’t even notice he was moving into a lane with a slow car just a few yards ahead. He’s going to whip in front of you without paying attention so let off the accelerator a little.” I try to describe as many specific examples of the “agents of chaos” and how to predict which ones are likely to do abrupt and dangerous things.

I want to be specific because otherwise I sound like my grandmother, who used to say, “People are just no d*mn good.” She did attend a Presbyterian church in her younger days, so maybe she was just espousing the doctrine of the total depravity of man due to original sin. But I don’t think so! She tended to expect the worst in people—and she was rarely surprised. She was looking for selfish, rude, mindless, inconsiderate behavior. Jackpot! When I tune my mind that way, I find a bonanza. I think the status quo for most people is running on autopilot and being pretty oblivious to how they affect other people.

I also realize that some parts of consideration and kindness are more demanding. Walking up to a line it’s easy to have an automatic habit of seeing a group coming from a different direction who are closer to the line and planning to get behind them instead of racing them. Staring in confusion at a fast food restaurant menu it’s easy to say, “You go ahead” to the people who come in behind you but look like they have a much better clue than you.

But for me, in frustration or surprise I can think something that is obvious to me, then say it without hearing it through other people’s ears, and wind up offending someone. Yes, what I say may be factually correct, but it’s thoughtless and sometimes even antagonistic to other people. I can also lose track of time if I don’t write something down, telling a friend I’ll look at my schedule to plan to get together the following week, then turn around and realize it’s the end of that week and I haven’t called back. I have reasons, even explanations, but they’re not excuses for waiting instead of following through. I could call to explain my schedule’s gone crazy and I have to wait a while, but sometimes I put off calling, thinking my schedule will settle down, and then it’s too late. I wind up having to apologize for being inconsiderate.

Because my grandmother was essentially right that “people are just no d*mn good,” since we are all flawed and make mistakes that are offensive and annoying without even realizing it, we all need an abundance of undeserved favor from each other. We need to give and receive forgiveness easily. We need to see the needs in other people, especially the unspoken ones, and give what we have. We need to listen for the ways we can make an important difference in another person’s life, realizing most of them are pretty easy for us and don’t demand much from us.

We need to carry around buckets of grace to pour out on other people—even, maybe especially, crazy drivers on the highway who cut us off and won’t let us get out of lanes that are about to end. And the women who dial their cell phones and start talking before they put their Suburbans in reverse so they’re trying to back up from a parking space with one hand and most of their mind occupied with something else. And the people at check-out counters who ask lots of questions about the items they have, ask employees to bring them more items while we all wait, and make their decisions about buying at the counter instead of before getting in line. And soccer referees—man! That’s a lot of grace.

I’m gonna’ need a bigger bucket. But I realize I need to receive at least as much grace as I have to give, so I should probably carry around plenty to spare.

Grace has its roots in theology, where it means the unmerited kindness and sustenance provided by God to mankind, to His forgiveness that we have not earned, and to His special intervention to provide help and to bless people. As a human quality, it means I strive to give to others what they truly need because I am able to give. It means, out of deep thankfulness to God for His sustenance, for His blessings, and for His forgiveness, I offer sustenance, blessings, and forgiveness to others who need them. In this way I can become a vessel of God’s daily grace to other people.

Mercy

An online news story today discusses the widely varied sentences for parents who leave their very young children unattended in hot cars, resulting in death. Mothers are punished more severely than fathers, and paid caregivers are more likely to be prosecuted and punished than parents. Only about half the cases are prosecuted, because it is nearly always accidental, but half are seen as victims themselves and the other half as perpetrators by neglect.

Are fathers “excused” more often because they aren’t considered primary caregivers and get a pass when they forget something important—like taking their children out of hot cars? Are mothers pursued more vigorously because they should know better, or because their failures challenge our culturally iconic myth of motherly love?

Are paid caregivers treated more severely because they are paid? Because that pay is pretty low in most circumstances. Are they punished more because the exaggerated outrage helps detract from the truth that parents don’t want to see, that the parent bares some responsibility for placing the child in someone else’s care? By punishing caregivers more severely, are we as a society fabricating a belief that paid caregivers should be held to excessively high standards so parents don’t have to feel responsible for the decisions they make about leaving their children behind?

The story is just a news story, so it can’t really explain the reasons for the differences. But there is an underlying sense of vengeance, not justice, in how the cases are handled so differently. I think that’s because pure justice is equal, but justice applied within a judicial system leaves plenty of room for excuses and exceptions in some cases, and harsh treatment in others.

In a much less heartbreaking example of fiddling with rules, a friend on an internet forum posted recently that her employers at a job she is leaving got in a final “dig” at her as she left. She gave them reasonable notice and continued to work, but the final paycheck included inaccurate deductions and seemingly intentional oversight of actual hours worked and vacation and sick pay accrued. Expecting to be paid in full for her final week, she was getting just a few dollars. The employers were either operating within "the rules" and applying them to their full benefit, or ignoring some rules but assuming the enforcement of the rules would favor them as record keepers.

What is up with us? Why do we fiddle around with fairness and justice, putting some people in a chokehold just because we can and excusing other people’s failures, even when they are fatal?

I think it’s usually for all the wrong reasons. When we can exercise power and stomp down with authority, it’s too easy to conflate our desire for revenge or retaliation with “the law.” When we have the freedom to go easy on a lawbreaker and soften the consequences, it’s easy to use that power to readjust rules we don’t support or apply a warped idea of justice: What he did was bad but he’s so grief-stricken that anything society does to him can’t come close.

Worse, we can delude ourselves into believing we are withholding punishment out of mercy, when in fact we are protecting ourselves from facing an awful truth that’s hard to see. People who worry they might not be capable of the diligent action required by a law might be inclined to let someone else off for violating that law. Going easy on one guy might make it likely others will go easy on them when they mess up.

Mercy, I believe, can only be given freely. The person extending mercy cannot truly be merciful if enforcing the rules or the law would cause him unbearable distress; giving leniency cannot be merciful if it actually makes things easier for the guy in charge. It can’t be mercy if the person granting it dislikes the rule or thinks it’s unfair or harsh—that’s just rewriting the rule one instance at a time.

I think a person has to see the misdeed as wrong to be able to extend mercy. He has to agree that some kind of punishment is a fair and just consequence for the act. He has to be able and willing to mete out the punishment and enforce the consequence. Only when he has that freedom, but chooses to withhold some portion of the consequence for the ultimate greater benefit of the transgressor, is he truly showing mercy.

Mercy is the triumph of compassion and forgiveness over justice. Mercy draws these values together and attempts to balance them in a way that honors standards but accepts shortcomings. In humility and with empathy, full of hope for restoration, I see another person broken by his own mistakes and, with faith in his desire to change himself and repair the damage he has done, I set aside justice and offer comfort and assistance. Mercy is my response to a genuine need for help and healing.